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| Drive to N Yellowstone and K-Bar-Z Ranch, WY | | -
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| | Drive to N Yellowstone and K-Bar-Z Ranch, WY | | | |
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Drive to N Yellowstone and K-Bar-Z Ranch, WY
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| Scenic Drive | 1,095.00 Miles |
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| | Scenic Drive | 1,095.00 Miles | 3 Days | | |
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| no partners | | Mrs. OH and I started off on a 19 day driving trip on Aug 1 to the north part of Wyoming to spend time exploring the beautiful Beartooth, Absaroka and Wind River Mountains in Wyoming and then drive back through Colorado visiting a friend and exploring the San Juan Mountains. These ranges are all part of the Rocky Mountains. We were looking forward to the trip where we would set up a base camp in four different locations to stay for several days while we explored the area on scenic drives and hikes. Unfortunately, hikes had to be taken out of the agenda after the first day when I got a flareup of the sciatic nerve problem I had thought was under control. I could only walk about 100ft before being stopped by intense pain radiating out of my lower back and into my right hip. We decided to tough it out restricting our sightseeing to scenic drives.
It was a three day drive up through Nevada, Utah, Idaho and across Yellowstone Park to our first “base Camp” at the K-Bar-Z Guest Ranch near the Clark’s Fork Yellowstone River about 15 miles south of the WY-MT border. We did not intend to stop for sightseeing on the drive across Yellowstone – been there, done that. But Sue was hoping to get lots of wildlife photos while I drove. We entered the park around noon on a Tuesday. It was packed. There was a one hour lineup of cars to get through the West Yellowstone entrance. Every sightseeing attraction had parking lots overflowing plus cars lined up for a mile along the road shoulder. This slowed down traffic well below the 45 mph speed limit. Unfortunately, the only wild life visible along the roads were the buffalo but they were entertaining.
We had planned to stay at the K-Bar-Z guest ranch for 5 nights. It is in a beautiful location in a small river valley, the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River, surrounded by the Absaroka and Wind River Mountains – a perfect central location for a base camp to explore the area. This place had been recommended to me by a high school classmate who grew up in southern Montana near this area and her family had a summer cabin not far from the ranch until it got destroyed by a landslide some years ago.
The guest ranch turned out to be a little more rustic than I had hoped for Mrs. OH's sake. The ranch is in a remote area not having many places to stay other than campgrounds because the nearby Yellowstone Park 50 miles away sucks up the tourists (a good thing). The nearest restaurants and gas station were 25 miles away in Cooke City, MT. There were no phone, cell phone, wi-fi or tv services in the guest cabins. But the lack of communications fit in with my plan to avoid news headlines for the entire trip. The ranch accommodates up to 35 guests. It has been here a long time and was run by 3 generations of a family who had bought it about 30 years ago. Very nice people. Family style meals are served in the small lodge. Horseback riding, fishing, and guided pack trips into the back country are all available.
We got our own tiny cabin at the ranch with 4 bunk beds in a small, combined bedroom and sitting room with a nice natural stone fireplace. The interior of the cabin looked like it had 30-year-old furnishings (and dust) including the bed mattresses and carpet. The bathroom was so tiny that only one person could use it at a time. The shower was so small even Mrs OH could barely turn around in it. The instant-on propane water heater tended to operate intermittently occasionally dousing a showering person with ice cold water. Mrs. OH got soaked with ice cold water in the shower just minutes after she had applied shampoo to her hair. I got that fixed in time for her to finish her shower so thought things were under control. But then she saw something crawling on the carpet just outside the bathroom door – it looked like a black earth worm but had rows of tiny legs covering its entire length. It brought up a bad memory for her of a camping experience our first year of marriage where giant centipedes were trying to invade our tent. I’m used to camping in places with no facilities, bugs crawling on the ground, mice getting into by car, etc. So, “camping” in the rustic cabin was quite an improvement over my usual accommodations plus a hot meal served to you at the beginning and end of the day but not exactly Mrs. OH’s cup of tea.
On its good side, the family/owners of the place were very friendly and shared stories of their experiences in this remote place around the dinner table that first night. The ranch was in a beautiful setting with a small lake near the lodge with sandhill cranes nesting along the shores surrounded by grassy swamp land and forest. The lodge had a kitchen and dining room that served breakfast and dinner and would provide sack lunches. We had dinner there the first night and they served good homestyle food – a hearty spaghetti with meat, a hot vegetable dish (fresh broccoli) and a large salad. It was a pleasant experience meeting other guests. Also fun to meet the 18 member firefighting crew that came there for breakfast and dinner every day from their large tent camp somewhere nearby. So, I would definitely stay there again but probably not Mrs. OH. 
We stayed at the ranch 2 nights taking a scenic drive over Beartooth pass on day 2. But with not being able to go on our planned hikes in the area, the mountains being obscured by wildfire smoke, and the rustic conditions at our cabin, we decided to cut short our stay there and proceed on to our second planned “base camp’ in Cody, WY. |
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