Bighorn – The prologue

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Unusually for our trips to distant 100 milers, we have arrived in the Bighorn mountain region with three full days before the race to explore the area. We flew into Billings, MT early yesterday and then made our way slowly south to Sheridan, WY pausing along the way to visit the location of Custer’s Last Stand and the battle of Little Bighorn. The wide open space of the country is magnificent, the grass plains stretch for miles and it must have been an amazing sight when the plains were filled with herds of buffalo. Sheridan is a small town byeast coast standards but big for this area, the main downtown shopping area hosts numerous outfitters of cowboy / girl apparel (Allstate, one store even had a pink Stetson!) plus one running store, where race registration takes place on Thursday. [singlepic=6304,280,200,,right]

After an early night we planned to check out the race start at Dayton, a town of just 679 inhabitants. About 2 miles out of town up an unmade road the race will begin close to the Tongue River trail head. By the time we started out, the sun was beating down and the temperatures were around the low 80s. From the parking area the trail narrowed to barely 2 to 3 feet wide and began to snake up along the side of the river canyon. [singlepic=6320,280,200,,left]

Each turn of a corner brought photo moment after photo moment, the scenery is stunning and I was glad to have to opportunity to enjoy it as during the race my focus will be on my feet. Gradually the distance between us and the river increased as the trail snaked higher and higher towards the distant horizon. At one point a huge rock leaning out from the canyon wall created a strange echo effect from the sound of the river below making it sound as if there was a river above as well as below!

[singlepic=6334,280,200,,right]We continued to climb passing flagging already in place for the race, and crossed a small fast flowing stream of icy cold water, we had been told that the area had received unusually high rain fall in recent weeks making the landscape very green and lush as well as flooding the rivers. Shortly after the stream crossing the trailed opened onto a hiilside meadow filled with wild flowers and open views. It continued to climb and we made for a post that displayed a notice to explain the meadow had been created by a controlled burn program. Guthrie wanted to try to crest the top of the canyon and we continued up to another post but on reaching it found the summit was still some way up. Running low on water we decided to make our way back and started to run downhill. The going wasn’t particularly technical but the steep narrow trail wasn’t easy and the desire to still take in the spectacular sights caused us to pause now and again.

Back at the car we headed back into Dayton for a cool bear at the Crazy Woman Saloon. If the rest of the course is half as good as those first few miles, it is going to be one heck of a race. Tomorrow we’re going to check out a bit more.

For more pictures, click here