Moominmama's Adventures

In which Moominmama walks on sacred ground and learns the stories of the Lakota and other Plains tribes who consider these hills to be holy... Tourist visits to Devil's Tower in eastern Wyoming picked up dramatically after Close Encounters of the Third Kind  and the film continues to draw visitors, probably more than an interest in Native American stories. The KOA campground outside the National Monument plays the film for campers every night during the summer season.  Fortunately, that wasn't Moominmama's campground though she wouldn't mind seeing the movie again. Instead, she wanted to learn the Lakota side of the story. Devil's Tower is a misnomer for starters. A cartographer who did not speak the language somehow confused "devil" for "bear." I can imagine a native person trying to act out the word like a game of Charades, and the cartographer getting it entirely wrong. But this magma extrusion's original name was (and is) Bear Lodge. Bear...

  Wherein Moominmama discovers the glories of the Bighorn National Forest and has it mostly to herself... The Bighorn Mountains turn out to be a national gem, largely unrecognized outside this area of Wyoming. There's enough beauty and history here to make it a national park -- but then crowds would come, and Moominmama wouldn't feel like she had it to herself! It's an area about 150 miles long and 30 miles wide with the Cloud Peak Wilderness in its center, a set of snowy peaks centered around the 13,000-foot Cloud Peak holding the range's last surviving Pleistocene glacier. This whole area has been a holy place for dozens of Native American tribes, and the Medicine Wheel, at almost 10,000 feet of elevation, is a place of pilgrimage to this day. These stones are believed to have been laid in the pattern at left at least 250 years ago.  When Moominmama arrived at the trailhead, she was met by two young Crow women working for the Forest Service, asked to treat the ground ...

  Wherein Moominmama watches Rick and Lola ride off with the Pony Express mailbag and enjoys learning the history of Casper, Wyoming... Hee-yah! Moominmama arrived in Casper, Wyoming just in time to catch the annual re-enactment of the Pony Express as it made its way from Missouri to California.  Turns out theses states and those in between each have National Pony Express Association chapters, and each year they coordinate a 10-day run of 1,966 miles between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, providing volunteer riders, horses and associated logistics. The Pony Express rides west in even years and east in odd years. While Moominmama has been to the Pony Express museum in Gothenburg, Nebraska, she'd never seen the mail delivery service in operation. Here's Rick and his horse Lola as they waited for their turn to ride. They've done this route before.  He, like the other riders, go a two-to-two-and-a-half-mile stretch (considerably shorter than the original riders would ha...

In which Moominmama checks out the North Rim of the Black Canyon before returning to Grand Junction and the Colorado National Monument... Moominmama's stay near Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park confirmed her preference for being in canyons as opposed to on their rims. But my stay near the South Rim seemed incomplete if I didn't also visit the North Rim, the more rugged of the two sides. Unlike the more popular South Rim, the north side lacks the many fenced-in overlooks. A visit to Exclamation Point (great name) on the North Rim is an opportunity to stand at the very edge and look down, knowing a misstep could be fatal. Aside from this bit of thrill-seeking, Moominmama preferred the one twisty road that took her down to water's edge, where the Gunnison flows fast and cold -- no swimming but a bit of foot dangling permitted.  Moominmama also enjoyed watching the artistry of fly fishermen, with their ribbon-like casts over the water. Sitting on the rocky banks, I al...

Wherein Moominmama enjoys more of the Colorado spring at high elevation... The rocky peaks of Telluride and the steep walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison are separated by a couple hours' drive, but they are formed by a similar process: a combination of tectonic uplift, volcanic activity and erosion.  While one can see the mountains of the Uncompahgre for miles, the Black Canyon is a geological feature that springs itself on you: a gorge with sheer cliffs over 2,700 feet deep. It narrows to as much as 40 feet at the bottom and 1,000 feet at the rim. You don't see it until you're at the edge.  One of the interesting features of the gorge is its striped cliff faces. Most of the rock here is metamorphic rock: a dark grey gneiss and schist, (why this is called the Black Canyon). But tectonic uplift pushed these 1.8 billion-year-old rocks over a volcanic hotspot and magma flowed up filling any cracks.  The magma then cooled over millions of years, allowing large crystals ...

In which Moominmama rides the Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge railroad and hikes in the San Juan Mountains... Moominmama had signed up for a steam train excursion in Ely, Nevada last year only for the engine to break down the night before, replaced by a diesel.  Here in Durango, I had another shot at riding behind a steam engine, and I took it. This is a narrow-gauge railroad, where the tracks are closer together than a conventional track, allowing narrower trains to better navigate along ridges and steep turns. Of which there were a few! The trip from Durango to Silverton climbs almost 3,000 feet. Driving between the two towns takes just over an hour by car but 3.5 hours by rail because the train cuts tight between rock walls and the rushing river.  It's still a beautiful ride through the San Juan Mountains. By standing toward the back of the train and between two cars, I could lean out a bit (when it was safe) and see the cars snaking forward. When they say narrow here, they ...