Wednesday 9-24-25 New Campground, Hiking & Motorcycle Ride

 

Camping in Middle Fork Campground

 

We had two great days at Mikesell-Potts Recreation Area. It was fantastic having power. Today we moved 25 miles up onto the mountain. We are at Middle Fork Campground in The Bighorn National Forest.

We woke up to the temperatures in the 40's. I crawled out of bed at 7:20 and got dressed. Then I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast. 

After breakfast we got ready to leave. We put everything away and secure. Then I took the trash to the dumpster. While I did this Larry unplugged us from the power. We have been without power for so long he almost forgot to unplug. We were back on the road by 8:15.

The drive took us about an hour because Larry had to drive through a mountain pass. It was a beautiful drive. We saw a lot of aspens turning their fall colors. We saw mountains in the distance and a couple of places on the mountain had snow. We saw Pronghorns on the rolling hills before the mountain pass. 

Many of the campgrounds are closed for the season. Some have been left open so you can camp in them but there is no water or trash service. They have also stopped cleaning the bathrooms. The first campground we wanted to check out was Hunter. We didn't get too far down the dirt road before turning around. The road was getting rougher the further you went. Larry had turned us around when a gentleman stopped to see if we needed help. Larry explained he didn't want to go any further. The guy said that was the right decision because it got rougher. He also said he was the host and recommended to go to South Fork Campground. We thanked him and he went on his way. We drove another mile down the road to Middle Fork. The road getting to the sites was not very long nor was it in bad conditions. 

The campground is very nice. Each site has a lot of trees, a creek runs behind the sites, picnic table and a campfire ring. 

 

The creek behind our site

There were a few campers in the campground but a couple of them left. We had no problem finding a site. We are on site #2, it is by the bathroom. We parked the Minnie and set it up for our stay.

Afterwards we went on a hike. Larry knew there were a couple of trails from the campground. We decided to hike the service road, which is one mile one way before it stops. We hiked for about an hour for 2.5 miles. The road is an access road for people who have cabins in the forest. As we hiked the road we saw a lot of beautiful cabins. A few were big cabins but most of them were very small. Most were empty, we only saw two cabins with cars in front of them. It was a nice easy hike. 

 

Rock Formation in the campground

 

The first cabin we saw 

 

Living in the forest

 

When we got back Larry setup the Starlink because neither phone had internet. He wasn't sure if we could get Starlink because of all the trees. It took Larry a little bit to set it up but it works great. He also setup the solar panels.

After lunch we went for an hour and a half motorcycle ride. We drove to Hunter Campground to check it out. The road was very rough and we were glad we turned around where we did. Hunter is a horse campground with horse trails all over the place. There were a few horse trailers and the campground didn't have many trees. The scenery was pretty of the mountains and aspen and pine trees. After driving around the campground we went back on the highway. We drove to the next campground, which was Circle Park. We didn't get to it because the road was way too rough and had a lot of potholes. We got to the sign that said two miles to Circle Park and turned around. We saw a few people camping in the dispersed area. Then we rode to Tie Hack Campground the gate was closed. We turned around and continued to the next campground, which was South Fork Campground. We couldn't even get inside the campground because the gate was locked. We had a great motorcycle ride. 

When we got back Larry put the motorcycle back on it's carrier. Once it cooled off he put the cover on it.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing with a book. I ended up doing 9,000 steps for the day.

 

Relaxing with a good book