Disappointment Turns to Gratitude

All my words fall short

I got nothing new

How could I express

All my gratitude?

Gratitude, Brandon Lake (2021)

 

Kicking around ideas for the emerging BackBone Double Grande route and possible future Black Hills Bounty rides, I mentally wandered out to northeastern Wyoming to seek an interesting route to Devil's Tower National Monument from the north, west, or even south. 

Maps and satellite imagery looked promising, with a handful of county gravel roads connected by dirt and two track roads of all kinds. Over the winter I sketched out a few routes to investigate and ventured out for a long day of scouting. After more time and study, I recently returned for another look.

Promising public road west of Devil's Tower.
Unfortunately, it dead ends at private property about 1.5 miles later.

What a disappointment. I spent two days searching in vain for USFS Low Standard, or even Secondary, Roads. They do not exist out there. Some good county gravel roads wind through the hills and valleys, but I found no rough little connectors. That is, all those promising dirt and two track roads were ranch roads on private land.

Although Devil's Tower itself is a public National Monument, the land beyond for many miles is practically all private. Pockets of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management pop up like dandelions all over on the right maps, but they are small and mostly unmarked on site. There simply is no contiguous tract of public land out there large enough to connect one county road to another. 

(For a stark contrast, see the large section of Buffalo Gap National Grassland where the BackBone Grande route travels on rough two track for about 12 miles. BackBone Grande - Right Vibe Right Away).

My sorry map after two days of scouting

Ultimately, I stopped at Devil's Tower to assess all the new data over lunch. OK, "lunch" was a double dip huckleberry ice cream waffle cone. It was a frustrating day.

I first ruled out a route circling Devil's Tower to enter from the south due to 11 miles of relatively busy traffic on pavement at the end. Also, much of that route skirted the forested hills on the adjoining prairie. I prefer to be up in it. 

That left three unpaved alternatives to climb into the hills. Each worked on paper, but when viewed from the ground, they clearly divided into good, better, and best. Following that "best" road, I then stumbled onto a 5 mile connecting public road marked "Impassable When Wet." How did that happen? This route was now making itself.

At the end of the day, I put together a fun county gravel road route, with a smattering of dirt, from Alzada, Montana to Devil's Tower. This will become an appropriate section of the BackBone Double Grande.

On the drive home, my initial disappointment with this area turned to gratitude for what I have in the Black Hills. From Devil's Tower, I'll be routing through the Bear Lodge Mountains to Sundance, Wyoming and then southeast to enter 12 million acres of Black Hills National Forest. With all that National Forest land ahead of me, I have access to practically unlimited miles of public back roads and near-roads of all kinds. 

All that in my back yard. Sweet.

Gratitude, Brandon Lake (2022)