Musing on Deposition and Erosion, Mountains and Prairie Dog Hills on Day 18

Hello, Lovelies!  Sorry my entries are so spread out – it’s down to 2 main hurdles:  wifi really does suck in most campgrounds and each day is so filled with experiences I’m finding I need time to process it all and ruminate before writing.

So it’s Day 18 and we’ve arrived in West Yellowstone, Montana and the Epic Adventure stats are as follows:

• We’ve driven 4,250 km so far – that includes travelling from camp to camp as well as touring around time in our locations
• We’ve logged a total of 73 hours of drive time, 100% of which has been done by The Mickster who is truly “King of the Road”!
• Our “State Count” is now up to 8:  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.  
• If you were to ask me which experience has been my favourite so far, I’d be hard pressed to choose – they are all amazing in their own way, as varied as this beautiful country is!

To pick up where we left off, on Day 10, we drove about 150 miles from Canton, South Dakota to Platte.  We arrived at Snake Creek Recreation area where our site backed right on to the Mighty Missouri River. It was a nice, quiet campground and we enjoyed spending the afternoon looking at the river and the evening looking at the stars.

On the 11th day, we drove from Canton to Interior, South Dakota (population 95), gateway to the Badlands National Park.  On the way, we just had to stop at the 1880 Town (especially when we found out that dogs were welcome!) – it was just like you’d picture it, a recreated Western Town at the turn of the century.  But with a twist!  It’s also home to Otis, their resident camel who loves popcorn.  Cassie didn’t quite know what to make of Otis, but Otis was quite nonplussed by her.  

We also met Cinthy and Jeff, the resident entertainers in the Saloon who are big dog people so Cassie added them to her fan base!

From there, it was on to camp just outside The Badlands on a site that overlooked the other-worldly rock formations.  On our first day, we drove around the park, stopping to do short walks as it was pretty hot, especially for poor Cassie’s paws.  We visited Yellow Mounds and Robert’s prairie dog town where the residents were charmingly poking their heads out to observe the visitors.

On Day 12, I watched the sunrise over the Badlands while Mick and Cassie slept in.  Mick and I left Cassie in the air conditioning and stepped out for early morning hiking, walking The Door, The Window and The Notch trails.  And of course, we met fellow Canadians along the way – two who were from Hamilton / Niagara even!  Walking though this, Nature’s Sculpture Garden, was awe inspiring and humbling as we witnessed it’s tangible representation of the passage of time.

The deep canyons, soaring spires and flat table top rocks were all created by 2 basic forces:  deposition and erosion.  The incredibly beautiful landscape we see today has been in the works for 500,000 years and geologists estimate it will be in existence for 500,000 more before it’s totally erased. Each colourful and distinct layer of rock was deposited in turns, starting 75 million of years ago when a shallow islands sea stretched across the Great Plains.

When the Black Hills, 70 miles to the west, started to rise, the sea receded and over the next 30 million years, different waterways flowed and ebbed leaving subsequent yellow, grey and brown layers until, at the end, volcanic ash deposited the last 2.

All the while, erosion is having it’s way with the land, chiseling off rock and teasing the fantastic shapes from the earth like a patient and eternal sculptor.

As I reflected on this, it seemed to me a perfect metaphor for life’s experience and, if we are lucky, the honing of our soul that happens as we go through life.  Like the seas and rivers, life delivers experiences to us that leave their marks – some good, some not-so-good.  What we do with those deposits is up to us as, in our own personal version of erosion, we get to choose the layers to keep and what is best let go.  Thus, we create our own towers, canyons and buttes.

As we travelled west, this theme of deposits and withdrawals continued.

On Day 13, it was, sadly, time to say goodbye to The Badlands and travel west again to Keystone, South Dakota (home of Mt. Rushmore) and camp at Horsethief Lake in The Black Hills.  Luckily, as we drove along scenic SD Route 44 (ironically going through a town called “Scenic”), the Badlands kept us company for the first hour.

Once we arrived in Rapid City, we could see the majestic Black Hills rising up from the plains.  Covered in deep pine forests and peppered with giant Granite spires, the landscape was a total contrast to the Badlands – Cool, fragrant and verdant.

On Day 14, we hiked 8 miles round trip from our camp to Mount Rushmore along the Centennial #89 and Blueberry Trails in the Black Elk Wilderness.  At the trail head, we had to fill out a registration form that asked for our destination, date for hike and the Party Leader’s name  so we wrote “Cassie Cassidy” and she totally lived up to her title for the day.  For a dog with 3.5 legs, she hiked like a pro up and over the saddle of the mountain and splashing at every opportunity in the mountain stream that flowed alongside most of our trail.

After hiking for 2 hours without seeing another living soul, we popped out of the woods and WHOOSH, we were in Tourist Town USA with thousands of other people there to see 4 of our founding fathers immortalized in stone.  As awesome as the carving was, to me at least, it can’t hold a candle to the art that Nature produced when she made the Mountains.

On Day 15, it was time to trek through the last bit of South Dakota and start working our way across to Buffalo, Wyoming.  We drove on SD 16 and found the High Plains with grassland stretching as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by ranches and more interesting rock formations carved through the eons by earth’s ever changing moods.

We took a slight detour for a picnic at Devil’s Tower, America’s first National Landmark, dedicated in 1906.  Rising 867 feet from the surrounding plains, Devil’s Tower was formed, as best as geologists can tell, by an intrusion or magma pushing through other layers of rock then cooling and hardening harder than the surrounding landscape.  This softer stuff erodes over time and Voila, we have a tower.

As in life, we have towering strengths of personality, will or intelligence that are formed in the fire of galvanizing experiences – the hutzpah that continues to rise above the tideline and persevere when the weaker matter gives way.

From there, we arrived in Buffalo, Wyoming, a hip and vibrant town nestled in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains.  Buffalo is home to the Crazy Woman Creek, so I felt right at home.

Day 16 found us on SD Route 16, crossing the Big Horn Mountains on our way to Cody, Wyoming.  As we started our ascent, the mountains were shrouded in clouds that lifted as we gained elevation, revealing sweeping vistas of the soaring 10,000+ foot peaks.  Here, instead of seeing geologic lines, the heights were marked by the changes in the forest with birch trees giving way to tall pines further up the mountain sides which were replaced by scrub, bare rock and snow patches at the highest elevations.  We crossed over the Powder River Pass at 9,666 feet and descended to the Big Horn Basin, stopping for a picnic in Worland’s Pioneer Square park.

The people who tamed this land must have been made of tough stuff to survive it’s mercurial seasons – persevering like Devil’s Tower and eventually rising from their surroundings.  We got a good sense of their characters when we spent time in Cody, truly a monument to The Wild West.  We had dinner at the Irma, the hotel that Buffalo Bill Cody built and named for his daughter and took in a Rodeo.  Man, those cowboys and girls and their horses are poetry in motion and tough as nails!  Now, we can actually say with authority, “This isn’t my first rodeo!”.

On Day 17, we left Cody and travelled a short 30 mile hop to Wapiti, WY just outside of the Shoshone National Forest and about 20 miles away from the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park, one of the cornerstones of our trip.

I’m going to stop there as Yellowstone is going to need it’s very own post.  It’s vast, it’s varied and it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.  We have three days here so stay tuned for more on our YNP Adventures!

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