I did indeed
decide to take the day off give the weather and the forecast of
snow/rain. It was flurrying when I got up and flurried off and on
throughout most of the day but never really snowed very hard – most
of the two to three inches in the campground had come that night.
I
walked back out to the road to check the condition of the plowing as
I heard some snowplows come through and was disappointed to find that
while plowed, it wasn't down to the blacktop and it wasn't salted
either. The rest of the day I finished watching the TV shows that I
had on my computer, read some, plotted out a general route to
Nebraska on the map the park ranger who I had talked to the previous
day gave me, and sorted through and edited photos from the previous
week.
It was pretty cold
the entire day (I don't think it broke 20 degrees according to my
Garmin whenever I turned it on) and for some reason my feet wouldn't
warm up, even inside a winter down sleeping bag.
Towards the end of
the day, I decided to go exploring around the campsite as the park
ranger mentioned a spectacular waterfall in or near the campground
(it was called 'Falls Campground' after all). I eventually found the
trail that led to it, and it was indeed pretty spectacular, much more
so that the crappy pictures that I have of it show. I continued on
down the trail which followed the top of the steep cliff down to the
valley below.
When the trail bore right back into the campground
around a wood fence, I decided to follow that instead of the
progressively fainter trail that continued through an opening in the
fence along the cliff as it was starting to get dark and I didn't
bring my flashlight with me. On the way back, I ran across two giant
elk (or moose?) which, after trotting a few dozen yards away from the
other side of the fence where they originally were, remained frozen
in place staring at me while I snapped some photos of them. 
I returned back to
my campsite, ate a light meal, and went to bed thinking I would get
up fairly early the next morning and put in a long day now that the
roads would be cleared and I'd be completely refreshed and
rejuvenated for a fast, mainly downhill day.
2 comments:
With cold feet that "just won't get warm," beware of frostbite. Make sure you change into clean, dry socks and that you have good circulation to your feet (shoes aren't too tight). Be careful out there in the cold weather!
they don't salt up there because it gets too cold. if anything they just drive on snow or put sand on top of the snow. the reason stuff is closed 7 months of the year is because you're lucky you haven't been buried by a 3 foot snow storm yet. run brett. run for you life. nah. seriously tho
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