Day Two - A Lie, A Bridge, A Mountain

Posted Mon, August 31, 2009 - 1:22 PM
travel, photography, wyoming

The next morning, I got a 7 AM start and headed west out of the Black Hills and across the open expanses of eastern Wyoming. At Lance Creek, I headed off into a maze of gravel roads going west to hit the freeway at Douglas. All the land was still open range, with frequent cattle guards, but the view was open and much less unnerving than the confines of the Black Hills. The roads were even in pretty good shape, and I made good time to reach the freeway near Douglas. I wanted to visit an interesting spot mentioned in the gazetteer - Ayres Natural Bridge.

A Lie

But first, I needed to stop and get a little caffeine. Douglas isn't much of a town, and the drive in didn't reveal anything other than the Flying J or McDonald's near the freeway exit. So I searched for "coffee" on the trusty iPhone and got a few hits, all within a radius of about a mile. Havva Java turned out to be a bust. I guess it used to be in the small, half falling apart one-story strip mall. So my other good option appeared to be the Gathering Place, on the south side of town.

Mind you, this was Sunday morning around 11 AM.

Cruising down the main road, I noticed how many businesses were shuttered up - closed for good, not just because it was a weekend. Even the pawn shop wasn't able to stay afloat. The GPS led me right to the coffee place, identified by a nice sign in another one story strip mall next to an auto parts store. I had trouble finding parking - it seemed inordinately busy - and it was curious that the windows were dark, although I did see a person coming out of the door. OK, it's open!

But as I walked up, I heard loud music coming from outside - some kind of guitar-bass-drums, amplified thing. That was a little strange, given the time of day. Maybe I should have seen the signs.

But following my addiction for caffeine, I went inside. When my eyes adjusted after a few seconds, there was a band on stage to the left, no espresso bar that I could see, and a broadly smiling older man and woman in front of me. "Welcome!" they cried, and the man stretched out his hand, which I shook automatically, and the women handed me a small slip of neon paper from the wad in her hand. At this point I was in the throes of reorganizing my conceptions, so it took a few seconds for me to say "I'm sorry, I thought you had coffee."

The two doorkeepers tried to smooth that issue over, but at this point I was a little embarrassed at falling for it, and a little angry at the deception. As I laid the handbill down on the nearby table, I was able to read the first line: "Church for people who don't do church!" It was still a lie, something many so-called Christians (argue amongst yourselves what real Christians are) don't seem to have a problem with doing. So much for moral high ground. The sign outside actually had a stylized coffee cup!

I turned around and left with a furrowed brow, still without a good cup of coffee, but a little more awake. Time to blow off Douglas, and go find a better "church for people who don't do church."

A Bridge

Eleven miles west of Douglas, and about five miles off the freeway is a small Converse County park called "Ayres Natural Bridge Park". It's tucked into a moderately deep canyon where La Prele Creek oxbows around a rock outcrop. The park has a few camping spots and a number of picnic areas strung out along the single road, which dead ends where the creek runs into the base of a 40-foot sheer cliff. The iron-rich rock has much of the color of Utah rocks, and the runoff from above produces similar black organic stains.

The bridge itself extends off the east end of the central outcrop. It's not particularly remote, being right in the middle of the park, and there's even a trail that you can take to walk out onto the top of the bridge. The creek is only a couple feet deep and would be an easy wade at the right spot.

(This photo was cleverly taken from the right spot to hide the bench, the pumphouse, a popup camper, and several people on the right bank of the creek.)

A Mountain

I ate some lunch and headed for Casper, about twenty miles west, because it seemed to offer the best paved-road route to the south aside from turning around on I-25. Also, it would allow me to head into the Snowy Range, which I planned to visit before arriving in Laramie on Monday midday. I gassed up in town and took the steep road south up the face of Casper Mountain. The mountain rises up almost 3000 feet in only a couple of horizontal miles. The grade was so severe in parts that I had to gear down into 2nd and amble my way up - but that was OK because it allowed me to get a good look at the spectacularly outspread valley of the North Platte River.

The top of the mountain was cool, sunny, and covered in aspens, with a number of day camps and trailheads strung out along the access road. After another couple miles, the road peaked and started to descend into the valley on the other side - about two or three miles wide, with the parallel hump of Muddy Mountain, almost as high as Casper Mountain, to the south. There was a smaller ridge running east-west along the center and the valley, and the road turned to washed-out gravel and descended west along this ridge in a set of swooping downhills. I really would have preferred to use my mountain bike for the descent; it would have been a much better choice than my poor car!