Ten Sleep, WY
Dirtbag Paradise
Ten Sleep was a later addition to our trip itinerary. While doing some climbing at our gym, Greg struck up a conversation with one of the employees/route setters. He let Greg know about some training tips for Devil’s Tower, but also started talking about some other cool places to climb out west. One of those places was called Ten Sleep.
We did our research. It is a town of 300 people in Central Wyoming that is adjacent to a long canyon. In this canyon over the last 20 years or so climbers have been gravitating towards the limestone walls. Thankfully, they want more people to come and enjoy this rock, so they placed bolts up the walls to make it a great sport climbing destination. We are trying to sport climb more outside, and when is the next time we plan to be in central Wyoming with all of our climbing gear? So it got added on the route between Devil’s Tower and Grand Teton.
Monday July 24th
We woke up lazily in Devil’s Tower, and had a casual breakfast. We slowly packed the camper. We only had to get from Eastern Wyoming to Central Wyoming, which would take approximately 4 hours. As we had just climbed the previous 2 days in a row we did not have intentions of climbing immediately upon arrival.
We took a break for lunch in Buffalo (Wyoming), which we came to discover, is the shooting location for one of Greg’s favorite Netflix shows, Longmire. While we were there: we stopped at the local post office for stamps, we popped in the outdoor recreation store for some better headwear, in to the local Mexican restaurant for some grub, and over the grocery store for some future grub. The new hats have since come in handy as they do an excellent job of keeping the sun off a much bigger section of our heads. Don’t worry Mom; I am opting to look quite dorky for the sake of function. Also, we are ALL over our sunscreen game.
Buffalo is the start of a scenic byway that takes you over to the parks (Teton and Yellowstone) on the western half of the state. It took us up through the mountains and over the tallest pass we would have to drive through yet at 9800 ft.
We arrived in Ten Sleep at Leigh Creek Campground, a state run campground, along Leigh Creek at the western end of the canyon. It was our first no electric campsite, one of many to come. It also only had a vaulted toilet, no flush and no sinks. To be fair, they kept it very clean (for a permanent port-a-potty), and so the smell was tolerable. Our campsites prior to this had electric hook-ups, but no water hook-ups. Apparently campgrounds up north, to save money keeping piping from freezing in the winter, have scattered water stations composed of a water fountain/spigot and restrooms as opposed to water hook-ups at each individual site. This was not a big deal for us, as we only have a tiny sink inside the camper and use a 6 gallon bucket for our grey water. So we just used a 5 gallon jug, which we would fill once per campsite, instead of the faucet and went about our lives.
The Badlands was the first camp ground with pay showers. They were still easy to walk to and $0.50 for the first 4 minutes, with $0.25 for each additional 2 minutes. This is where I learned that if you planned to take a 6 minute shower that you should put all 3 quarters you brought with you in at the beginning, or at least while the water was still running, otherwise you needed another $0.50 to restart the water. Not a big deal, soap is easy to towel off, and who doesn’t love leave-in conditioner. Lesson learned.
In Ten Sleep, you had to know where to go to find a shower you could pay for. Luckily, the climbing app that we rely heavily on, The Climbing Project, had already recommended a great place for a $2.00 shower, the brewery.
Anyway, we got the camper set up and checked out the creek we could reach less than 100 yards directly out the back of our campsite. We liked what we saw and were quite hot, so we grabbed our bathing suits, and oh so slowly got into the river. Water gets colder the farther North you go. The blazing sun made the goose bump inducing water refreshing instead of frigid. Then instead of climbing again, as at least my body was scraped and bruised from head to toe, as finesse is not my strong suit when it comes to climbing, we headed to the local brewery, Ten Sleep Brewing Company. We already knew that this would be the most climber-friendly location in town, and it would have beer. We tried their beers; overall we would recommend the Barn Beer and the Amber. We were able to pick up the local climbing guide, and actually use our cell phones. It turns out that once you get into towns of 300 people, or hell, the WHOLE STATE OF WYOMING, cell phone signal sucks. (On a much related note, I’m sorry if you have been trying to reach me for any reason at all.)
After we were quite refreshed from our swim and our quaffs, we headed back to the camped to scrape together some dinner, figure out where to climb the next day, and head to sleep.
Tuesday July 25th
We woke up, ate breakfast, grabbed most of our climbing gear and headed out. I say most, because we forgot to grab our stick clip, a fancy schmancy doohickey, attached to an extendable paint pole, which allows us to “clip in” to the first bolt or two on a route to make the beginning of a route safer. This did not lead to any problems, merely annoyance. We had about a 25 minute ride and then a 25 minute walk over to the wall we wanted to check out. I picked this one because it had the most number of beginner grades, so I could start to feel comfortable outside, without a guide. Overall we got to climb some good routes. It ended up being a fairly popular wall as several other groups or couples eventually came to check it out as well. After a while limestone pockets start to tear up your skin, so we called it quits when we started to feel the burn and when it kept threatening to rain. It was a very picturesque wall. I was even willing to photograph it from the dreaded angle (beneath chin height).
Nothing too memorable for the rest of the night.
Wednesday July 25th
Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Eating wise in Ten Sleep we tried a couple more new recipes from our book including
One pan Chicken Fajita Pasta.
Highly recommended.
Savory Oatmeal with bacon, cheddar, fried egg
This was a more confusing assortment of flavors. We will not be eating this again.
And Korean steak with grilled bok choy which was so delicious I forgot to take pictures.
We picked a new, closer, climbing destination, still in this beautiful canyon. And, this time, we remembered all of our gear including our rain jackets. We climbed until noon or so.
Then we hit up the fish hatchery, you know, because that’s what the cool kids do. Honestly it was fairly interesting seeing where they raise all the fish to stock ponds, rivers, lakes in Wyoming, particularly with cutthroat trout.
Then we hung out at the camper for a while in the afternoon until we decided it was time for a shower. That’s right, for those keeping track, we hadn’t showered in days. Don’t worry, it’s a trend. We discovered the beauty of dry shampoo, deodorizing/cleansing wipes, and hanging out with other people who smell worse than you do.
We grabbed beers and showers at the brewery, and touched base with a couple friends and family while we had signal.
*insert hug, googly eyes, bursting with excitement emojis here*
Then we headed back, ate, slept. On our way back to the camper we realized that Ten Sleep, Wyoming, aside from being the self-proclaimed premier limestone sport climbing in the Western Hemisphere, it was also the camper van capital of the United States. You see, dirtbags, aka climbers who sleep in their cars and eat ramen in order to maximize their climb to work ratio, tend to sleep in their vehicles, and Ten Sleep has a ton of roads with free parking aka “camp sites” along the side. It is Dirtbag Mecca, a lifetime of routes with free camping and a brewery. We were in excellent company.
Pictures to be added as internet becomes reliable.
Next stop: Grand Teton National Park
Honey Popping 