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The green, gently rolling agricultural areas of North Dakota suddenly gave way to the stark erosional scenery of the badlands as we drove west.  We saw a pronghorn at a distance and a few solitary bison.  Our campsite in the National Park was visited during our first night there by a bison that left a large fresh “night deposit.”

Rocks in the park are almost exclusively sedimentary, with horizontal layers of tan sandstone, thick bands of gray bentonite clay (former volcanic ash), thin veins of lignite coal, and reddish rock above the lignite (baked by subterranean lignite fires smoldering for years at a time).  These layers have all been exposed by deep valleys carved by the Little Missouri River.

We saw the Medora Musical, a western theme song and dance extravaganza held in a large amphitheater.  Their feature act was the Chicago Boys, an amazing gymnastics act.

We hiked into a petrified forest that has numerous big cypress stumps from 60 million years ago.

The scenery in the Black Hills of South Dakota is so truly awesome that it’s no wonder the tribes of the area have long considered it sacred ground.  Sheer-sided river gorges, tall granite spires, spruce and pine forests, deep creek and river valleys, and lakes provide great biking, hiking, and sightseeing opportunities.  A trip here three years ago with Lowry, Kyle, and Abby made us want to return.  One day we hiked to Cathedral Spires, a cluster of tall, narrow granite towers, and then continued on to the summit of Harney Peak, which at 7,242 feet is the highest point between the Rocky Mountains and the Pyrenees in Europe.

The road to the trailhead passes through a one-way tunnel that seemed barely wide and tall enough for our car with the bikes on top.  Afterward we cooled off in Sylvan Lake, nestled among yet more fantastical rock formations.

The next day we biked a section of the Mickelson rail trail, farther north than the section we biked in 2012.  Our ride followed creek valleys cut steeply through slate so strongly folded that the layers are nearly vertical.  We were well away from paved roads, rarely in sight of any buildings or even gravel roads.  We passed through two tunnels, over several bridges, and through the town of Rochford, a thriving gold mining town for a very brief time in the late 1800s (virtually a ghost town three years after it was founded!).

Driving between western South Dakota and western Wyoming, the transition from green range land to arid sagebrush country was occasionally interrupted by some impressive mountain ranges and canyons.  We couldn’t resist interrupting a travel day for a detour to see Devils Tower.  To appreciate how immense this formation is, see how tiny the climbers appear compared to the huge monolith (if you have trouble spotting them in the first photo, they are enlarged in the second one).

We camped along the way in the Bighorn National Forest, with a view of peaks decked with snow fields.  We really roughed it that night—the campgrounds we tried were all filled up, so we found a spot at the edge of a large meadow where we could park Vagabond near a group of RVs and horse trailers.

Descending from Powder River Pass the next morning, the highway passed through spectacular Tensleep Canyon.  The Powder River basin was a key area in the conflict between the native Indian tribes and the advancing wave of American miners, herders, and settlers in the 1800s.

Later in that day, our route took us through the majestic canyon carved by the Wind River through the Owl Creek Mountains.  Highway signs along the way identified the exposed geologic formations of the canyon walls and their ages.

At the Colter Bay visitor center in Grand Teton National Park, we met Monte Yellow Bird, Sr., an Arikara/Hidatsa artist whose colorful artwork displays the rich symbolism of Native American traditions (aka Black Pinto Horse:  see blackpintohorsefinearts.com).  He explained the meanings of various motifs in his ledger art, and also talked with us for some time about the history of various tribes near the continental divide and in the northwestern plains.  (Ledger art was drawings on whatever unused paper forms were available on the reservations, such as ledger paper, after the traditional bison hides were unavailable.)

For our Wyoming hike, our choice of the Cascade Canyon trail rewarded us with superb scenery for relatively little effort.  We saw a colorful variety of wildflowers, a western tanager, and constantly changing views of the Grand Teton and other rugged peaks towering above us as we hiked through the canyon.

Our bike ride the next day followed a paved trail down and back through open sagebrush meadows in the wide and flat Snake River valley, with great views of the Tetons the whole way.  One time when Paul stopped to take a picture, Amy didn’t notice and rode ahead out of sight.  Paul rode hard to catch up, but didn’t find her by the time he reached the end of the 19-mile trail.  As it turned out, Amy had stopped to wait, but just far enough off the trail that they didn’t see each other as Paul hurried by.  We were reunited in the early afternoon, thanks to cell phones and helpful cyclists Amy sent scouting for a rider in a blue helmet and a big moose on his shirt.

The scenery for our Idaho hike was very different from our typical hikes.  Along the 52-mile-long Great Rift, in the Snake River Plain, lies an otherworldly landscape of ancient lava flows, lava tube caves, and cinder cones, and spatter cones from volcanic eruptions over the last 16 million years.  The most recent lava flow here was about 2,000 years ago.  We learned two words that will come in handy next March when we travel to Hawaii:  a’a’ and pahoehoe, describing the two basic forms of lava.  We saw lots of both pahoehoe lava (the smooth type) and a’a’ lava (the rough type) as we hiked in Craters of the Moon National Monument.  There is very little plant life growing on the lava even after 2,000 years.  The a’a’ lava (a’a’ means “hurts the feet” in Hawaiian) is extremely rough and very hard.  One can imagine the difficulties faced by the emigrants traveling west along the Oregon Trail in this region!

The next day we biked in more friendly terrain in the foothills of the Sawtooth mountains.  In the photo of our lunch spot, note the sandstone picnic table and bike rack.  The gravel bike trail followed a river valley north of Ketchum.

Day 41 was a travel day to Great Basin National Park.  (The day number refers to our planned itinerary of 112 days.)  On the way we passed through Twin Falls, Idaho, and stopped to see the huge Snake River gorge that was carved out 17,000 years ago when Glacial Lake Bonneville let loose in one of the largest floods in earth’s history.  We also stopped at a highway rest area with a nice display of the history of the Pony Express.  Horseback riders rushed the U.S. mail across the country in as little as 7 days (typically around 10) in the early 1860s, but telegraph soon put the Pony Express out of business.

Day 42:  The Great Basin is very arid.  Its broad, flat, open valleys are interrupted by numerous north/south oriented mountain ranges.  We hiked from about 10,000 feet up to the 13,063-ft summit of Wheeler Peak, Nevada’s second highest mountain.  This was certainly one of the most scenic trails we have ever hiked.  Wheeler Peak is impressively big, rising steeply about 7,500 feet from the valleys on the east and west sides of the Snake Range, and the glacial cirque on its northeast side is one of the largest in North America.

The trail ascends gently through aspen, pine, spruce, and fir at first, then through open meadows to a ridge top.  We saw several mule deer up close (they’re pretty tame compared to our eastern whitetail deer), and lots of high elevation wildflowers.

The upper half of the trail is above treeline and moderately steep, but well graded with switchbacks.  We had to hold onto our hats firmly in the very strong wind.  Amy’s sister Barb joined us at the end of the afternoon to camp with us for the next two nights in the national park.

Day 43:  We hiked to a grove of bristlecone pines.  These trees grow at high elevation just below treeline and can live for hundreds, even thousands of years.  This one was dated at 3200 years old (though much of the tree is dead, the part on the left is living):

Even the remains of long dead trees last a long time.  We also took a ranger-led tour of a large limestone cave with very intricate formations.

Day 44:  A travel day, across eastern Nevada’s typical basin and range landscape to Round Mountain where we stayed a couple of days with Barb and Dan in the Big Smoky Valley, the basin between the Toiyabe Mountain Range to the west and the Toquima Mountain Range to the east.

Day 45:  Barb & Dan took us for a hike up Broad Canyon, in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, close to where they have lived for the last nine years, while Dan was the high school science teacher and then a senior technical trainer for the mining company.  We hiked up along a stream between the steep, rugged, rocky walls of the canyon to a high waterfall.

In this land of dusty dirt roads, sagebrush, pinyon pine, and juniper, the waterfall made a very pleasant lunch spot on a hot sunny day.  For centuries, pinyon pine seeds were a critical food source for the Native Americans of this area.  Each year, Barb and Dan would harvest pinyon cones while still green and dripping with sap in the summer, then let the cones dry so the seeds could be removed and roasted in the fall (they are delicious).

Day 46:  With Barb & Dan, we took a tour of the Round Mountain gold mine, one of the largest open-pit mines in Nevada.  After we saw a couple of the huge haul trucks close up, we could appreciate the vast size of the pit as we watched from the rim as trucks were hauling ore up from far below us.  We saw where the ore is crushed in stages into small pieces, the equipment used to concentrate the fraction of ore with the highest gold content, the assay lab, the metallurgy lab, and the leaching beds where the cyanide solution is dripped through large piles of the richest ore to extract the gold.  In the afternoon, Barb & Dan took us hunting for fossils (we didn’t find any) and up into the hills to see the old mining town of Manhattan.  On the way back we drove by a herd of about 25-30 pronghorns, not close enough for a good photo, but in good range to look at for a while through our binoculars.

Day 47:  Another travel day, as we drove across western Nevada on the stretch of U.S. 50 that was part of the old Lincoln Highway and has been dubbed “the Loneliest Road in America.”  This road is near the Pony Express route and was America’s first transcontinental highway in 1913 (it was a dirt road back then).  We stopped to bike part of the Tahoe-Pyramid bike path along the Truckee River in Sparks and Reno.  There was hardly any water in the river, or in the reservoir we camped next to, a few miles west of Reno across the California line.

For Amy, no morning has begun properly before she has her coffee, so we have a French press for brewing coffee while camping.

Day 48:  On Paul’s birthday, we started at Donner Pass and hiked a short section of the Pacific Crest Trail and a side loop over Donner Peak (a granite crag) and Mount Judah (volcanic pyroclastic rock).  The trail climbs quickly by gentle grades to excellent views, passing through groves of big Douglas fir trees and patches of alpine wildflowers.

Driving back to the campground, we paused at overlooks on Donner Pass Road, where it descends to Donner Lake, to read the historical signs and admire the accomplishments of constructing transportation routes through this rugged pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  An emigrant wagon trail in the early 1840s, the first transcontinental railway route in the late 1860s, and the first transcontinental auto road in the early 1910s all threaded through Donner Pass.  Sections of the original train and auto routes through the pass have since been replaced by gentler grades, but the original railroad grades and tunnels and the original auto roadway are still there and can be explored on foot.  There are also some Native American petroglyphs visible in one area of the pass.

Day 49:  On the road again, across California to the coast, to camp at Amy’s niece Teresa’s organic farm in Pescadero.  The traffic near San Francisco Bay was heavy, even on a Sunday.

Day 50:  At nearby Año Nuevo State Park, there is a stretch of beaches used by northern elephant seals for breeding and molting.  This species was hunted nearly to extinction, but it has made a comeback since being legally protected.  Elephant seals returned to this part of the California coast in the 1960s.  The park has an excellent visitor center and hiking trails to viewing spots close to the beaches where the seals congregate.

The breeding season is in the winter, but during our visit in August there were several males that had returned to molt.  As we watched, some of the males were pairing off in mock fights (the serious fighting to determine dominance over harems occurs during the breeding season).

Males and females migrate separately and spend most of the year far out at sea, traveling thousands of miles (as far as Alaska and Hawaii) before returning annually to their breeding areas on the beaches.  They dive incredibly deep to feed, hundreds of feet and even as deep as a mile down.

In the evening, we had a visit from Amy’s grad school apartment mate Karen, now a cardiologist living in Palo Alto.  Karen treated us to a restaurant dinner in Pescadero:  local seafood and olallieberry cobbler.