We had planned to take a picnic lunch to Vedauwoo on Saturday to enjoy the fall colors, but we awoke to fog and much cooler temperatures. The weather was to improve in the afternoon with the sun emerging and temperatures into the mid sixties so we decided to go up for the late afternoon with a picnic dinner instead. The back lighting would also be better for photographs.
We took Happy Jack Road to the gravel and washboard rutted Vedauwoo Road, which winds southwest to the Vedauwoo picnic road that exits from I-80. We stopped several times and hiked around to get photographs, me with my Sony cyber-shot and S with his professional grade Nikon. When there are photos to be had S goes into his own little world and Penelope and I keep company with each other. I try to maintain control of her (a black lab) on a leash but she is always on sensory overload. A lot of my photos might have better composition if not for the constant pulling on my arm. I usually give up after we are well away from the road and let her go free and she invariably finds some muddy water to wallow in.
It was a beautiful day to spent a few hours observing the golden and some still green groves scattered among the pine trees and eroded mounds of granite that make up Vedauwoo. Here is a paragraph from “Roadside Geology of Wyoming” by Lageson and Spearing page 43:
“The Vedauwoo Recreation Site in the Laramie Range is a worthwhile stop. Vedauwoo is Arapaho for “earth-born,” which is an appropriate name for this jumbled pile of rocks. It formed from massive outcrops of pink, Precambrian granite, 1.4 billion years old, that weathered along fractures into rounded piles of boulders, many of which are precariously balanced.”
This area is well known for its mushroom wind-shaped rocks and for huge rounded formations. We watched some rock climbers for a bit (double click on the top photo to enlarge and see a guy on the top of the rock) the area seems to attract them especially from nearby Laramie and the University of Wyoming. We also saw two large deer in the late afternoon who were aware of our presence but didn’t immediately bolt away. S was able to get a photograph of them.
From the picnic area junction we drove further west on the frontage road and then took the Blair Wallace Road that winds eventually back over to Happy Jack Road. We stopped along the way for one more aspen grove that was still illuminated and then ate our picnic dinner at the east trail head for the Headquarters Trail. There is a parking area and one picnic table and a nice view off to the east quite a distance toward Cheyenne and the wind farm. It was about 6:15 p.m. and our hands were freezing by then in the rapidly cooling air at 8,000 some feet.
A good time was had by all.
Lou
I had a rather chilling conversation with a friend at church today. He has a friend who went to this area last week - hunting mountain lions! He said it didn't take long to bag his quarry because there are so many up there. I guess it's not the type of place you should hike alone. That being said, I haven't heard of anyone being attacked up there in the 40-plus years I've lived here. I suppose the black dog would protect us from cats.
ReplyDelete