About an hour and half after leaving Estes Park we crossed the Colorado, Wyoming state line heading north on rte. 287. We didn’t know exactly where we were headed, but we were making our way to somewhere in Medicine Bow National Forest just west of Laramie. After some research the night before, we decided it would be a great spot to camp, being sparsely populated and relatively flat. We busted a left in Laramie and bounced south east down rte. 230. It took a few forest roads before we found a good spot to camp. It was right next to a small beaver pond at the very end of the road. The greatest challenge we faced this time wasn’t finding flat ground, but finding somewhere that wasn’t within smashing distance of a standing dead tree, or as those in the know call them, snags. Most of them were victims of a beetle kill and in some places the dead trees outnumbered those still alive.
We camped next to the beaver pond for one night, for we were in search of greener pastures, specifically pastures with more green trees than brown ones. The very real threat of falling trees has a way of harshing mellows like little else. On our way out of the forest from the beaver pond, we somehow stumbled upon a giant quartz field. I have never seen so much quartz. It looked like a dump truck pulled up and emptied a load of quartz in the forest and then someone, or something, spread it out. Not only was quartz everywhere, there were rocks of pure quartz the size of soccer balls! And nope, I didn’t get any photos of it. I actually think I was in the process of relieving myself before we hit paved road and that’s how we found the field.
ONE SIDE OF THE FOREST TO THE OTHER
We ended up driving for about an hour to the other side of the forest and staying in a small forest service campground, Six Mile Campground, that sat on a bluff overlooking the North Platte River. Nestled among the golden aspen and fragrant pine were a handful of sites. My brother and I had the campground almost entirely to ourselves, with the exception of an older couple a few sites from us and the fly fishing anglers who fished the river during the sunlit hours. In those few short days while staying at Six Mile Creek I had so many memorable experiences, most of which would require separate posts of their own to explain sufficiently. For now, I’ll leave them in waiting, stories for another day.
I decided to post a few extra images from Medicine Bow in the gallery below. These aren’t all of the photos from Med Bow that you’ll find in A Series of Things, but I couldn’t share just 3.
Photographs appear in A Series of Things 00003 – Ranger East.
