Day 14 – Sinks Canyon

Miles traveled: 160
Hours on Road: 5.5
States covered: 1 –Wyoming

We love our camping, but it sure was hard to leave the Snake River Lodge. Cal and Trey went swimming for an hour while Jeff and I had coffee at the pool. Then we had to pack our stuff in the van and head out. Before leaving, however, we met up with Jay. We had a bottle of wine we wanted to give him for hooking us up with such a nice room and welcoming us with the wine, but somehow it just didn’t seem like enough. Jeff had met Jay many years ago, but the kids and I had never met him. What a nice guy he is!

After chatting with Jay for a while we were on the road. We took Moose/Wilson Road again, which we’d taken many times before, but it had rained the day before and it was exceedingly bumpy this time. So bumpy, in fact, that the Coleman stove that had been shoved on the shelves sitting behind Trey fell off the shelves and crashed onto Trey’s head. All I can say is, it’s a good thing it didn’t land on something he uses. He said he was fine, but we strapped it down before moving on.

We had to retrace the steps the kids and I took to get to Yellowstone. We went through Dubois again. That meant heading back through 17 miles of roadwork. We lucked out because we reached the backed-up traffic just as the “Follow Me” truck arrived, so we didn’t have any wait at all and were last in line for the entire 17 miles.

Another thing we backtracked through was the Wind River Reservation, which brought back mothy memories. It was the Upper Wind River Campground that we were supposed to have stayed at but was too moth infested. We drove through the entire reservation. It looked just like we expected the west to look like: lots of grassy plains with a few rolling hills and several areas of reddish rock outcrop. It was sad to drive through the populated areas. It looked very rundown with either worn-out trailer homes or very small, ramshackle wood dwellings. Just before leaving the reservation there was a casino, and just outside the reservation were beautiful, large homes.

The first town after the reservation is Lander, which is also the last town before Sinks Canyon. It’s your average town with car dealerships, a Safeway, a Holiday Inn a large high school, and a taxidermist. Not quite 7,000 people live in the town.

What strikes us most about this area is the openness. You can go for miles and miles without seeing anything, then there’s just some random house out there, in the middle of nowhere, then suddenly there’s a town, then nothing again.

Six miles out of Lander is Sinks Canyon, one of the most beautiful places we’ve seen on our trip. To get there, you go through the town, then sparse, yellow grassland, then red rocky ledges, then a giant canyon, in which lies the sinks. Along the red rocky ledges, out on the bluffs, are some of the most beautiful houses in the area. They’re all a natural wood color and all have giant windows for overlooking the plains below. Most of the houses included several horses.

The sinks is so named because halfway down the canyon, the waters of the Popo Agie (pronounced Po-Po-shuh), a rushing mountain river, abruptly turn and enter a large limestone cavern where the crashing water “sinks” into fissures and cracks at the back of the cave. A quarter mile down the road, the river emerges in a large calm pool called “The Rise.” It takes two hours for the water to go that ¼ mile. At the rise are hundreds of Rainbow and Brown trout, who wait to be fed by the onlookers who stand on the deck well above the river and throw pellets of food to them ($.25 a handful). More water exits to the rise than enters the sinks, so water must also be coming from somewhere else. Spelunkers have tried to swim its course, but the holes and cracks get way too small for a person to fit through, and even those that are big enough are clogged with plant debris. While Jeff and I were in the Visitor Center, a Native American man (admittedly not Crow) told us that Popo Agie is a Crow word for “good river.” The pamphlet says “there is confusion about its meaning, (but) most people believe it means “gurgling river.” Six in one, half dozen the other.

Our campsite was down a pathway from where we parked. We even had to cross a little wooden bridge. It was nice and private, though a bit of a haul for all our crap. We set up our tent about 20 feet from the Popo Agie, which flows with such strength, we had to yell a little to be heard over its noise. To one side of our site was a cliff covered with pines, to the other was a red rock cliff on which we looked for big horn sheep (but never saw any). Everywhere we looked, it was simply beautiful.

Another distinctive thing about this area besides its openness, and as opposed to New England, is the lack of rules and regulations. We camped right next to a rushing river, we walked right up to the edge of the sinks, with water rushing by, and never did we see a sign telling us to stay back, nor were there fences to keep us back. At the state campgrounds, there are no rules against drinking. The individual is allowed to make his/her own decisions out here, and then suffer any consequences that may ensue. Not like New England, where everyone has to worry about being sued so rules are everywhere. Just thought I’d add that observation.

We had a wonderfully relaxing evening. The boys rediscovered how interesting the books they’d been reading are. And Jeff and I sat out under the stars and sipped vodka Arnold Palmers. I noticed at one point that we were very near the road, but we couldn’t hear a single vehicle because of the noise of the river. We were all in bed and falling asleep by 11.

With the river so loud and so close by, everyone got a great night’s sleep – no fan or white noise machine needed. Except for me, of course. Around 1 a.m., I woke up thinking about how close we were to the road, how loud the river was, and how far away our van was. I’d left my purse and my computer in the van. Anyone could rob us, and we’d never know it. After debating whether or not to wake Jeff and see if he’d go get the stuff, I got myself up and wandered into the dark woods alone, just so I’d be able to sleep once my mission was accomplished. It wasn’t as frightening as I thought it would be, and once back in bed, I slept like a rock!

For corresponding photos, go to:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1852278027/a=2740108027_2740108027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/