Lone Wolf Expeditions

21/09/2023

Day 4 & 5 - We felt as though we had explored as much of the Bighorn Mountains as we reasonably could based on the location of our basecamp, so we decided we needed to move.

On Wednesday we packed up and moved to Spearfish South Dakota to do the new route that the BDR organization released, the Black Hills BDR X. We have all ridden in the Black Hills numerous times and it's usually a pretty fun area to ride. Due to the heat and our short time there, we decided we'd had enough of camping and stayed at a hotel for a couple days.

Spearfish is at the northernmost tip of this BDR route, so we had good options for 2 days worth of riding. On day 4 we decided to head south on the furthest Eastern section. Once it started getting close to dark we hit the highway and made the long slab ride back in the dark.

On Day 5 we headed south on the western section of the route. This section starts out in the scenic Spearfish Canyon and then heads up into Wyoming to the Cement Ridge fire lookout tower. After Cement Ridge we are treated to a lot of remote double track and gravel roads and end up in the historic town of Rochford. After Rochford its back on gravel and double track for quite a bit until we hit the highway in Hill City. The heat was really wearing us down so we hit the highway again and headed back to the hotel.

19/09/2023

Day 3 - More wandering in the Bighorns. I spent some time mapping out routes that we could ride, so on Day 3 we decided to give one of those routes a try. This was a 200 mile ride that starts in Ten Sleep and goes south on the BDR route through an area that looks more like Utah than Wyoming, then cuts back up to Highway 16 on gravel roads and back down Crazy Woman Canyon to Buffalo for fuel and food. It gets back on Highway 16 for a bit and veers off on dirt for Pole Creek road. After Pole Creek we headed up to the top of Sheep Mountain to the fire lookout and then back to Ten Sleep. It ended up being a nice and easy ride with amazing views.

18/09/2023

Day 2 - We rode section 7 of the Wyoming BDR route, from Ten Sleep to Hwy 14 in the northern Bighorns. If you are unfamiliar with what a BDR route is, its a Backcountry Discovery Route which typically traverse a state from South to North using as little pavement as possible.

It didn't take long after we left Ten Sleep Canyon to get into some challenging terrain and high altitudes. In addition to the altitude, we were also there during a heat wave which made it even more difficult. Luckily being at altitude helped quite a bit, but we eventually had to leave the mountains and take a long section of Highway back to camp. The highway section was brutally hot but we eventually found relief at the Ten Sleep Brewery for some A/C and a cold beverage.

17/09/2023

17/09/2023

Bighorn Mountains, nestled about smack dab in the middle of northern Wyoming offer an amazing amount of recreational opportunities for folks that are interested in getting off the beaten path. Here are some photos from our recent adventure ride.

Chapter 1: Crazy Woman Canyon. Our first day of riding started at Leigh Creek campground which is nestled in the lower part of Ten Sleep Canyon. We arrived to camp mid morning and set up camp and unloaded the bikes. We decided to take a nice leisurely ride to get warmed up for the weeks riding. Just like normal we get ourselves on some roads that were more challenging than normal due to the storm that passed though the previous night. Luckily we all kept our bikes upright! The highlight of the ride was finding Crazy Woman Canyon. We rode this amazing canyon and went to the town of Buffalo for fuel, turned around and rode right back up it.

09/03/2022

We know how to have a good time!!!