Big Horn Weekend

Miroslav Vajdić for openphoto.net

I cringed when I stepped out of our truck at the South Fork Mountain Lodge and felt the cold, late July air.  That’s right—I said cold.   From my two years of living an hour east of the Big Horn Mountains in Gillette, Wyoming, I’d known that mountain weather could fluctuate rather quickly, so I’d told my visiting in-laws to pack both shorts and sweatshirts, jeans and T-shirts for the weekend, but I hadn’t prepared them for this.  There was even snow on the ground.  And there were babies along—my own five-month-old and her ten-month-old cousin, Matilda, who was wearing a cute little pair of (cringe) shorts. 

Thankfully, upon closer examination, I discovered that the tiny white Dippin’ Dots that sprinkled the forest floor weren’t snow at all, but rather, hail.  Hail which accompanied the rain, the rain that drenched the ground until mid-afternoon the next day.  And although our hundred-year-old lodging certainly wasn’t lacking in all-around quality, character, and cold weather coziness, I was glad when the stream of showers finally stopped.  The guys had braved the rain, fishing for trout in the South Fork of Clear Creek, which rushed alongside the lodge’s property.  We girls had kept busy by visiting, playing with the babies, and making frequent trips downhill to the main lodge, where we’d sampled warm pies and perused the gift shop, sniffing specialty lotions and encouraging my youngest sister-in-law to splurge on a silver and turquoise bracelet she’d been going back-and-forth on purchasing (she finally did).  We’d also spent some time snoozing, which was what I’d been setting out to do when one of the girls cracked open the door of my darkened bedroom to tell me we were all heading to Tie Hack Reservoir while the rain swapped us for some overdue break time.

My husband, Ryan, and I pulled our sleeping baby, Alice, out of her portable crib, strapped her into her car seat, and headed just a few miles down the road for an adventure in the wild wonderland of north central Wyoming.  The last time Alice had been to Tie Hack—which had been the summer before—she had still been in utero and was making me nauseous.  I’ll never forget that trip, because I’d gotten sick in the vehicle just as Ryan and I were pulling into the parking lot.  There hadn’t been any trash receptacles within sight as we walked down the trail to the water’s edge, so I’d gotten my first glimpse of the glistening reservoir gripping a bag of vomit.  Lovely.  

This trip was much different.  Alice was on Ryan’s back in her grand-spanking new hiking pack rather than inside my queasy stomach, and she was enjoying the view.  We all were, with the exception of my oldest sister-in-law, who didn’t appreciate the grated metal flooring on the bridge that crossed directly over the dam.  Water misted up through the spaces in the floor and the rest of us felt a rush as we watched the white water cascade 155 feet down into the gorge below. 

From the bottom, the spillway looked like a giant washboard covered in suds.  Several of us had hiked there down the trail that zigzagged across the steep hillside.  Ryan and I took a break by the stream to feed and change Alice.  We sat on rocks and discussed baby names with our expectant sister-in-law, shouting ludicrous suggestions like “Frankenstein!” and “Bozo!” over the spillway’s surging waters. 

On the other side of the dam, the reservoir was quiet and calm, with my equally quiet and calm father-in-law fishing leisurely on the shoreline with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water.  He was watching his daughter and her husband paddle off in one of the canoes he’d hauled nearly 700 miles from his home back in North Dakota.  It was his 62^nd birthday, and I got the feeling the former boy scout wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any other way than to be enjoying such beautiful surroundings with his children and grandchildren.

Eventually, the raindrops returned and we piled into our convoy of vehicles to head back for a big evening meal in the lodge and some birthday cake in the cabin before snuggling in for our final night.  The next morning, as both the rain and the members of our party began to trickle off, the remainder of our crew capped off our stay with one last slice of caramel apple pie and a hike up the hill behind the lodge.  Looking out at the pines and the snow-capped skyline with Ryan and our little girl, I felt thankful to be living close to so much potential for adventure.  Though I didn’t feel ready to go home just yet, it was comforting to know I could save all of the exploring I still wanted to do for another day, and this time, it wouldn’t even have to be a rainy one.