Bighorn – The prologue Part II

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Drove out to the Big Horn River Canyon to find the aid station known as Footbridge. The ride was nearly 2 hours long from the finish line and involved the fording of 3 creek crossings and several miles on what the directions described as ‘primitive roads’. The reality was pot hole filled dirt tracks – thank goodness the Chevy Tahoe has good ground clearance. Close to the canyon entrance we saw several cabins perched precariously close the the Big Horn River – how people slept at these places beat us as the river noise was quite loud. They didn’t look fun though and most obviously had electricity. a few had bottled gas but that seems to the limited of their modern conveniences. The small sentry sized shed a few feet away from the cabin suggested that some aspects were a little primitive.

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We climbed up the canyon side on the steepest side and quickly left the roaring river below, but about a quarter of the way the skies suddenly darkened and the sound of distance thunder sent us back down towards the car. No sooner had we reach it, the heavens opened and dumped a brief but heavy shower while we bounced from one water filled hole to another back to civilization. Around us lightening strikes crashed down well off in the distance but it was still spectacular to watch.

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The forecast for Friday is sunny and warm while on Saturday there could be scattered thunder storms. We heard this evening that parts of Montana to the north were hit by a large storm cell that dumped large hail stones as it passed. Getting caught in the open up a mountain by hail is going to hurt!