Double Cabin, Wyoming

Kim and Kelly, two of the hosts at Dubois/Wind River KOA, where our RV is camped, recommended that we take a drive up to Double Cabin, a large valley with a Forest Service Campground surrounded by mountains.

We drove 25 miles north from Dubois, along a dirt mountain road, heading up the Horse Creek Valley past ranches and open country.  Here we had our first view of the mountains we would be exploring, with Horse Creek in the foreground:

About 10 miles from our destination, we got this view of Cathedral Peak, on the right, and Raggedtop Mountain, on the left:

We drove up over the shoulder of Boedeker Butte and around it to Double Cabin Campground.  We found ourselves in a large, open plain.  Climbing out of the Jeep, we started hiking northwest toward Wiggins Fork.  In this view north, we looked past Coffman Butte, on the left, and Crescent Top, on the right, toward Red Tops in the distance:

Looking west, we could see Wiggins Fork flowing north-to-south across the photo below, the Absaroka Range in the background:

The view south down Wiggins Fork showed a braided stream and the southern edge of the Absarokas, with Dubois somewhere behind them:

Down by Wiggins Fork, on the stony bed, we caught dramatic views of the north and south peaks of Crescent Top:

Turning back from the stream and looking up toward the campground, we could see unnamed peaks looming above --

-- and the east sides of Boedeker Butte and Cathedral Peak, the opposites of the ones we had seen on our drive into Double Cabin:

Leaving Wiggins Fork to return to our Jeep, we looked back at Crescent Top, graced by one little cloud:

This was a spectacular location, just 40 miles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park, and every bit as dramatic as Yosemite National Park, but barely known outside this region of northeast Wyoming.  It made us want to return to follow one of the trails further into the Absaroka Wilderness.

Maybe in a couple years.  We have miles to go...