Day Six Riding - Alpine
Miles: 236 miles
Another new approach for our last day. We decided to saddle up and ride to Daniel Junction for breakfast. A very nice place with really good food and really great service. They had a nice bar and also a nice hotel which led us to think although far outside of downtown this could be a good place to stay. Anyway after breakfast and riding through the smoke we headed south and cleared our lungs as we broke from US189 onto Cottonwood Ryegrass Rd. W struggled a little with our route but we trusted it despite being on some very minimal trails. We even had a couple of elder women stop us to ask directions. They had a DeLorme map and I think we helped them but we’ll never know for sure. As we progressed we became more and more confident we were on the right track. We only made one veery minor detour. I knew from routing on Google Earth and Map Source that we could be challenged at times and often the trail very tight. Nothing challenging but we were really out in the middle of nowhere. After several miles of tight trails we broke out onto a high mesa that was ultimately our highest elevation of the day at 9600 feet. It was a spot just north or Red Castle rock, but as far as we cold tell unnamed. We stopped there for a rest and a look around. This was another WY moment where the vast views and complete isolation would make anyone want to return. As we approached Red Castle Rock we reached a fork where we had to take a quick look around but eventually found our way. Once we got south of the Tunp Range we made it far enough west to begin our trek back north. Not long after we were at Tr-Basin Divide and back on Greys River Road. We blasted back up that road and passed the road to McDougal Pass continuing north. The road was a wide gravel road at this point so we spread apart quite a bit and never fell below 50mph. We ended up in Alpine looking for the Melvin Brewing Co there which had recently re-located from Jackson. The Tap Room was nice and we were about the only in the place. We sampled the Clinic ISA but landed on Hubert as our favorite. We would have bough a shirt but they were out, and we did purchase a six for the ride back. We contemplated riding on the road because the dust was so bad but we decided to take the gravel and before long we were at McDougal Pass for the second time on the trip. We took a little longer route coming back choosing to ride north on the hard packed dirt road WY116. Back at the hotel we packed up and got ready for the early departure the next day.
