In the wee hours, rain came. With dawn, we found the haze greatly diminished.
Heading out of town, we saw the skeleton of one of the many corrugated-clad elevators. I never thought about the interior engineering. Here it is: wood. Lots of it. Some big timbers to keep those walls aligned. I hope most of this is being reused.
Took a side trip to see a canyon. It now supports a reservoir, I assume touted to locals by out-of-town politicians as both good for downstream agriculture, a producer of cheap electricity, and a great fishing and recreation destination. In short, build this and you’ll have a better, more inexpensive life.
Maybe.
Notice how light makes all the difference?
Here’s a pair of long-view shots…. The first is the valley above the canyon. Just a valley. A red valley.
Also, we climbed up into the Bighorn range. About 10 miles up and 10 miles down. That is about 10 miles each way of grades up to 9°. Our mileage took a serious pounding. The down did not quite balance out the up-grind.
With that magnitude of elevation change, there’s such a difference between the valleys and the alpine zones. The landscape was generally rounded, often grassy and lacking trees.
Compared to the Winds…hmm. If someone told me I could come back to just one range, which would I pick? Very difficult call. I could go either way. This was the northern and central Bighorns. Tomorrow is the southern Bighorns.
Descending, we checked out this canyon waterfall. I should have recorded the sound of falling water to use sometime as a stress-remover.