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Green Mountain Road leads over one of Wyomings "islands in the sky", overlooking the vast, and this case not quite so empty dessert below, because the Granite Mountains are anything but empty. Much of the land there has been divided up into private ranches. One thing about the Green Mountain Rd loop, it is a little short for an entire day outing. Enter a way down the north side of the Green Mountains. The profile below chooses one of the approaches to the Green Mountain Loop Rd(su) for the south side, the one that is the shorter of the two. This results in a different, slightly lower summit point, In my opinion, the other option of using the western option of the Green Mtn Rd is actually a little more scenic, because of more numerous far views. In that case the highest point remains Green Mtn Rd s(u).

1.START-END EAST:jct US278 - Green Mtn Rd 2.route splits into eastern and western part of loop road 3.TOP,jct Green Mtn Rd - Mine Acess - road to Wild Horse Point, 9020ft 4.route joins Crook's Gap Rd 5.START-END WEST:jct US278 - Crook's Gap SRd

Approaches

From East. The bottom 6 miles of the Green Mountain Road loop are common to both the eastern and western approaches. At the junction of the two the profile stays left up the eastern side. This quickly puts and end to the amazing pillow shape views of the lower Granite Mountains, and replaces them with cool green evergreen comfort. After the junction with a campground road, the grade picks up. At times the urge to walk becomes greater than the urge to ride. This is helped along by the fact that the surface also deteriorates somewhat. But after a night of light rain it still seems pretty good. The road stays surrounded by trees all the way to the highest point, which is reached immediately before a major intersection.

   
lower approach on the north side, before the loop splits

   
telephoto view from upper Mine Access Rd

   
Jeffries City

From West. (described downwards) On the left is an out and back to a viewpoint: Wild Horse Point. The right leads to a one last short climb towards the highest point on Green Mountain Road. But before getting there and this profile continues straight, while Green Mtn Loop road turns right. It ducks under a gate and picks up the road behind the big sign saying "Mine Acess Road - no public access". It says nothing about using the road through the publicly inaccessible land.

The road is a mixture of major mining highway and abandoned road, all very easily ridable, even if it is not the fastest surface. Signs from a past era of truck traffic announce "tight" curves, and large piles of horse apples announce the competiton between various male horses, while marking their turf. I saw a total of 3 wild horses on the way down. Their grey color blended with the grey of the burned brush and stunted tree landscape all around.

This mine acess road has been steadily heading west. Approaching the mine property I always chose the option that went as downhill as possible, while continuing to head in a northerly direction. It worked fine, and I imagine there are several options. The profile finally merges on an extremely wide unpaved mine highway, that makes a gently declining raceway along the south side of Green Mountain. It finally becomes the Crook's Gap Couinty Road. If one wants to continue south on the Crook's Gap Rd it actually requires a conterintuitive turn west that does not show up on many maps. Most of the traffic from Crook's Gap heads to the mine, and so the expected size and importance of the roads is not what the map would lead to suspect. A pleasant almost imperceptible decline leads into Jeffrey City, and a junction with US287

A sign there explains its existence as the ultimate boom and bust town, caused by the uranium boom-bust cycle in the early/mid 1980s. Today it is a friendly collection of partially abandoned buildings, sprinkled with RVs ranging from wreck to modern warrior and a very friendly church, that welcomes cyclists who want to stay there overnight.