Recreating in a Wyoming water tower is good for your health…
Let there be no doubt that a backpack trip in a Wyoming water tower is always salubrious. Fresh fragrant air. Amazing vistas. Abundant wildlife. Colorful wildflowers. Clean clear streams and rivers. Unparalleled solitude. Natural sounds offering symphonic background music.
Mixed together, these works of Mother Nature result in a concoction that is nothing but favorable to the health of mind, body, and soul.
The weather during Memorial Day weekend in Wyoming is problematic. It could be sunny and hot. Or wet and cool (rain or snow or both). This year’s forecast called for both, starting with sunny and hot and ending with rainy and cool. And the forecast proved quite accurate, as my story shall tell.
With Muir’s quote as incentive, and after a long, cold winter and wet, cool spring, two friends and I decided we would take our chances with the forecast and celebrate the arrival of summer with a weekend backpack. Early Saturday morning we headed to Pickett Creek, a relatively small Wyoming water tower that drains into the much larger Greybull River water tower west of Meeteetse, Wyoming.
Looking across the grasslands of Little Rose Creek towards the Pickett Creek high country. Photograph taken June 2015.
The final several miles of the drive to our “trailhead” was rough as always, because the two-track road traverses gravels and cobbles derived from the Absaroka Volcanic Province. We eventually parked our vehicles. After some much needed stretching and bladder relief, we threw our packs on our backs. Then we took off cross-country through the trail-less terrain toward our high country destination.
Looking westerly into the Pickett Creek water tower from our “trailhead”. The two-track road continues up valley a few miles but is impassable in early summer due to high water, boggy springs and seeps, and mud from snow melt.
Frolicking to camp…
The hike to our camp, with plenty of pronghorn and elk watching over us along the way, resulted in the sucking of considerable air, typical of the first backpack of the season. For me, age was barking at me, a fact I’m recognizing but having a hard time admitting. I’ve been doing these types of excursions for over 50 years now, feeling fortunate I’m still able to partake in such endeavors. I sensed my friends were struggling a bit too, and were also feeling fortunate.
Enroute to our camp, we followed Pickett Creek up valley through a narrow section of canyon. Spring runoff had recently peaked but the valley bottom was still saturated from numerous springs and seeps contributing flow to the main channel. With no formal trail, hiking was slow, but enjoyable.
We eventually arrived at our weekend destination, deciding to camp in a spot as sheltered from the weather as we could find, knowing the forecast called for heavy rain and strong winds. The Pickett Creek drainage is mostly high elevation grassland, with scattered small pockets of forest. Most of the trees in the forested pockets were recently killed during an epidemic insect infestation. Younger trees that survived the insects are reaching through the dead and down trees, reaching for sunlight, and turning the brown stands green again.
My new tent on its maiden voyage. Wyoming’s water towers are like vast saturated sponges during spring runoff so finding a flat, dry spot to pitch a tent can be challenging. Couple that with insect killed trees subject to blowing over on the one side and a wide sloping valley open to winds on the other side, I believe I was fortunate to find as level a spot as I did.
An afternoon in the heart of the tower…
Saturday afternoon was relaxing. Enjoying the warm, sunny weather we watched parade after parade of pronghorn and elk traversing surrounding hill sides. Their marching was interrupted on occasion by the scurry of pocket gophers and chatter of song birds all around our camp.
Late day brought dinner, a tasty new dish of spiced hamburger and Mexican rice. Then, with full bellies the first campfire of the year was started. While watching the flames turn dead spruce branches to a bed of hot coals, a blanket of stars began to appear, accentuated by a mostly full moon serving as a flashlight. Daylight eventually led to dark, with rapidly dropping temperatures, so we decided to call it a day and we headed to our tents.
Peaceful sleep followed by drizzling rain, then chirping song birds…
Over the course of the night a cold front began pushing through. A few hours before daylight the moon and stars disappeared behind clouds. As daylight began on the eastern horizon, the rains did too. Seeing no reason to get up and stand around in the drizzle, we laid in our abodes listening to the pitter-patter of rain drops hitting the rain fly on our tents. Three hours later the light rain finished wetting the landscape. Various song birds began chirping in joy, encouraging us to crawl from our tents and join them for the day.
After coffee and breakfast we decided to take a day hike further up valley. Though the early morning storm had lifted, all indications were more rain was coming, hopefully not until later in the day. With our day packs loaded with lunch and raingear, we started our gradual ascent further in to the Picket Creek water tower.
Traversing snowfields, steep slopes, bogs and stream crossings we climbed to 10,500 feet before encountering solid snowpack. Keeping an eye on developing thunderstorms, we decided going any higher would be foolish, so we stopped for lunch in a location out of the cool breeze, but with a beautiful view of the Pickett Creek valley below us. After a bite to eat we headed back to camp.
The highest elevations of the Pickett Creek water tower were still wrapped in their winter blanket, not all that uncommon for late May in the northern Rockies. While it would have been fun to continue our ascent, dark heavy clouds were moving in, suggesting thunder and lightning were close behind. Being prudent we decided to limit our exposure by returning to camp.
The calm before the storm and a long evening/night in camp…
We arrived back in camp by mid-afternoon. Thunderstorms were rapidly building and around 4:30 rain started falling. Gentle at first, we decided to crawl in our tents and wait it out. We waited and waited.
The intensity of the storm kept building. Rain fell harder. Flashes of light streaked across the sky. Each flash was followed by loud thunder echoing off mountain side after mountain side. Staying dry in our tents the show was outstanding. Not sure when it would end, with the darkness of night rapidly approaching, we decided to don our rain gear and hang our food so it was unavailable to grizzly bears (just one of those things you do when recreating in habitat occupied by these awesome and amazing critters).
Not too long after our food was secure the rain stopped. For how long we weren’t sure. So we made a unanimous decision to forego cooking dinner, speculating that once we started the rain would surely return. Back in our tents, each with a good book, we waited out the night.
The next morning, after fourteen hours of laying in my tent, I decided I had to crawl out the door and take on a new day. The rain had stopped but the dew was heavy and the air was chilly. But the sun was peeking through the clouds and the song birds were once again begging me to join them. I couldn’t resist.
All good things must come to an end…
My friends joined me a bit later in the morning. Apparently they weren’t as tired of their tent as I was of mine. We took our time enjoying breakfast. Laughing about the long evening and night and all it brought we decided by mid-morning to break camp and head to the “trailhead”.
The hike out was most enjoyable as the entire landscape was freshly cleansed by all the rain we had received. The greens were greener. The whites of the snow drifts were crisper. The cascading sounds of Pickett Creek were louder.
But eventually, as with all good things, they must come to an end. The ride back out the access road to the low country and home was a slippery muddy mess, but with 4×4 vehicles and the gravels and cobbles of the Absaroka Volcanic Province providing a relatively paved road surface, we managed without incident.
Eventually we turned off the two-track road onto a graveled road, which led to a blacktop road. We pulled to the side, and with our mind, body and souls refreshed and recreated, we said “Good day” to each other and parted our ways until the next time.
And until my next blog, please take care. Enjoy your public lands. Enjoy your summer. Write your local, state and federal representatives expressing your views on public lands management.
While there’s no doubt time spent in Wyoming’s water towers is good for one’s well-being, a water tower’s greatest value is favorable conditions of water flow, as so eloquently stated in the Organic Act.
While there’s no doubt time spent in Wyoming’s water towers is good for one’s well-being, a water tower’s greatest value is favorable conditions of water flow, as so eloquently stated in the Organic Act.