High on Something

So, we last left our heroes on a mountain side, next to a stream, in 40 degree weather, under the stars. The girl hero pretended that she was a cowgirl so that she wouldn't be scared of the complete desolation of the situation. She had been listening to the stream next to her for hours, unable to sleep, shivering. She opened her eyes. Her watch said it was six a.m. She could see sunlight through the tent walls. Clutching the hatchet, she crept out of the tent, shook out her boots in case any snakes had decided to make a bed inside of them. Walking past the tent towards the rustic pit toilets, she was taken aback by the mountains around her, the valley below, the pink sky and the clouds.

Returning to the tent, she tried to start a conversation with her fellow cowpoke. And then she went back to sleep, warm for the first time in several hours.

That's what it would sound like if I was narrating this blog post. I'm not going to do that though, because it's kind of silly after a while.

So yesterday morning, I woke up around 6 and then fell back asleep until nearly 11:30. I guess it was a combination of not really sleeping all night, the intense cold, and the mountain air. I got out of the tent and Adam was once again standing in front of the fire ring. Four or five senior citizens were tromping through the stream to the right of our tent. Mountains surrounded us, and I realized that we were very high up. Adam told me that he had been up for a little while, put his sleeping bag over me so that I would stop complaining about the cold and had gone for a bit of a hike up the trail. Then he was trying to "start a fire for me." What a dear. Unfortunately, it still wasn't really going that well. I needed to make some coffee and so I got out the stove and the food. We were going to have a mountain feast of bacon and eggs. And strong coffee.

After the meal, Adam went to the pump and got a basin of water. While he was away, I sat by the smoldering attempt of the fire. I looked around, saw some paper towel, twigs, bark, and partially burned remnants of wood from the night before. I started to put stuff on the fire and well, what can I say? I have the same luck with fires that he has with driving. :)

Adam then felt that he needed to invigorate himself and prove that he really was a mountain man. He went and washed up in the 35 degree water of the stream. The air temperature was probably no more that 45. I stayed by the fire. Because I'm not crazy.

We headed up the mountain to see the waterfall that was causing our stream. There must have been a trailhead somewhere around there for a scenic hike, but aside from the Seniors, we didn't see anyone else. Sitting by the powerful waterfall, I just paused for a moment, watched the water falling down hard, bubbling up, heading down the stream. The spray misted me, and took in a deep breath of the cold mountain air. It was surreal.
Back at camp, Adam convinced me that we should spend our final night at the same site. In the daylight, it was much less "Blair Witch Project" and much more "Brokeback Mountain." Not the parts I'm sure you're thinking of... the amazing scenery parts... and no, I'm not talking about Heath Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal.... seriously, just the scenery. Anyway, we left the tent up and headed down the mountain.



We stopped by the visitor's center for Bighorn Canyon in Lovell and I asked the Park Ranger what one needed to do to become a park ranger. It turns out that she was a fashion major in college, which gave me hope.


We drove down to the entrance to the park (narrowly avoiding a scrape with a roadrunner) and headed to Horseshoe Bend, the cliffs across from the grassy marina are bright red. We continued down the road to the Bighorn Canyon where there's a spot where you can shout and hear a triple echo. The real excitement is the view though: surrounded on all sides by jutting cliffs and mountains, seeing the river far below. And, of course hearing the triple echo.

The park boasted that it was home to a great deal of wildlife, including bighorn rams and a large heard of wild mustangs. Adam wanted to see the rams, I wanted to see the mustangs. We drove further out, past the canyon to a place called "Mustang Point." Getting out of the car, we were in the midst of an arid grassland. Adam and I hiked around a bit and we saw evidence of the horses all over, but unfortunately, no horses themselves. Far too soon we had to get back in the car.