Tensleep

     After driving through the beautiful Bighorn mountain range in north central Wyoming Mark and I finally came to Tensleep canyon. I highly recommend the drive through the southern Bighorns along Highway 16.



   Highway 16 made me wish that I knew more about geology. Along the entire drive there are signs which point out the exposed geological formations as you go by. They identify the type of rock formation, the geological age in which it was formed and how many years ago the formation took place.  As we drove by signs that said things like "granite, precambrian, 2.5 billion years" and "Madison limestone, mississippian, 330-300 million years" I couldn't help but think of all the folks who must drive through and not buy it, we live in a strange world.

Tensleep reminded me a bit of the south fork in Cody, it's freaking huge.

We found a great camp site along the old gravel highway. On the first morning as I sat and waited for the sun to come out and Mark slept in, two military spy/fighter looking planes flew over and broke the sound barrier right above us!  The planes appeared to be flying from the south end of the Bighorns to the north end.

On Belay!

We finally made it up to the French Cattle Ranch area, and then to the Big Kahuna formation

Here's mark leading up a moderate route next to the big kahuna formation. The climb on the right side of the column is a 5.11.

The guidebook to Tensleep is in limited supply and costs one hundred dollars, there has got to be a better way.

 

The quality of the limestone here is excellent.

If you hang out with Mark and I for long enough you are going to run into a moose sooner or later.

 

Tensleep is awesome and I really want to go back, now that I have a better understanding of the scope and what is needed to be successful I can't wait to return.

Bring bail biners. The climbing here is tough!!