The Devil Made Me Do It...

Just a short post for an amazing hike.


I had a Friday off and the promise of possibly taking some guests on a hike to somewhere I have not been yet. I decided in my mind the night before that I would go no matter what and I am glad I did. Although our members dropped out of the hike to spend the day with their kids, I mean really who does that, I journeyed off on my own. I was off to the Devil's Causeway. The Causeway can be reached from the ranch, it is about a ten mile hike to get there, orrrrr you can drive two hours completely around to the other side of the mountain range, through Yampa and access the trail at Stillwater Reservoir. I opted for the second seeing that I was in no rush to complete the day.

On this hike, I feel deeper in love with Colorado. I have gone far beyond the crush, infatuation stage and have clearly gone to undeniable love. I almost hate to admit that I love this state more than Alaska. Although I will still always consider AK my first love and attribute it to the beginning of my adult life.

The trail was bursting with wildflowers, mountain lakes, Marmot's the size of small sheep and just pure natural beauty. The causeway itself is nothing more than a twenty feet length of rock that measures four feet across connecting two stretches of mountains. Oh yea not to forget the 12,000 feet elevation. Enough of the writing. enjoy the pictures!

Rio Blanco Home Sweet Home.

Welcome to Rio Blanco Ranch! First some quick history. because I know how much of you all love history. Originally homesteaded in 1896 by Samuel Himes, Rio Blanco was then named Elk Ranch, until it was sold to a consortium of investors in 1926. At that time the people established the ranch as a corporation and as an operating club. Eighty years later Rio Blanco remains as a premier private hunting and fishing ranch in NW Colorado. You can actually see the ranch on a map or atlas, Seriously! Go ahead and go grab that seventy page Rand Mcnally you have sitting at the bottom of a pile some where in your den, living room etc.. Look for Meeker than head east through the White River National Forest just before Trappers Lake, you will see a peninsula of white surrounded by a sea of green. That florida shaped spire is privately owned Rio Blanco Ranch. The ranches shareholders numbering roughly thirty-one in all, form a board to decide on the introduction of new members into the club as well as make overall decisions of the ranch itself. The ranch holds true to its rustic elegance, unlike many of the ranches we have visited or worked at previously. Rio Blanco has no need for large manicured spaces or finely tuned lawns. The pull here is the fish. Trout inundate the White River as it bends and winds in serpentine fashion through our eleven miles of ranch property. This coupled with Rainbow Lake which teems with fish from every corner creates a fisherman's paradise. Unfortunately, it seems that I have a new set of gear to buy and a new sport to learn. The Art of Fly. Especially if I have any intention to take over a lodge or ranch in the West, I will most certainly need to bone up on my fly fishing. The road from Meeker to the ranch winds you down thirty miles of pristine national forest land or public land, either way you look at it the land of the people. All the while you follow the White River, as always follow the water, the water will lead you home. Once you pass mile marker thirty something familiar happens to the road, the pavement ends and the dirt begins. For me this is always a welcome sight, for dirt roads generally lead to seclusion and beauty, unless however. It seems that this summer will be no different. I haven't had a seasonal job yet that was not located directly off of a dirt road. Perhaps from now on that should be one of my qualifying questions for perspective new employers. Traveling down this dirt and stone covered road I start to notice these little white signs on the side of the road. Spaced apart every twenty yards or so they state "No Trespassing, Hunting or Fishing Private Property. Rio Blanco Ranch Co. Home Sweet Home! Ten miles down the dirt a road juts off to the left and descends further into the valley, the signal that you are apporaching the ranch land is the simply stated RBR on the mailbox at the turn off otherwise you would not know what is there
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Pulling into a new home is always exciting and a little nerve wracking. You have no idea where you are going nor do you really know anyone, aside from the GM but even him you have never actually met before. Pulling up to Rio Blanco was no different. We were arriving early, Angie and I decided to cut our trip a little short, as living out of the car for two weeks can become quite stressful. Especially when you have our life packed in around you as well. We had called the ranch that afternoon to make sure our arrival that evening would be ok. Josh, our GM, stated that of course it was ok but that he would not be there to greet us. However, hopefully there should be someone there to tell us where to go. Great! Our first reactions of the ranch were not as encouraging as Mountain Sky last year. Although the ranch does not have the same manicured well taken care of effect that MS had they seem to like it that way here. We have the money and the manpower to make it that way, but it seems the owners have no need for such a well taken space. The ranch is for the most part brand new, undergoing a near ten million dollar renovation a few years ago. It now has a brand new lodge and a host of new cabins. One of which, Aspen, I sit and write this now. Terrible view I know. Interestingly enough, the new lodge looks eerily like the old lodge. Which begs me to wonder if the owners are so stuck in their ways that perhaps they are merely afraid of change. Maybe, this non-changing landscape of Rio Blanco is almost a welcoming sigh every year. As the world around them continues to forge on through the 21st century, this place will always be stuck in the 20th and that is exactly how they like it.

Procrastination

As per usual I have failed in attempting to write as much as I would want to or as much as I would plan too. It always starts out well meaning and ends in an Oedipus style tragedy. The first tragedy replaying itself for a millennia for us to never to learn from. Thankfully I will attempt to catch up. I am sure I will leave many holes in the stories I would not have otherwise if I would have recounted them fresh in my mind. Nor will they be engaged in full-fledged Thoreauvian detail. I will ,however, try my best to not only let you live our life; but also create that little bit of jealousy that begins to form at the pit of your stomach. The jealousy that comes from knowing that someone else has something that you can neither have nor attain. But once again it's not that you can not have anything that I possess. I simply mean that you do not require the necessary backbone and presence of mind to carry out such an amazing task as the one that has been undertaken. Some lives are not supposed to be made behind a white picket fence in our pristine American suburbia. Not every family can be stationary, unwavering, unchanging. Not every family can be immersed in a western idea of commercialism and materialism. Some strive for a press from the norm; for cultural acceptance and awareness that can not be found in a home town or a textbook. This awareness is not found in the new car, house, or latest big screen television. Buying a Samsung makes you just as aware of South Koreans as turning your head at a homeless man on the street. We live in a society now that barely strays from their own back yard let alone their state or country. We see intolerance everyday on the news as our national murder rate climbs higher and higher. How are we to be tolerant and accepting of other ideals and nations when we can not even be so with ourselves. The only way I have truly found a way to accept people for their quirks, ideals and mannerisms is to immerse myself into their home, their culture, their daily way of life. I spectate, I watch, I don't judge, I wait. I wait for acceptance. We all Do.

Foxes and Bison and Bears, Oh My!

Yellowstone, home sweet home. If it were not for having to work for such a large corporation as Xanterra; I would seriously consider working in Yellowstone. I know it is by far Angie and my favorite place that we have ever been. We could spend years backpacking through the park and still not grow weary of the sights nor possibly see them all. The day before we had decided that we would do a backcountry trip the following night. My backpack had been begging me to get it out and Angie's new pack could certainly used broken in.

As I woke with the sun, as it seems I am doing everyday now, I found that I was not the only person stirring about at 6am. Across the road from our campsite I discovered an older gentlemen wandering about his very interesting camp set-up. His tent set perched high above the ground laid out across a a trailer the likes of which I had never seen. Of course, not willing to pass up an opportunity to meet someone interesting I made my way across the road to introduce myself.

I was greeted with a friendly smile, a warm handshake, and a hot cup of coffee all three very welcome this early in the morning. My neighbor Dave, it turns out, was a retired Doctor from Southern California. Dave was on his way back to Cali from a trip to Maine that he had embarked on almost a month before. We swapped stories of our previous travels and our plans for the coming days. It seemed that we were following similar paths and had only missed each other by hours in a few of our stops. It was Dave's trailer connected to his all black FJ Cruiser that kept intriguing me however. "Custom built by a guy in Cailfornia" he tells me. "It will go anywhere the truck goes and I don't have to worry about getting it stuck" he adds. That it seems is just the tip of the iceberg. it is loaded with a built-in propane stove a refrigerator and a solar system to power it all. Dave certainly knew how to rough it! We continued to shoot it for a bit while I continued to let Angie sleep. This time allowed me to meet some of our other neighbors that Dave had met the night before. These poor souls I would talk into accompanying Angie and I on our back country trip that afternoon.
Andy and Karen we met at Madison and talked them into some BackCountry camping. They were from Texas and it was their first time in Yellowstone so we thought that they should see it right. We made a plan to meet-up with each other at Mammoth Hot Springs later that afternoon after we were both able to get some sightseeing in. This being early in the season I knew we would be able to see a lot of the park that we neglected during the summer last year. The summer season fills the park with thousands of visitors during the day making it near impossible to fully enjoy all that the park has to offer. This trip, however, would be different. Being on no certain time schedule gave us the opportunity to meander through the park and pull off whenever we felt inclined too.

It seemed like we felt inclined to.

Since our journey's into Yellowstone and Angie's into the west one animal has continuously managed to evade her. She would always here the stories of the close encounters and the sightings. But she never managed to be in the right place at the proverbial right time. I was bound and determined to find a bear that day. That morning at the campground I had spoken with a group of guys while I was checking out. They said there was a lot of activity on the road between Mammoth and Tower the day before. With that in mind I headed north. After a short stop in the Back Country office for our permit we were off on the road to Tower. Oh My what a trip it was! The General Rule in Yellowstone is if you see a group of people on the side of the road. There is most certainly something there worth looking at. In our case that day the main attraction was Black Bears. How lucky for us! Angie finally got her bear and we were lucky enough to be privileged to a rare fox sighting. Unfortunately, the bad thing about the general rule is that lots of people on the side of the road also creates traffic jams. This we soon encountered on our way back to Mammoth. We sat on a two lane road jutting off the side of a mountain, cars stopped one by one in front curving off to the right before disappearing behind the rock. What was the hold-up? We crept along slowly until the source of our problem was discovered as we rounded the bend. The lead car it seems was not a car at all but rather a one ton Bison and her calf slowly making their way across the pass to the prairie on the other side. Seems to me if I am a bison I would much rather take the road then climbing over a mountain. These ladies were holding us up and we had to make it back to Mammoth to meet our new hiking partners. Thankfully we caught the tail end of their stroll and we on our way with just a ten minute delay.

We met Andy and Karen in Mammoth and it seemed they had registered for a Back Country site too. Being that we now had two sites we picked the best one which had us headed back up the Tower Road. We were headed for Blacktail which was only a few miles down the road.

It was only a few miles on foot before we descended onto our campsite. A small clearing led to a grove of lodgepole pines towering high into the sky leaving a soft sheltered bed down below. A stone fire ring overlooking Blacktail Creek rushing by off the edge of a stone cliff. All of this beauty conveniently located in a boneyard. The site looked like it was smack in the middle of a wolf kill zone.


We had all just started dinner preparations when something caught Andy's eye. A group of people had just appeared over the hill and had stopped to examine a map. I had never seen another soul in the back country before. Also, this part of the trail only led to our campsite. Which led me to believe only one possibility. These people have got to be lost. As I approached their party and got a better look at them I now knew they must be terribly lost. I stood before a man of what I assumed was italian descent and three Asian women. Now the man was by far the most prepared appearing of the group. A couple of the young Asian women appeared as if they were on the way to the mall to peruse the latest fashion. Turns out they had eleven miles under their belts already that day and had two more to go before they reached their campsite. After looking at the setting sun I simply said "you're not going to make it." "I know" he said. "We were praying that this site was open." There was no need for praying though. If there is anything better than four people camping together it was most certainly eight. I invited them to join our camp and reassured his worry that they were not imposing and that we had plenty of room. I mean we did just meet our other campmates just that morning.

As everybody got settled in we found out that our new friends John and Angie were on a spur of the moment Yellowstone trip from California with to of the bridesmaids from their wedding. We shared stories around our roaring fire and settled in for a quiet night's rest in our forest of solitude.

Day 3 Devils Tower to Yellowstone

I woke with the sun, as I do most days when I find myself snuggled into my sleeping bag protected by the walls of my Kelty tent. I zip out to greet the morning and am instantly surprised to find that it had rained sometime during the night. Generally this would have woken me but I was greatly pleased that it did not. I left Angie to her sleep and ventured off to find myself a cup of coffee. However, there seemed to be two problems with coffee procurement. 1.) The camp ground is basically empty and has no services. 2.) The town of Pine Haven is on the other side of the the reservoir...10 miles away. What to do? Well it is 730AM hmmmm well according to my wonderful girl friends sleep schedule; I have plenty of time. I roll into Pine Haven and find some coffee at the local grocery store. As I step inside I am surprised to find a gaggle of woman huddled around the check out counter engaged in a daily dose of gossip. My presence has no affect on stopping or even interrupting the stories that are pouring out of these women. I did not catch all of it but undoubtedly somebody is pregnant and it is very scandalous. I exit the store with an ear to ear grin on my face. I love small towns, you do not get this kind of community in the city.

I returned with coffee we packed up camp and continued on to our first stop. As we approached Devils Tower I got more and more depressed about the possibilities that we would have there. The weather forecast promised severe weather throughout the day and the sky above was doing nothing to disagree with the forecast. Our hopes of a hike and the possibility of some climbing pictures were quickly dashed as the windshield dotted with drops of rain. We were able to get a few pictures but decided to push on and camp on the East side of Yellowstone.
Wow how wrong we were to think that we would be able to set-up outside Yellowstone. There were no campgrounds open within ten miles of the park. Once we got ourselves through the East entrance the campground board alerted us to the fact that there were only three grounds open and at that point two of them were full. Leaving us with one option. Madison. Madison, however is on the West side of Yellowstone and with a top speed of 45 mph it was going to take us another hour to get there. Thankfully we were able to make it there in time to settle in for a good nights sleep and some much needed dinner.

Day 2

Good Morning South Dakota! The greatest thing about camping is waking up with the sun. Well, at least I wake up with the sun. Angie still enjoys sleeping in as late as I allow her to. The KOA was a welcoming sight in the morning. The "K"ampground was teeming with National Park employees enjoying a preview day of the grounds and also taking advantage of pancakes, sausage biscuits w/gravy and bacon from the kitchen. We, however, only opted for coffee that morning. We broke down camp early as we had a 9am appointment with the Minuteman Missile Silo at the north end of the Badlands.

Minuteman is one of the newest national parks. The park offers tours of a decommissioned nuclear missile silo from the cold war era. The tour itself is actually of two different sites. The first is a launch control facility and the second a missile silo itself. The launch control facility controlled ten different missile sites within the area. All operations were done in a bunker three stories underground inside of a thirty ton steel capsule. Our NP tour guide was actually stationed at a Minuteman site in Missouri (I didn't know we had nukes in MO!) Talk about a character this guy just bubbled with retired military all over him, sense of humor and all. After the launch facility we got back on the highway and drove a few miles to the missile site. The silo was nothing more that a hole in the ground with a cover that strangely resembled a small greenhouse. Upon further inspection the contents was a six story rocket ready to take out one of six targets in under thirty minutes. Both sites were nothing more than an acre with a fence around them as you approached but their importance quickly came to fruition as you stepped within the fences. What surprised me more than anything about these two sites was their shear distance from the highway. Neither site was anymore than a half mile from I-90. I just couldn't help but think how many people have traveled this road over and over again and never realized that the power to destroy the world lay just to the side of them. There were over 100 nukes at one point in SD. Yet the people never seemed to think they could possibly have been a target. Incredible visit I recommend it if you ever have the chance.

The promise of food pushed us from the missile site and on to our next destination. Our next stop I do not know how anyone could pass up unless they purely skipped it out of spite. There must be 400 billboards from the South Dakota line to where we were beckoning us to stop. Who am I to disagree with such persistence. At exit 110 we pulled off and made our way through the town of Wall and the "world famous" Wall Drug.The store resembled that of a rural downtown. Filling up both sides of the street with shops, knick knacks and restaurants all bearing the Wall name. Wall much like the Corn Palace in Mitchell may be nothing more than a tourist trap, but it really is something to see. Half -way down the main entrance is a side hallway displaying the family history and how they have built their business over the last century. If nothing more this creates respect for the hard work and dedication of the Hustead family. Angie and I ate a modest lunch at Wall and hit the road once again as I was excited to get to our next stop.

Well I thought we were getting where I wanted to go, but we had to make a stop at the Reptile Gardens on the way and why not? Crocodiles, Alligators and giant Tortoises....color me sold. We perused the dozens upon dozens of animals that could potentially kill us. It is great to have a girl friend that finds creepy crawly animals not only intriguing but cute and cuddly as well.

Finally we were driving the winding mountain road up and up through the Black Hills. We rounded the corner and made our way to the top of the parking structure. Luckily we were blessed with a beautiful day. Bright blue skies with happy big puffy cumulus clouds that added a Bob Ross feel to the mountain as we strolled through the state walkway. As I approached the platform I was simply in awe at the sheer size of the work of art that lay before me.
Angie was not nearly impressed as she had been there before but she was still quite happy to be there. We perused the museum below seeking an education about the difficulty of the project that Borglum had undertaken. How awe inspiring the mountain is I still at the same time am torn with the monument itself. I can't help but wonder how beautiful the mountain looked before these 400 men blasted and chiseled away the presidential figures. I am all for respecting the men that have paved the way for our country; but at what cost? I say give me a statue; leave the nature to itself. It is majestic enough.

After leaving Mt. Rushmore my planned camping site of the night was down the road in Wyoming. We decided to stay off the interstate and instead to stick with U.S. 16 taking us out of SD and into WY. If you ever have the time to take a drive through this country that does not involve the over commercialized interstate highway system, take it! Finally, real America. The small towns and people that make up this country. The drive was beautiful through Wyoming, my goal was to make Devil's Tower to set up camp and still have time to make it to a local watering hole for a drink and the Cavs game. We, however, decided to camp at Keyhole State Park about twenty miles outside of the park. We were able to sit up camp and make our way into the tiny town of Pine Haven. We drove up to the "R" Bar for some dinner, a libation and a basketball game. The bar was a quaint little tavern for the town there were a few locals coming in and out while we were there. I actually had to ask to have the game put on one of the T.V.'s as the local population were more concerned with the outcome of American Idol than they were with what was happening in NBA finals. That definitely surprised me more than anything. I am sitting in a Wyoming bar filled with rough and tough ranchers decked out in dirty jeans and work boots. Their program of choice? Two boys dueling it out for top singing honors. I am enthralled by the people in this country every day.

I can not wait to see what I will encounter tomorrow!

Day 1- Pipestone to the Badlands

7:00 AM always comes so early when you actually sleep through the night before. A feat which on its own seems nowhere near impressive except for the fact that I can not remember the last night that I have continued through to morning without waking. Just proves the length at which this rarely occurs. However, this morning I wake to the sound of Jane opening the door to my slumber, quietly fulfilling a request to rustle me out of the sheets before she begins her daily ER grind. Now the hard part....I have to wake up Angie. I am hoping her enthusiasm for our impending trip will over shadow her want and need for sleep that she so desperately desires. I am in luck this morning! Although her excitement does not quite match my own; I know that as we begin down the road and Minnesota is left by nothing more than a glance in the rearview mirror her belief at the greatness of this trip will begin to grow as well.

8:30 AM- We have begun on journey finally down MN 23. Forty-five minutes later we arrive out our first spot. Pipestone National Monument. Now it has always struck me oddly that National Monuments always seem to resemble more of National Parks than just a stone figure pointing towards battle mounted upon a horse. A symbol from my childhood that I always associate with a monument. There is always land attached to these national monuments in vast quantities yet the only thing they seem to be lacking is a distinct place to pitch a tent. As we enter the visitors center and peruse the displays inside we come to a man sanding a bright piece of red stone. As he continues to fashion the stone as we look on he name of the monument finally becomes clear to me. For the man is sanding out the inside of what will soon become a smoking pipe. I swivel my head to the left at the gift shop that sits just beyond and I suddenly realize that Pipestone is the mecca for Native American smoking devices.

The plains indians have migrated to this site for two millennia to harvest the precious pipestone(catlinite) to use in building their "peace" pipes and ceremonial pipes. Pipes that they still make, use and sell today. It leads me still to think further. Considering tobacco was not a staple of these native populations . Being that it was commercialized by the colonists of early America. What exactly were these Native Americans smoking? It must have been something very good or very important for so many to travel so far and risk their lives to attain. Pipestone is still revered as a holy place among many native tribes and a place where they still migrate and harvest stone to this day.

As we entered South Dakota country on our way to the Badlands I was needless to say enthralled by their favorite form of advertising media. The 30 ft billboard. I wish I could say that these massive structures of wood and metal just seemingly dotted the landscape but if I were to say that I would be a liar. Trust me there is now no way possible that I could ever forget The Corn Palace, Wall Drug or the Reptile Gardens. I was reminded of them every thirty yards altogether they formed the perfect monstrosity of advertising genius. I say this because they roped us in...all three fo them. I don't know if it was the constant barrage of billboards or just pure curiosity of what may possibly lay inside either way we were determined to find out.

We arrived in the Badlands in the late afternoon on Tuesday in reasonably fashionable time. Although I had seen mountains before I was not ready for the incredible striations that the badlands had to offer us. The deep rosy reds, earthy tans and pearl whites all in unmistakably separate layers piling on top of each other to create breath taking sights in every direction. We paused at a few lookouts along the way before setting off to make camp at a KOA on the the south side of the park. Although the campground set a few miles outside of the park, it was a good introduction to the week that lay out before us. The campground offered much more in the way of modern conveniences than I knew we would find in other places. Showers, wireless internet and friendly staff all can be fairly uncommon in my personal experience. We set-up campsite one in a wonderfully stoney lot with stiff dry grass, which only perplexed me as to how dry that area became in the stifling summer heat if it already looked so withered in the early season. After setting up camp we again hopped into our packed up home and went for a drive down the badlands loop in search of the elusive black footed ferret!

Prairie Dogs, prairie dogs and more prairie dogs it seemed as if these little rodents streamed on for miles. Their holed burrows could be seen in every direction as well as the little guys themselves scurrying from hole to hole with their young in tow. Some even so bold as to sit on the roadside watching the passing traffic acting as intrigued by their visitors as the tourists were with them. However, signs warned us every 200 yards not to approach the pet looking creatures as the "prairie dogs would bite and are infected with the plague" Now I am still not aware what kind of awful plague these adorable little creatures were carrying but in my experience the cuter they are they more deadly they can be. After an hour drive through the park we made our way back to the camp ground disappointed in our lack of ferret finding but we we quickly took solace in the prospect of a glowing campfire and some much needed dinner.