Summer 2025 Road Trip - Roll with the punches

[welikecamping2]

The "Love Shack", the original summer camp. A Bed and a bathroom.



While there, we stayed in the Love Shack, the kids stayed in the little camp and our hosts stayed in the big camp. It was 3 days of absolute heaven.

Private beach, perfect weather...



We had a couple of days of absolute glass. paddling was awesome. Chilling on the beach was awesome. The last day, smoke from fires in Canada affected the sunrise


Alas, we had to depart this secluded oasis and head back to reality. The people in Laramie told me that the trailer should be ready in a couple of days. We decided to hammer-time the 1200+ miles back to Laramie. At this point in our trip, we were supposed to go back to Iron River airport, a private airstrip where we would camp for the night, then, on to Little Sand Bay in the Apostle Islands. Missing that was disappointing.

 

[welikecamping2]

The next three days we drove 400+ miles each day to get back to Laramie by Sunday evening. We would pick up the trailer in the morning, and start the real camping part of this trip. While in Laramie, the wife did some research and we found out about the Snowy Range Scenic Byway which leaves west out of Laramie and heads right up into the Snowy Range, that did not disappoint.

As close as we got to the Apostles, just east of Duluth. perhaps next time...


A stop in Sioux falls:


Picking up the trailer in Laramie


All of our social obligations met, we were finally back in the camper, ready for the woods.

 

[welikecamping2]

Before returning to our camper, we had an opportunity to explore the UP. We toured Marquette with it's interesting semi-industrial harbor and we had a chance to take the Pictured Rocks Boat tour. Pictured rocks are an interesting series of sandstone cliffs that are slowly eroding into the lake. Superior being fickle, our cruise was marred by early fog that sorta cleared up on the way back






There is a hiking trail above the cliffs for a bit, and people can backpack to secluded beaches for camping. Kayaking and Paddleboarding is popular, but you have to be careful and constantly monitor local conditions, it can get snotty fast.


After our boat tour, we headed back to Marquette for some late afternoon wandering. This is an ore dock. Those big old freighters you see on the lake will sidle up to one of these to get a load of Taconite, or semi-refined iron ore pellets

Taconite pellets

Here is an active ore dock, with a freighter taking on a load


We got very lucky and caught an awesome sunset/moonrise from Presque Isle

 

[dstefan]

We like the area up there, and have been thinking about heading up again in the summer (only been in the early fall in the past). Haven’t been there since the CA fires started to be an issue. You mentioned some high haze, but there have also been some times last year and this when I look at the smoke maps and it looks like that area around Marquette had some significant smoke. It’s so hard to tell from the smoke maps and the media how much impact on the ground there is. Did you have any days up there were the smoke was noticeable either visually or small at ground level?

 

[welikecamping2]

The last day that we were there, July 11, the smoke affected the sunrise, and with the glassy water made for some nice pics. We rolled out around 10:00 and headed west along 41. It looked foggy, but it was definitely patches of smoke drifting through. I'd say it cleared by the time we hit 141 and it was not bad at all. Even on the coast, and this was the only day we experienced it. It is really beautiful and we, too may be back next year.

 

[welikecamping2]

After picking up the trailer, we were ready for some camping. We headed west out of Laramie for the Medicine Bow mountains, aka the Snowy Range. This 26-mile scenic byway was designated in 1988 as the nation's second designated scenic byway. Leaving Laramie, you begin a climb through a large high-elevation valley. The entire area is an offshoot of the great plains, called the "Laramie Plains". This scenic byway started as a wagon road in the 1870's, widened and bladed in the 1920's it became the "Great Skyroad" Finally paved in the 1930's, today it winds over and through these beautiful mountains during a few short months in the summer. This is definitely the country we like.

Approaching the range, you travel 25 miles to cross this basin that contains the largest deflation canyon in North America. The "Big Hollow" is a meandering valley nine miles long, four miles wide and in places up to 200 feet deep. Created by wind erosion It has no natural drainage. Once you cross the basin you come to the "ghost town" of Centennial. We just drove right on through. Medicine Bow peak is just over 12k feet and the pass is at just over 10K feet. The new truck growled as it climbed as if to say "Piece of Cake"





Recently we learned that Golden Retrievers like to fish for rocks. Finley will wade out to chest-deep, then try to reach down and grab a rock off the bottom. When he is successful, he is very proud of himself.


Finley also got to meet snow for the first time in his life

 

[welikecamping2]

The Medicine Bow mountains are beautiful. Historically, these mountains were a resource for the Plains Indians and their ancestors dating from about 8,000 years ago. More recently, it was a shared resource for the Oglalla Sioux, Northern Arapahoe, Northern Cheyenne, White River Utes and Eastern Shoshone were known to harvest lodgepole pine for their shelters, and other woods for weapons and tools. Game was plentiful and the hot springs along the North Platte provided comfort. Mining occurred off and on for a variety of minerals, gold, copper, platinum, zinc, etc. whenever market price made it worthy. There is an old miner's cabin and a bit of assorted equipment strewn along a short hiking trail from the trailhead. We didn't do the hike, but we did meet this nice couple:



So, turns out that we met Ken and Cathy early on when we had truck trouble and camped in the city park at Meeker. They were right next to us. When we pulled into our campsite at Ryan Park, they arrived shortly afterward and camped right next to us. We were both staying two days at Ryan Park, and the second day is when we ran into them at the trailhead. After this, we had to catch up. They didn't know anything after Meeker, they went north at Craig up 13 to Baggs, then east to the Sierra Blanca's and finally where we met them at Ryan Park. What a small world. Cathy is an artist that works in Batik and Oils. she has some beautiful paintings of mountain scenery inspired by hikes in New Mexico. A very nice couple.

Ryan Park campground is on the west side of the range, around 8k feet. It is a large campground, dirt access and I don't think any sites were level, at least none that had any tree coverage. Our trailer is on the large size for this campsite, with tight turns and small parking areas


We settled into a drizzly afternoon, perfect for a hot cup of tea and some relaxation. Ryan Park is the site of a WWII POW camp that housed German and Italian prisoners. These prisoners were put to work running a local sawmill and I read somewhere that despite minimal security, there were no escape attempts. I can believe it, who would want to leave here? Anyway, there's really nothing left of the camp, just a big overgrown meadow with little white painted posts that are numbered corresponding with a map. You really need to use your imagination to visualize a POW camp here. There are a couple of creeks that run through the campground and we took several hikes enjoying them


And a nice sunset


Our new friends, Ken and Cathy told us about a campground in the next range over, the Sierra Madre's. It was the way we were going, so we noted it. There is plenty of dispersed camping in these mountains, pretty much find a forest road and go for it. Something we will be looking at the next time we are in these mountains.