Grand Tetons to Thermopolis

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Grand Tetons to Thermopolis to Sturgis

August 6, 7, 8 (Wed, Thurs, Fri)

Grand Tetons

We had planned to leave Yellowstone by way of the east entrance and to reach Thermopolis via Cody, but that entrance was closed and several people we met at Yellowstone had raved about the beauty of Grand Teton National Park, so we drove that way (south). We did not have time to stop and take a hike, but did make several stops at roadside pullovers along Jackson Lake, and at the ranger station at Jenny Lake we got maps (and re-stocked the pantry at a little grocery store). The terrain was lovely and definitely a “next time” destination. One roadside stop included signs about the geology of the range and a small garden of native plants, including a lot of thistles.

We reached Boysen State Park, where we had a reservation for the Lower Wind River campground (on the advice of someone at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and also Melissa and Ryan). The setting was lovely, with the Wind River Canyon starting upriver a few yards ahead. Unfortunately they were watering the reserved riverside campsite with sprinklers, so we moved to another one that was dry, began to put down the ground cloth and get everything out of the van. Once the tent was up and we were putting things inside we all began to make yelping noises. Something spiky was poking up through the ground cloth and into the tent, into the feet or hands and knees of those in the tent, and everything on the ground was covered with small spiny seeds with long thorns.

Tribulations with Tribulus terrestris

We decided to move the tent aside onto the drive, double-up tarps and try again, when the mere process of moving the tent onto the asphalt incurred more thorns. Max began to investigate and finally tracked down the culprit, a low-to-the-ground vine-like plant that spread long tentacles from a central stem. We then noticed that it was not only in the grassy camping areas, but also growing out of cracks in the pavement - making even the driveways unsafe. These vicious thorns penetrated our bike tires, and even all the way through some shoes. After this fine piece of botanical sleuthing, we searched all the as-yet-unreserved sites for the offending weed and chose the one which had the fewest of this spreading plant. This wasn't as easy as it sounds because of the aforementioned runners - some of them many feet long! Later we were to tell our tale of woe at the Dinosaur Center and learn that the “goathead” seeds (also known as puncture vine or sand bur) are notorious in these parts. Web research reveals that this is an invasive species, and the surprising information that it has been used in Indian ayurvedic practice and is touted as enhancing sex drive -- well not if you want to sleep on the ground in a tent, near where it grows!!

I know I saw a goat head thorn or two when we got back to Virginia and unloaded all our gear from the car - hope we are not faced with an invasion of this weed come spring.

Dig for a Day

After doubling up tarps and ground cloths under the tent in a relatively goad head free site, we cooked, cleaned up and watched a movie on the laptop (no other tenters - just a couple of RVs far from our site - so we were able to be noisier than usual). In the morning we had to be up early to make it to the Dinosaur Center for our Dig for the Day experience. We took the roughly 30 minute drive north to Thermopolis and located the Dinosaur Center, where Max and I were to spend the day digging for dinosaur bones in the hot sun. Having decided ahead of time that this activity was not something Miles or Rollie would enjoy, we packed them off to explore Thermopolis and Max and I were greeted by our guide Erica Reichard, a geology student from Chicago participating in the Dinosaur Center’s summer internship program. She was vivacious and knowledgeable. We first got to tour a few covered sites where bones and dinosaur tracks had been uncovered. This is the “SI” (Something Interesting) site, which with a mixture of bones and tracks appears to have been a feed site. We then proceed up to one of the current dig sites and began prying, brushing, shoveling, keeping an eye out for dark blackish areas that could indicate dinosaur bone.

The Dinosaur Center is located on Warm Springs Ranch, and we were told there are around 60 dig sites identified within this 500 acre area. Most of the fossils in the rock layer called the Morrison Formation. This dates from the Late Jurassic (154-144 million years ago). Some parts of, or entire well-known dinosaurs have been found in this layer, including Allosaurus, Apatosaurus (formerly known as Brontosaurus), and Camarasaurus.

The area we were digging out in search of dinosaur bones had some already-identified ones marked and lebelled. We were working in comparatively tight quarters, the 3 of us, digging, scooping wasdte rick into buckets to be tossed, and at one point, much to my embarrassment, I was balancing in a squatting position and fell onto a bone fragment, which broke, and had to be glued back together by our guide. She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal -- she got to get out her kit of fancy glues (various dilutions of super glue) to show us how it is done. Max’s find of a bone also involved some chipping (this seems inevitable when you are chipping away at the hard surrounding stone that used to be mud). It was exciting to think about the possibilities - there could be a large entire dinosaur under the rock and only lengthy, patient chipping and brushing away through many layers would reveal it, especially if the dinosaur wasn’t all in a single plane horizontal to the earth, or Max’s bone could be one of many scattered at a feed site. Uncovering just an inch long piece made us realize that eventually what we were standing or sitting on could be scraped away to reveal something about dinosaur behavior.

It was very hot in the sun, even with hats, sunscreen and lots of water, so the break for lunch was most welcome. After lunch we toured the museum, getting a first-hand narrative from Erica, who was able to answer all kinds of questions. The Center is famous for its Archaeopterix specimen (found on-site) and for allosaurid bones found at the TYA (There You Are) site. Next we had a choice to go back to the dig site or to head out to back parts of the ranch where the Sundance formation lies exposed (it used to be an inland sea) and fossils of prehistoric squid can be found (the bony interior, which looks a bit like a bullet or pencap), known as belemnites (fossils of a squid-like creature), and crinoids (which are a type of water lily whose stems fossilize), and “Devil’s Toenails.”

Max became very good at spotting the belemnites amidst all the other stones and rubble, and found the best specimens. I found a few too and was pleased with myself! Erica showed us how to spot the tiny pentagonal sections of crinoids stems and showed us that we could look for them around the top of ant mounds. Ants will mound up tiny pebbles around the mouth of their nest, and evidently like the size and shape of crinoids a lot, so often finding crinoids is a s simple as locating an ant nest, sitting down carefully so as not to disturb the ants, and looking closely at the pebbles until you see one that is 5-sided. I was also lucky enough to find a Devil’s Toenail - the fossil of an oyster-like bivalve in the family Gryphaea, found from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous periods.

We spent the entire day immersed in the riches of the Morrison and Sundance formations, and I picked up a souvenir rock of the Morrison Formation that is the signature grey but with a pink quartz inclusion. I learned that this layer, which has differently-named equivalents in different parts of the world (British Isles and Africa) was named after Morrison, Colorado, where Arthur Lakes discovered fossils in 1877. In John McPhee's book "Annals of the Former World" he goes into some detail about how these various geological layers are named and why. There's a certain poetry in the lists. This book is a compilation of 5 different books about geology and geologists that McPhee write over a span of years. We dipped into it repeatedly as we traveled and I recommend it to anyone who thinks geology is a dry discipline - McPhee will have you laughing out loud at points!

Hot Springs and Tubing

While Max and I were immersed in the collecting mentality and dripping with sweat, Miles and Rollie had toured the museum, then taken a spin through the public access to the Thermopolis hot springs, and then rented inner tubes and gone tubing on the Wind River - headed downriver in the direction of our campsite. They collected us and we all went to the hot springs, and finding the public baths closed after 5, we found a landing and Rollie too a di in the warm water where it poured into the Wind River, while I dabbled my feet and the tired boys played video games in the back of the van. We found a good Chinese dinner spot (a buffet) and then hit a video rental store - since we had one more night in our thorny campsite before heading east toward the Black Hills. On the way back to the campground we noticed one of the things I liked best about our travels on the roads and highways of Wyoming: the rocks and hills along the roadside were labeled for geological time period and the # of million years old (commonly abbreviated MA or MYA).

Across Wyoming

Packing up the next morning I lamented not being able to spend a year on this trip. We had not been able to take any of the hikes in the area, nor visit the Legend Rock petroglyph site. We headed out on Rte 16 (Cloud Sky Scenic Byway), following the BigHorn River up toward Ten Sleep and the BigHorn mountains, through Buffalo and onto Interstate 90 toward Gillette. We stopped to stretch our legs outside Ten Sleep, before the road started in to the BigHorn National Forest, and there found some pieces of jasper, agate, and an incredible specimen of petrified wood.

We saw roadsigns for the Gallatin Formation of the Cambrian period, for the TenSleep Formation of the Mississippian, and in the Powder River Pass (at 9666 ft) on Rte 16 saw a sign for Cambrian Gneiss at 3 billion years old. Thus far this was the oldest rock we had seen, so we stopped to pick up a couple of pieces - one of which went to Allen D. as a gift, and another of which is now on our chimney downstairs (we decorated part of it with our rock collection upon our return). Upon entering the Big Horn National Forest we saw a sign for Ordovician dolomite and I took pictures of the knarled rocks near Leigh Creek. I noted signs for the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area -- the country was so beautiful I could well imagine returning someday to spend more time.

Another One Bites the Dust

Some place along the highway we experienced a major loss. Motorbike riders signaled to us to check out out cartop carrier. We pulled over and the top was up. After checking it out we determined that Rollie’s clothing duffel had gone by the wayside. We actually backtracked for about 40 minutes looking out to see if we could spot it - but to no avail. His collection of national parks hats was in there, as was all his medicine and clothing. We kept stopping when we’d see bits of clothing or other roadside detritus. I did come away with a woman’s Harley Davidson hat as a souvenir, but alas - no duffel. We had planned on crossing over into South Dakota and looking for a campsite near or within the Black Hills National Forest, such as Bear Butte State Park. As we kept going we saw more and more people on motorcycles - but thought nothing of it. Upon reaching Sturgis, where we had thought to stay - we learned the truth: we were smack dab in the middle of one of the largest motorcycle rally events in the USA - the Black Hills Motorcycle Rally held annually in and around Sturgis SD. The rally attracts tens of thousands of bikers (the estimate for 2008 was 400,000 people attending), and every bit of lodging for miles around is booked and prices are jacked up.

Sturgis Rally

Redux
The main street of Sturgis was a sight, with bikes parked everywhere, gleaming with metal and most visitors sporting black leather and Harley gear. Knowing that campgrounds would be full, we asked about prices at some ordinary chain motel like Days Inn and the quote nearly singed our eyebrows off, so we headed on down I90 closer to Rapid City to see if we could find anything cheaper. It was getting late, but finally we did finally find something a tiny bit more reasonable - but still a lot higher than normal - and we capitulated to spending money and ordered in pizza. Then Rollie went off to replace some essential clothing (mainly underwear and socks) while the boys and I vegged out and watched some TV.

Next blog: Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, and across South Dakota to the Mississippi, and over into Minnesota.

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Photos

Dinosaur bone fragment
Max's big discovery! Numbered in book with his name next to it.