1. South Pass City
Maybe it was the Texas duster that intrigued me. Or the gun peeking out from his belt, slightly hidden by the vest. Add in the boots and the hat. Do they do re-enactments here in South Pass City? “Good morning,” I offer when I sit down on the bench next to him. “Ticket office not open yet?” “Nope.” Knowing that different nationalities come to America for a better life, I’m still surprised by his accent. “British?” I ask, searching my memories of English, Australian, and New Zealand Kiwi. “Yes. Great Britain, but haven’t lived there in a long time. Japan." “Japan? What brought you there to live? “My wife is Japanese. But my parents and sister live in the States now. I’d like to come here too to live, but my wife isn't interested. Even though her mother lives in Denver now. That’s where I drove up from yesterday.” “I like the duster.” “The costume shop was limited.” The ticket office inside the historical dance hall opens and he picks up a camera tripod. “I’m filming for a music video. Synthesizers. Expansion music. The vast west is perfect. I did a little yesterday, and I’ll wrap up this morning.” We both head into pay our non-resident price of $4, and the ticket vendor hands us a booklet on the walking tour of this old mining town. One other couple with a dog on a leash purchases tickets as well and jaunts down the Main street of South Pass City, restored from its heyday in the late 1860’s. As I stroll the sidewalks to look in at rooms and read historical data, the ”expansion video cowboy” sets up his camera equipment in front of the saloon, then up at the mine entrance, and we cross paths again in the dry goods store. Replicas of Kelloggs Corn Flakes boxes line one shelf, and cans of other foods fill up others. Kids toys, postcards, twenty five cent copies of sample South Pass News, and chewing tobacco are available for purchase from the young woman interning here. “You need a fun mustache for your video project,” I say to the synthesizer guy as thunder growls overhead and rain drips out of the sky. He rubs his upper lip in thought, and I wish him well on the filming as I dodge drops on the way back to my truck. |
According to the walking tour info at the E.A. Slack cabin that belonged to Esther’s son, Esther had to find something to do while her husband was often drunk and in jail. Her son published the South Pass News, and behind the plexiglass wall, stands the original Gordon Hand Press with some original copies of the newspaper.
2. The Middle Fork
The Middle Fork of the Popo Agie ( pronounced Popagia) River “sinks” underground through a series of tunnels. Impossible to explore, the flow seeps back up a quarter mile down the canyon, returning to the river bed and a favorite spot for trout to congregate.
3. Eagle Spirit Dancers- Shoshone/Arapaho
From war dances to rain dances to hoop dances, Abeyta guides us through some history as local Shoshone and Arapaho share their heritage. He explains that the dancers want to share their blessings and good medicine with new friends here to witness the breaking down of stereotypes. His mission is to educate, and once the performances are over, the audience is invited to join the performers for a two step and circle dance.
Lander borders the Wind River Indian Reservation, and unlike other Native/White neighboring communities, tensions remain low as shared resources bond those living within these foothills. So says the visitor center worker when she told her story of teaching yoga on the Reservation.
4. Lander Live
Local acts and big names appear in Lander during their free summer concert series, and I bring my beach chair early to get a place in the shade. Although the nights are chilling down, the days still bake anything daring to enter the sunlight. I bring lots of water, snacks, and my straw sunhat. But, as the concert opens, the sun shifts beyond the shade trees overhead, and I shift as I can closer to the blankets set out nearby by others.
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A few miles past the old fort on the Wind River Indian Reservation, the graves of Chief Washakie and Sacajawea stand testament to the willingness of the Shoshone to work with the white men exploring the western territories: Lewis and Clark between 1804 and 1806. After her service as translator and guide with Lewis and Clark, she returned to Fort Washakie with her son Jean Baptiste, ( a memorial to him stands next to her grave) and nephew Bazil, buried near her. She died in 1884.
Chief Washakie, perhaps the most famous of all Eastern Shoshone headmen and leaders, was known as both warrior and statesperson. He played a prominent role in the territorial and statehood development of Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.
6. Green River Lakes along Union Pass
The yellow bellied grasshoppers, airborn, clicking like impassioned castanets, punctuate the Cold Creek rhythms. The trail dances towards and away from the meandering creek where, in the distance now, four backpackers follow the flow, packs still on, fishing pole lines glistening in the sunlight as they troll for trout. Ponderosa Pine cones crunch underfoot along this gentle path through the open Cold Creek Canyon leading me within the Bridger-Teton Forest to a natural stone bridge.
Above the two Green River Lakes, 11, 645 foot Squaretop Mountain competes for iconic presence with Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Shrouded in California wildfire smoke, the Wind River peaks hold a grey mystery refusing to break through the day’s light. Along the eastern edge of the upper lake, where I stop to dip into the cold water, then sit to read in leisure, three mergansers play among themselves. Floating, fishing, flitting. Squaretop doesn’t miss any of this. Clouds move in, and I move again to take advantage of the sun’s absence. The Highline Trail following the lake’s edge back to the trailhead is exposed, with only the occasional pine to offer shady respite. The clouds tell their own tale, and thunder grumbles way off in the distance by the time I return to my truck.
Along the Green River leading to the lakes, anglers wade in the shallows and cast their lines. Free camping spots dot the river’s road trajectory and I watch the day end its stay, clouds moving through, casting night’s creeping shadows up and over Squaretop Mountain from my last night’s spot here in the Winds. I thank them for their gifts of majesty, of allowing me to feel my body strengthening again, of the humility reminding me of just how insignificant I am as a human. From this viewpoint, I understand the balance of the strong and soft, the need for it, the awe of it.
7. Into the Past, Into the Future
I’ve come full circle, the circumference of the Winds, back to Pinedale for a last goodbye—laundry, truck washing to leave the red dust behind, a hot shower at the Aquatic Center, a meal, gasoline. The loop: Pinedale, Big Sandy, Lander, Dubois up over Union Pass with its miles of elevation, miles of open space pasture, and Pinedale again. Nostalgia leaks out of me as I drive south again on WY 191 back to Rock Springs, then I 80 east to Laramie.
Somewhere between Laramie and Cheyenne, I stop for the night at the Vedauwoo section of the Medicine Bow National Forest, known to the Arapaho as “Land of the Earthborn Spirit.”
Past the paid forest campground and picnic area (money for the convenience of a picnic table and pit toilet), forest roads spider web their way into boulder sculptures. Fire rings and numbered stakes mark the legal sites. Tents and RVs tuck themselves close up to the rocks, and I keep driving. I turn left, then right, then left towards a large stony clump not that far away to the west. I find my fire ring and marker and pull in. No one else around. The sun lowers a bit, and I grab my camera and climb as I can among the boulders, ignoring the party graffiti, broken glass, and toilet paper remains.
I was prepared. The reviews on the free campsite list revealed the juxtaposition of natural boulder wonders and the human lack of respect.
“My wife and I often stay here as we traverse Wyoming on I 80. We love the convenience and the boulder formations. We always leave some extra time to clean up a bit around the site we choose,” one reviewer wrote.
I can picture the weekend party, alcohol flowing, bottles thrown in a shatter symphony to the glee of the drinkers. “Sorry,” I whisper to the rocks.
“Hello,” floats down from the highest boulder above me. Two small boys wave as their dad wraps a strap around one of them and lowers him down onto another rock. Early climbers learning the ropes—before the ropes. I wave back as they giggle.
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In the morning, with a passing memory of the Big Island of Hawai’i in the the winter of 2015, I find a plastic grocery bag, and start to pick up shards of broken glass. While waiting for the bus to Hilo from Pahala, my hostess and I joined a homeless man in monk’s robes to pick up the broken glass around the bus stop. It was our meditation for the morning, our homage to order, our apology for our human race.
I make a dent around the front of the boulder formation, and stop at picking up the used toilet paper.
When did we humans get so disconnected from our home—our planet? I wish our public nature places would have a trash deposit with a bag handed out. Upon leaving, the trash bag should be full, and the deposit returned. Or the deposit goes into a fund to hire someone to pick up the trash. There are accidents, I know, since I often stop on a hiking trail to pick up micro-trash. Band aid wrappers ripped out of a hiker’s hands in the wind or a rubber hiking pole tip the mud pulled off as kept treasure. A single glove, or hair band. But, broken glass is not that.
While watching the Ken Burns documentary on the history of the National Park system, I remember one early park official being quoted, “Trash left out there is a small price to pay to get people out into the wilderness areas.”
Was it? Is it now?
After fifteen minutes, I clear a swatch of the shards, some tin foil, bottle caps, and miscellaneous plastic trinkets. A rabbit scoots across the road and disappears into the boulders. I hope the pads on its paws are tough enough for the rest of the glass I didn’t get to.
Sagebrush covers much of the open lands through central Wyoming, and leftover history remains rutted into the landscape.
Along the Oregon Trail, explorers and pioneers were willing to brave the journey through differing harsh environments.
Not quite like my journey, maybe just in a different way.