Back to the Big Horns

We took a short vacation to the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming recently. These mountains are very special to me as my parents grew up there and I spent at least a month there every summer of my childhood. I was so excited to be able to share the beauty of the mountain with my son. He enjoyed walking on the trails, climbing on "big" rocks, "jeeping" up the mountain, starting a campfire with my Dad ("Bampa"), picking flowers, playing in the mountain mud, wading and throwing rocks in the creek and using the "pit potty". So many memories came flooding back to me as I watched him play on the mountain just as I used to as a child.

Our family cabin is near Antelope Butte in the Shell Canyon. Shell Creek and the mountains were as beautiful as I remember, but unfortunately many of the trees have died from the mountain pine beetle and much of the mountain is being cut down due to the beetle and tree thinning by the government designed to prevent forest fires. It was very sad to see so much of the forest disappearing...including many healthy trees being cut for the thinning. They cut the trees to be 8-10 feet apart and cut off all the lower branches of the remaining trees up to 6 feet from the ground. I think it looks very unnatural and unfortunately it just isn't the same forest. There are alternative methods of preventing fire that are more forest friendly but unfortunately our government is currently more supportive of the logging industry than the trees. They cut two of my favorite fort trees that we played in as children including one with the birdfeeder I had made in Girl Scouts. They left the feeder on the fence and a little chipmunk has taken refuge in it so we left it there for him to enjoy.

We were lucky enough to see a lot of wildlife in the yard including birds, chipmunks, deer, and a whole family of moose. We also saw some antelope (pronghorn) herds on our way up the mountain. Although my climbing days are over because of dystonia I am still able to do some short walks on the mountain using my cane. I enjoyed "hiking" with my Grandmother and my son down the road to the start of the Adelaide Trail in the Cloud Peak Wilderness area. We also walked down to Shell Creek to let Kramer swim and let my son get his feet wet.

Although our time on the mountain wasn't long enough, I enjoyed every minute and look forward to our next visit.

I took the photo of Antelope Butte behind our cabin on our last visit to the mountain in 2002. I will post some more pictures of our recent trip after I get the film developed.