Wyoming Backroads Exploration

[ttora4runner]

Spent yesterday morning hiking the Quarry and Nature Trails in Fossil Butte National Monument before heading over to the Cokeville Meadows National Wildlife Refuge area to check it out.

Quarry Trail














Nature Trail






Along the western edge of the Cokeville Meadows National Wildlife Refuge area

 

[ttora4runner]

The 2nd half of the day it was exploring a portion of Tunp Range and seeing if the routes back to Lake Alice and the Devil’s Hole was open yet as well as a secondary route back to Kemmere Wyoming. Both the Wyoming Backroads book and the Wyoming Benchmark Maps came in handy while back in these area.









You can see the road towards the bottom of the photo that I just came up.






The road back to Lake Alice is still not open yet to 4x4 travel.

 

[ttora4runner]

I was surprised to see the road this clear but I'm assuming it was only this clear at the moment due to a logging operation that was going on further down the trail.









The road ahead leads down to Hams Fork but it is not open yet. My original plan was to come from the other side along FS10062 but I think I made the better choice coming the direction that I did.












In the Wyoming Backroads book this route is called 'Hams Folk Plateau' and is a back way to Kemmerer ,Wyoming. I originally missed it using the Benchmark book so the the other book came in handy.


Can you follow the trail as it kicks up the mountain?








At the top of the pass.


The view from where I decided to end my day and head back home.


The road continued on behind me but it dropped down among the aspens on muddy and still partially snow covered trail. I knew better than to continue on since I didn't know what laid ahead in the mess and I didn't want to get stuck.

 

[ttora4runner]

Now what I didn't post a photo is that there is some trail damage along the Ham's Fork trail. At one portion of it passing though some ranch the trail is servery rutted out and looks like folks had previously gotten stuck in the muck. There's a bypass around it but even that is starting to rut out some and I have a chuck of mud/grass on the side of my skid plate now. The 2nd area of damage is around a culvert that has been eroded out on both sides, it's been fixed to make it passable but another good rain storm could wash it out.

I'm hoping to make a return to the area in June once the snow melts off more and try to complete both routes as a loop starting and ending in Kemmerer, Wyoming. With the hopes of hiking back to the Devil's Hole and Lake Alice.

 

[ttora4runner]

Not sure why some of the photos are not showing up. Everything looks fine in the code. Just click on the 'X's' I guess.

 

[DetroitDarin]

beautiful. thanks for sharing. (thatswhatSHEsaid)

 

[VicMackey]

Great photos. I particularly enjoyed the panoramas. Thanks for sharing.

 

[nagami]

great trip,thanks for sharing

 

[1leglance]

Very cool area and one I want to go back and spend more time in....especially when the horrible summer heat hits Arizona
thanks for the killer pics

 

[ttora4runner]

Working on a return trip at the end of the month to see if I can actually complete the loop I originally set out to do.

 

[Kerensky97]

That's awesome. I tried to retrace the Hastings cutoff trail in the south-west corner of the state and kept getting stuck at dead-ends because of oil drilling companies blocking off the road. It's cool there are still places where you can make long back country connections through the area.

 

[ttora4runner]

That's awesome. I tried to retrace the Hastings cutoff trail in the south-west corner of the state and kept getting stuck at dead-ends because of oil drilling companies blocking off the road. It's cool there are still places where you can make long back country connections through the area.

The Wyoming Backroads gives some trails in that portion of the area and the descriptions of the routes fit that description of the oil roads making things screwy.