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