The Wild, Wild West in Wyoming

To continue our trek east we headed north from our parking spot on Grassy Lake road, back through Yellowstone Park. When planning our drive we’d looked at the topographical map of the area on Google Maps and decided that if we headed north out of the park and back into Montana to get to I-90, that that would be the flattest way out. But, at the last moment, we rethought our plans and decided to instead venture directly east through Wyoming with hopes that the mountain passes wouldn't be that bad. I’m really glad we made the choice because we saw some really gorgeous parts of Wyoming that we would have missed otherwise.

As soon as we left the eastern boundary of Yellowstone Park we immediately drove into gorgeous canyons. I would almost say it was alike to driving in the bottom of Grand Canyon, with steep red and yellow walls rising high above us. We wove around awesome rock structures, constantly going up or down hill. Soon highway 20 left the canyons and the landscape flattened out to rolling hills and prairielands. We drove past more hay farms and horse ranches, and then rounded a bend and were presented with a huge, bright blue body of water. This turned out to be the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, and it was quite a surprising site after seeing so much dry countryside.

Just outside of Yellowstone Park

Views off of highway 20

Driving around the Buffalo Bill Reservoir

The Rodeo Capitol of the World, also known as the town of Cody, Wyoming, was next on our path. Highway 20 took us right through their downtown, and it was pretty cute, definitely with a western touch. The whole state of Wyoming, the scenery we found there, reminded us of being on an old Western movie set. I kept hearing the faint whistle of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” theme song in my head, and half expected cowboys with spurs to step out in front of us in the street, ready to duel.

Downtown Cody, WY

After Cody we covered another 100 miles on boring prairieland. This is what I had expected all of Wyoming (outside of Yellowstone) to look like. A portion of this land did have some colorful hills that looked a lot like the Painted Desert hills we had seen in the Petrified Forest National Park. Then, we drove into Bighorn National Forest, the road changed to be “Cloud Peak Skyway”, and the scenery changed once again to beautiful canyon lands. We climbed steeply into the mountains.

Driving through prarieland

Painted Desert like views

Entering Bighorn National Forest

At one point this two-lane paved highway, with steep mountain grades, turned into a construction zone, and for five miles we drove on a non-divided gravel surface. What? I’m sorry, we’re just trying to pull a trailer, up steep mountains here, excuse us if we’re confused as to why you've turned five miles of state highway into a gravel road!?!

A two lane gravel highway in the mountains!

By the time we finished this crappy portion of road, it was getting close to dark and we since we were still in a national forest, we started looking for forest roads for a spot to boondock for the night. We soon came up to Forest Road 29 (after passing a free dump station!), and turned in. The road was gravel, but very level and easy to drive on. It went about 4 miles through forest and meadows. We thought we wouldn't see another soul out there, given that we were in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, but the first 10 or so camping spots we passed were all taken! We finally found a spot about 3 miles in, on a wide meadow with great views of the valley below and mountains in the background.

On Forest Road 29

Our hideaway for the night

The next morning we took the dogs for a long walk through the meadows. They ran around and explored while we climbed on the rocks and took pictures. Then, Sky and I pulled out our bikes and biked some of the side roads we’d seen on the way in. Overall, I would rate this as one of our best boondocking experiences on this trip!

Walking the pups along Forest Road 29

Views off of Forest Road 29

Even though Wyoming seems like a pass-through state on the way to more interesting places, I would highly recommend that you take the time to get off of I-90 and explore more of the state, especially on highway 20 through the Bighorn National Forest. Oh, and if you are into four-wheeling, this park is for you. There are hundreds of miles of very well developed gravel trails that are made for snowmobiling and four-wheeling, and they are what I would call Epic. They look well-made and safe, yet very adventurous. I could definitely see Sky and I coming back here in the future to camp and explore some more!

A river runs through Wyoming as well. :o)

To see more pictures of Wyoming, click here.

Happy Wild, Wild West exploring,

M.