Day Three - Crazy Woman
We started Sunday with new vigor having learned the hard lessons from yesterday; stay off of the Indian lands. We mixed things up a little for this day moving around our plans. We had planned to ride around the Sheridan area, but we decided to mix it up and do Tuesday's ride. We started out leaving Ranchester on WY67 or Wolf Creek Road going south. As we approached the base of the mountains we turned left on WY74 or Soldier Creek Road. There were mostly ranches in this area, and the road was tightly packed gravel. We came to a "Y" intersection and made a right turn, thought we turned the wrong way, turned around going past the "Y" only to re-think we had originally made the right turn. So, we were back going the way we had thought (right). We turned left on Beckton Road and wound that around to Big Horn Road. This road was not in good shape; a dirt road with large ruts and big rocks, we loved it. Soon we were on WY87 or Beaver Creek Road and rode into the small town of Big Horn. We should have turned right on gone over Red Grade Road but we were looking for Bird Farm Road and ultimately Stockwell Pack Road. We were going along good as we passed the polo fields near Big Horn and we began to notice huge houses and many horse farms; lots of money in this area. Before we reached US87 we found our coordinates for Stockwell Pack Road. There didn't seem to be anything there and once again we were scrambling. We consulted the map and decided we would ride down to Banner where we could pick up Stockwell. We first went to Story to gas up, rode back to Banner and found where Stockwell came out. Whew, we thought, and headed up the lane only to find out it was private property. We should have gone back to Red Grade, but we went into to Story and found Big Piney Road. We stopped along the creek for a rest and continued on until it dead-ended. I had spotted a reservoir up in the mountains above Story but this too was private. We did stop at the Wagon Box Battle site since there was nothing else around. We were still in the foothills and were looking for a way to climb up. We went the back route to Buffalo which was decent but finally we decided to go into to Buffalo and head south on US16. Once on the road we took a side trail off to the West and rode up into the mountains. This was a nice trail and we rode up passing some horseback riders before stopping for some pictures. Back out on US16 we continued west and south looking for Crazy Woman Canyon Road. We spotted it with no problem and we were quickly into some good riding. The road drops down through a steep canyon, past lodgepole pine, aspen, and spruce trees. The road crosses North Fork Canyon Creek and follows it down the canyon below Crazy Woman Mountain. As we continued down this scenic area the canyon narrows just before crossing over the creek again. There are several huge boulders that had fallen probably hundreds of thousands of years ago that the creek goes through and around. We stopped and climbed around a little before continuing on. Once over the creek the road opens up and before we knew it we were at US87. We ran up to I-25 just before it met I-90 and rode north for 50 miles to Ranchester and were done for the evening. When we got back we decided to ride down the street to a campground and take a dip in the Tongue River.
