Tuesday- Up and packed fairly early after drying out and headed up the hill on MT22 headed for Jackson.
Drying gear before packing up |
Teton Pass looking down toward Jackson Hole |
At Jackson turned south on US 191 and
ran into construction slowing and
stoppages for much of the 10 miles to the intersection to
turn to the
east and
go up the hill toward Pinedale.
This is a bridge built to help antelope get across the road without getting hit. Fencing around the area directs them there. |
At
Pinedale I stopped for gas and Subway.
Subway took a LONG time.
The new
online app had people calling in group sandwich
orders about 1115 while
I was
there so I got to stand and watch as 5 sandwiches got built ahead of
mine.
Meantime the line behind
me grew longer too. I think the online
ordering thing
is going to cause trouble since Subway is a single production line
system.
Off to Boulder WY to find WY 353 – the old Lander Cutoff road.
This road headed out into a vast
empty area bordered by pillow lava
hills. This was part of the Oregon Trail. It wasn’t clear to me
why
this didn’t
become the paved highway of modern times but that’s ok.
There were a very few ranches out there and
for some
reason some newer kid-muscle cars were on the road. Pavement turned to gravel
and I continued on.
I came to an unmarked intersection
with a turn to the left. From pre-trip study
I thought that I wanted this left turn but as I followed it
I found
these signs
and the road kept getting smaller and smaller. So, I thought better of
it and
turned around and went back to the
wider road that was marked ‘Big
Sandy-Elkhorn road’
onward across the
emptiness and rolling hills.
The wind picked up. Down across the Big Sandy river cut and up
the other
side. Somewhere
along here my left eye
began to burn and
water then my right eye and I couldn’t see anymore! So I basically
stopped to the
right side of the road, ripped off my
helmet and
washed my eyes out from my camelback.
I never felt anything entering my eyes, I
had my face shield down and
I wasn’t
riding in
obvious dust but dang!
My eyes are burning! Washed with camelbak water but what a surprise! |
I
continued and now I’m not really sure which of the roads I was on. I
came to an
area where a grader had been smoothing gray, dusty
road base onto the
road. The operator
was sitting in his cab waiting
for more material. And here it came with about 10 belly-dump
semis
hauling
material to him on the road. Fortunately the wind was right-to-left as
I was
meeting them so their huge dust plumes
didn’t hit me.
Gray dusty road base |
Eventually I came
out to WY 28, turned left and went to the rest stop to do a better job
of
washing my eyes out. Wind was very strong.
There were two possibly
German
bicyclists holed up in a wind shelter because they just couldn’t buck
the 20-30
mph winds. They were
waiting for night for it to abate.
Onward to the turnoff for South Pass
City. I’d seen
pictures on the ‘net and read about
the place several times so it looked pretty familiar.
My map indicated a road that went to the next
little place called Atlantic City so I took the road out of town to the
east but
even though it
was nice and wide (though gravel) it seemed to circle
around the
wrong way. Indeed, it did as it came back to WY 28.
South Pass was the easy crossing of the Continental Divide for wagons. South Pass City was the result of a gold strike close by. The Carissa Mine (#2). South Pass City buildings #3 and #4 |
So I went further up WY 28 and
eventually found the turnoff
for the Atlantic City campgrounds (2). I turned in to the first one and
found
it nearly deserted, a nice change from the crowding back on the Madison. I completed a circuit of
the campground and selected
a spot
with a flat spot for tent and pretty fair wind protection (the
wind was
still blowing hard). I
was much earlier
into this camp than the others
and so I unloaded in the shade, unpacked
my gear
and dried out my sleeping bag then
pitched my tent. The
breeze felt
good in the shade
and it was reassuring to get my gear dried.
Around 1830 two vehicles came into
camp and their drivers
retreated into their RVs. The one across the way from me started his
generator
and ran it until 2230. I didn’t see any new campers arrive.
Camp. Lounging in my small folding chair in camp in the shade. |
Last Modified: 11/14/2020