Saturday and Sunday

Saturday Clare and I got up early and went hiking to the top of Sheep Mountain outside of Cody towards Yellowstone National Park. The weather was supposed to be in the fifties but as we approached the mountain, it looked cold with the fog moving it, and it had clearly snowed overnight. We piled on the layers and then, with bear spray in hand, walked past the sign warning against dumping carcasses because it attracts bears. I don’t think I would have done this hike alone. The initial climb was really steep—greater than a 45 degree angle—and we had to stop often just to breathe. Being out of shape kind of stinks. It wasn’t until we had to take that trail back down though that we realized just how steep a climb we had come up. But I digress. We finally reached a point where the ground leveled out or at least we were climbing at a less steep angle. It was like being in a winter wonderland, or Narnia as Clare like to think of it. There had been a red truck parked at the base of the climb and from the lack of fresh prints in the snow, we presumed someone had camped out overnight. We came across many carcasses, some still with the hide on them, but we didn’t see anything alive. Not even the birds were out. We followed the trail until it emptied into what we presumed to be the center of the valley. Because of the snow, we were unable to find a distinct path to follow and set out to make our own trail and find a view and hopefully some sheds left behind by elk or moose or even a deer. We hiked up and out of the valley and traipsed across the ridges to a set of trees where we hoped to find some sheds. No luck. Not even an animal track other than two bare patches where some wildlife had spent the night in the snow. We hiked to the next highest ridge and stopped for lunch with an amazing view of Carter Mountain floating in the clouds. 

But it was windy up top so we headed out after we were done, hiking towards an area that was full of tracks. We didn’t find any wildlife or sheds there, but we did find where a large herd of what we presumed to be elk had spent the night. A dozen bare spots with poop at one end decorated the snow. 

We could see for miles, over one hill to the next, and still there was no sign of wildlife. We began our descent back down to the valley floor, walking through some snow that was well over my knees. It only stopped there because it became too compact to allow me to sink any further. Clare resorted to doing the army crawl on her belly to avoid sinking into the deep snow. We began the hike back to the car and made good time. Overall, it was an 8 mile hike and we were so happy we did it, even if we didn’t see any wildlife or sheds. We drove to the rec center to shower and clean up and then came back to the clinic to nap for an hour. We were exhausted, but it was a good kind of exhausted. We ended up going out to a few of the local stores and then ate Mexican for dinner before coming back and going to sleep. It was a long day.

Sunday, Clare and I got up and packed and headed to church. We then came back and ate lunch before heading off to the Buffalo Bill Museum. We spent a few hours there before coming back, loading up the car, and heading to Greybull where we would spend the night. We made good time and got settled in for the night.