Mile 1175.95 - I continue to fall in love with Wyoming

Day 16 started, as usual with me scrambling to get everything together for a 9am start. Around 8:45 the phone in the room rang, it was VJ who had just made a fresh pot of coffee and invited me to the office for a cup. A few minutes later and Penny was packed, we walked across the parking lot to the office.

Well, so much for a 9:00 start. It ended up being closer to 10. We had another good talk about a wide range of topics and, as I was talking to him, one of the housekeepers ran into the office with my phone charger in her hand. Oh thank you thank you thank you. I probably would be in Casper before I realized I didn't have it. Eventually I left VJ and started riding. I passed again the original JC Penney store from 1902 right on the main triangle in town. It's probably about a quarter of the size of one of the mall department store versions.

I knew there was some more climbing in store for me, and sure enough 8 miles out of town, I found myself at the 7410' pass of Round Mountain. Then, as I the road turned north around the top of the hill, a wide vista of semi-arid desert and mountains opened before me. I could see from the Tetons to my northwest to the Wind River Range that lay across my path. I took WY 372 to Fontanelle, a hamlet that does not even appear on the official state highway map. The route I had scored before the trip had me take one county road to another in order to hit highway 28. It would save me about 3.5 miles from going directly down to 28. Weighing the unpaved county road before me with the extra mileage on an evenly paved state highway, I decided to just take the paved road. Even though it was further, I'm certain that it was still faster to take the highway.

Highway 28 marks an entrance to the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge. It is a vast hilly desert, covered with scrub brush and grasses. It is home to every species of bird native to Wyoming, as well as elk, bull moose, antelope, a wide variety of rodents and other small mammals, and innumerable insects. Someone needs to be at the bottom of the food chain. There are also several herds of open range cattle and from about a mile away I saw a man on horseback who with three dogs was herding a large flock of sheep west. Throughout the day, but particularly in the wildlife refuge, I saw at least 60 antelope (usually in groups of 5-12) one fat, angry badger, a whole gopher village, several deermice, three peregrine falcons and several other large birds of prey too far off to clearly identify. It was fantastic. There was one solo male antelope who wanted to show how easily he could keep up with me. About 100' off my left, he ran with me for nearly half a mile without any real exertion. I was puffing along at 18mph, not quite going at 100%, but definitely putting forth an extra effort. Then he put on a burst of speed and slanted away from the road over a hill. So I can't outrun an antelope. I'm ok with that. I also reflected upon the fact that I'm glad it wasn't a male bullmoose trying to outrun me because that easily could have turned not pretty.

Also along the road through the wilderness are several historical markers. For much of that stretch, the Oregon, California and Utah trails, as well as the overland stagecoach line and the pony express line all ran along the same path. There are points where you can still clearly see the rut marks from the heavy covered wagons. I passed markers for the Mormon Emigrant Trail, parts of which I also rode on in Nevada and Utah, and for Simpson's Hollow, the location of one of the three engagements in the brief Utah War between US President James Buchanan and Utah Territorial Governor Brigham Young. It was a war fought over a lack of communication between the federal government and the young territory.

72 miles after I started my morning, I had gotten to Farson. There was a cafe on the town's corner, so I stopped in for a sandwich. They had a large ice cream selection, and in the time I was eating, plenty of people came in for ice cream. Watching them, I suddenly was craving orange sherbet, so I ordered a single scoop. It was more than half a pint of ice cream balanced precariously atop a cone. And most of the people had been ordering doubles. I'm burning at least 5000 calories a day, and I don't need to eat that much ice cream. I somehow finished it and went outside where a couple guys were talking and a young boy was cautiously investigating Penny. I could tell he wanted to touch it, but was raised well enough to leave what's not his alone. One of the guys asked where I was going, so they got the story. As one of them was wearing a volunteer firefighter tshirt, I queried them about camping spots up the road. I wasn't going to be able to make South Pass by sunset, but I had another 10-15 miles in me. He told me that along the road is all public land, so I could just throw up my tent wherever I wished.

Almost 12 miles later, I found a flatish bit in the leeward depression behind a hill. I put up the tent and watched one of the more stunning sunsets I've seen in a while. I kept alternating between looking at the colors in the sky and on the Wind River Mountains, now 80 miles closer to me, and reading more of The Odyssey while the light was still strong enough. At one point with the sun just above the horizon, it started raining lightly, so I got a faint but nearly complete arc of a rainbow. The orange hue on the horizon stayed for nearly 45 minutes after the sun went down. Venus and a crescent moon hung near the spot where the sun was last seen, but it was a long time before it was dark enough for most of the stars to come out.

There were times when the breeze died down where it was completely silent around me. I probably could have heard a deer mouse trying to sneak up on me. Also, I could tell from the lights from the few passing cars that in the morning I would have a short climb, a dip, and then a longer climb up. As it turned out, that longer climb was 5.2 miles away, so it is not a surprise that even in the desert silence, it was several minutes between when I first saw the lights coming from that direction and actually heard the engine. Overall, it was a beautiful ending to wonderful day.

Day 16, Kemmerer, WY - Camp east of Farson, WY
83.5 miles, 1175.95 overall, 6:32:27 today of 103:10:06 total and a high speed of 31.2