Wyoming Boondocking - Day 12: Snow Day in the Bighorn National Forest

 The weather forecast was calling for up to 12" of snow for the Buffalo, WY  area just 12 miles away by road.  It's the nearest weather station for the app I use, called Weather Underground.

Locals had said they didn't expect that much below 10,000 feet ((I am camped at 8000) so I guess we'll see whose right when this storm is past!

The morning was clear but the valley below was cloud covered and it was creeping closer to my location:

Temperatures had started at 50°F (10°C) from overnight and had been steadily dropping all morning.

Around 9:15, I spotted this line of horse riders amble slowly on by, heading towards Forest Trail 167.  You'll note the thick fog like clouds in the background.  The lighter color band was because I shot the picture through the window of the URRV:

Less than a half hour later, the clouds finished encircling the mesa I'm camped on....the air felt cold but at least it wasn't very windy.

The snow started as very light drizzle and icy particles mostly.  It would start for real closer to 12:30PM, just as forecasted by the weather app.  It wasn't big snow flakes by any means, more icy drizzle than anything for quite a while.

By 5:00 PM, this is what things looked like:

I started running the catalytic propane heater when the inside temperature in the URRV got down to 48°F (8.8°C) and outside temperatures were below freezing:  28°F (-2°C).

I'd forgotten to drain the water heater tank yesterday, so I spent some time outside draining it of enough water to allow for expansion due to freezing if things get cold enough.  I didn't winterize the water pipes but did set the plumbing to "fill the water tank mode" and then vented all the faucets, I think this will allow gravity to send water in the pipes back into the fresh water tank which is almost empty.

I switched to inside water cans for water usage at this point as well.  If I had been expecting days and days of sub-20°F (-6.6°C) then I would have blown out the plumbing using compressed air.  But for 36 hours, not this time.  We'll see how that works out.

Spent the afternoon dressed warmly, listening to an audio book and even took a short nap.  No riding today!

After dinner, I cranked up the small HF Predator generator and added a 200 watt electric heater into the mix as the catalytic heater had only achieved 55°F (12.7°C) inside the URRV using the LOW setting.  Sure I could crank it higher but I wanted to have plenty of propane left by Thursday; which is when I expect the snow to be gone and the roads trafficable off of the mesa and back onto pavement.

I needed to charge up the house battery anyways, since the  cloud cover/fog had denied any of the sun's light to hit the solar panels which is usually what recharges the house battery.

Tomorrow the temperature high is supposed to be 32°F (0°C) so not much melting of the snow is expected though it will have stopped falling hopefully by tomorrow morning.  Wednesday, the temperature should be high enough to melt the snow and hopefully by Thursday, I can move the URRV to a new location.  We shall see.