The Re-Tour Day 5: We Follow the Sun into the Pryors
August 28, 2018.
Overnight, the rain stopped and the skies cleared — I assume — because we awoke to blue skies and sun in the morning.
As was becoming a trend, none of us were up early — with the exception of Devin who I only just noticed was up and out of camp by 6:00am or so, since she had to get to work. Pretty cool to show up for one night of camping if you ask me. I was the next one up around 8:00am and with some extra time and nice weather, I set about making a breakfast sandwich — sausage and eggs on an outdoor roll — delicious!
But then, disaster — halfway through scrambling the eggs, I ran out of propane. I was ultimately able to refill my bottle using Mike’s @Digiratus 20lb tank, but not before the griddle cooled down and left the eggs “not quite right.” Still, it was nice to have a warm breakfast, which I enjoyed as others in camp started to stir.
We all had our various tasks for the morning, but there were two that were standouts this morning. First, Dan @drr had been having some issues with his ARB air lockers leaking (due to a very cool custom manifold he’d fabbed), and so he set about fixing them so they’d work a bit better on the trail. This of course meant a bit of jerry-rigging — and ultimately a trip to the hardware store — but that’s nothing new for our trips, and was sure to keep Dan’s rig in top shape for the rest of the trip.
The other standout was a visit from the 3rd gen Tacoma owner who’d passed us on Beartooth Pass the night before. Seeing our trucks, he pulled into camp around 10:30am and was immediately greeted by our own “Mr. Hospitality,” Monte @Blackdawg. This would happen several times over the course of the trip — Monte spending all sorts of time telling folks exactly how they should mod their Tacoma’s to be as expo as possible.
That’s pretty cool if you ask me (even though we gave Monte a hard time for it in the moment), to have the patience to talk to folks about the same thing over and over. Of course, not all of Monte’s advice that morning was necessarily good advice — he did recommend Pelfrybuilt (which filed for Chpt 7 bankruptcy before our trip was over) as the best armor the guy could purchase. Oops.
It was nearly noon by the time we broke camp and headed into town to re-provision ice and a few miscellaneous supplies. And then, we followed a similar route as last year — through Bridger — to the base of the Pryor mountains, where we hit dirt and aired down. We were more than ready to hit some dirt under sunny skies!
And hit some dirt we did — the approach to the Pryor mountains long and flat, allowing for fast speeds and a great view of the surrounding area. The Chugwater Formation — offset by a field irrigated to a brilliant green — was especially extraordinary; the red color of the rocks produced by iron oxide contained within. This iron oxide is commonly found in tropical soils, and it’s thought that the formations here migrated north from the equator some 500 million years ago.
Oh, and we also ran into these guys. They were not impressed — or at least, they weren’t as impressed as we were; each of us stopping to take a photo of them as we passed.
45 minutes later, we finally started climbing up into the Pryors — Big Pryor to be precise. And, though we were winding our way up the same trail we’d been on nearly a year before, the situation couldn’t have been more different. The sun was out, the sky was clear, and the views were vast — even the smoke from the last few days reduced by the recent precipitation.
It was so much nicer than the rain, snow and mud we’d dealt with on the last trip! We stopped and took it all in — the trail, the trucks, and a nearby canyon.
Now mid-afternoon, we continued up Big Pryor mountain, through gates and across grassy hillsides. We reveled in the beauty and the took in the views as we climbed, the white clouds and blue skies contrasting so nicely with the golden-green of the landscape. This truly was what we were hoping for on the Re-Tour.
Breaking up the grand views, we came upon the Bainbridge Homestead. Built in the 1920s, this cabin was nestled in the treeline and still in relatively good condition — aided I’m sure by the metal roof and respectful visitors.
We explored a bit and signed the guest book before continuing on — we weren’t sure where we were going to camp, but we knew that it was either 5 minutes away or a few hours. Given the early time, we opted for a few hours, which meant we needed to keep moving… except when we’d stop to take photos — for us, a frequent occurrence.
Eventually though we made it to the top of Big Pryor Mountain, the views stretching in all directions. We lingered a bit longer here than normal — there was talk of a truck-swap, and…
To see what happened next, check out the full story — The Re-Tour Day 5: We Follow the Sun Into the Pryors at adventuretaco.com.
Originally published at adventuretaco.com.
