Days 27-30 Bighorn Mountains WY and Butte MT

Days 27 - 30 

Day 27 - 25 June  (103 miles)

Rain was predicted so we did a short walk outside of Buffalo WY. The track went through grassland towards a wooded stream that ran an early power station.

Along the track there was an old power station that looked more like a castle.

With no rain materialising, we drove the 25 miles up to Powder River Pass in Bighorn National Forest. The alpine wildflowers seemed to be at their peak and we took lots of photos.

White alpine phlox

As we drove back we found silvery lupins (Lupinus argenteus) and a St Christopher chapel in the forest.

The Occidental Hotel in Buffalo was like a museum. Buffalo Bill Cody, Teddy Roosevelt and Owen Wister(author of The Virginian) stayed there in the 1800s.

That evening the hotel bar was filled with bluegrass fans.

This is our campsite at the Buffalo KOA campground.  The little blue tent is all we have left after the winds of the Badlands. Our neighbor's orange Marmot tent is just like the one we will pick up at REI in Bozeman, Montana.

Day 28 - 26 June

Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming on the way to Circle Park Trailhead.

Beginning of the walk to Shard Lake

Pond with beautiful lilies on the way to Shard Lake

Dragonflies at Shard Lake

We put up our tent and left our gear at Shard Lake and then walked on to Rainy Lake.

Robber flies (?)

Twisted grain of dead tree near Willow Lake

Willow Lake

Looking North from where the track drops off a ridge to go to Willow Lake

Track back to Shard Lake

Camp site near Shard Lake

Food hung up to protect from black (not grizzly) bears.

Ed cooking dinner

Shard Lake

Spider at Shard Lake

Dragon fly with nearly invisible wings.

Day 29 - 27 June (406 miles to Butte Montana)

Track back to trail head

We stopped for ice tea in Buffalo. Kum & Go had a special price of one dollar for any size, so we got the 52 ounce [1.5 liter] size.

From Buffalo we headed north on I90, entered Montana 

and headed for Little Bighorn, site of Custer's last stand located within the present day Crow Indian Reservation.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument commemorates Custer's Last Stand, 

and more recently has recognised the Indian perspective including grieviences over broken treaties

Somewhere near Billings MT

REI store at Bozeman MT where we picked up our new tent.

Butte MT where we stayed at a KOA campground

Day 30 - 28 June

Butte is a copper mining town. The CBD appears to have shifted west, leaving a derelict section closer to the mines. 

The city promotes its copper mining past from former brothels to this copper baron's house.

Active mining is visible from the main streets of the town. 

We went to Lost Creek State Park thinking it might be a good place to camp.

There was a nice creek, but the camp sites were underdeveloped and overpriced.

The old Anaconda Copper Company smelter stack, completed in 1919, is one of the tallest free-standing brick structures in the world at 585 feet. This compares to the Washington Monument which is 555 feet tall. The tower is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is part of Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.

A customer in the Butte Starbucks mentioned Forest Service campgrounds northwest of Butte. There we found one of the nicest sites we've seen at Spring Hill on Route 1.

The site's picnic table came with a warning.

A full moon (nearly) and a campfire made for a perfect night.