Wyoming

My husband, Mr. Matt, lived in Wyoming for a portion of his life. You can use the discussion page to ask him questions. He is going to give you a little bit of information about Wyoming on this page too.

From Matt: I moved to [|Green River] in 1979 and graduated from High School in the Spring of 1980. It took Mrs. Raymond almost the full school year in Baton Rouge to wonder where I had gone. No one in my old high school seemed to know. She really just asked the wrong people. It was funny that her brother heard three times where I was going before I left but he didn't pay attention.

Green River is located in southwestern Wyoming on the Green River and is the site where [|John Wesley Powell] launched the first expedition by a survey team of the Colorado River down through the Grand Canyon. Powell is an amazing explorer and had lost one arm in the American Civil War. Can you imagine him pulling on an oar for his large boat with just one arm? The island where he launched his boats is known as Expedition Island and is the site of a small park with lots of neat stuff including a man-made rapids for kayaks. My friends and I would use old tire tubes and go "tubing" on the river during the summertime.

The country around the Green River was an important site for mountain men, fur trappers and early explorers. Each year, during the Summer, after the snows on the plains had melted, the [|mountain men] would meet at one location and trade their furs for the goods that they needed to trap for another Winter. This became known as the Green River Rendezvous and is still an annual tradition in the area. I am fascinated by the mountain men. [|People] such as Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Joe Meek (I knew one of his relatives), Hugh Glass, and [|John "Liver Eating" Johnston] (the movie "[|Jeremiah Johnson]" was loosely based on his life) lived very solitary lives while they trapped and traded with the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. They explored the region and gave American names to many of the wondrous sights in Wyoming and the west. Tell me something - what was the most important animal the mountain men trapped and why was it important? What indian tribes would these men have encountered when traveling in southwestern Wyoming? I would have liked to be a mountain man.

Green River is north of the [|Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.] My friends and I would go boating and water skiing there during the summer but the water was always cold. My father liked to fish there but I didn't because I never caught anything. Instead, my brother, my cousin and I would drive my old VW Camper to [|Ashley National Forest] to camp under the stars and fish for brook trout. "Brookies" are pretty stupid for trout and we could easily catch our breakfast and dinner. Why don't you find out what is meant by a "gorge"? You might also see if you can discover why it is called the "flaming" gorge.

Green River is located close to the old [|Pony Express] route. In fact there is an old Pony Express and Overland Stage station near [|Point of Rocks], Wyoming that you can see from Interstate 80. I used to pass it on my way back and forth to college and I always looked at it in amazement. The riders of the Pony Express were generally teenage boys who could could conquer their fear of being killed by Indians. Can you imagine what a thrill it would have been to be an express rider? Why do you think they did it? What was their job? What other dangers did they face?

Green River is also located on the original railroad line that crossed the Western territories of the United States. The [|transcontinental railroad] was created during a race between two rail companies to link California with the Midwestern United States. This would open up the west to easier travel and make settling the Western states much easier. What was the "Golden Spike" and where was it placed? How many days did it take to cross the west by land and by sea before the railroad was completed? How many days did it take using the railroad? How much food would you have needed to take with you on the crossing?

Green River is also located near the [|Red Desert] in the [|Great Divide Basin]. The Red Desert is home to America's largest "living" sand dunes. I am amazed by the variety of flora and fauna in a desert such as this one. Why do you think it is sometimes called a "living" desert? What do I mean by flora and fauna? I spent only a little time in this area and wish I had spent more time there. The sand dunes are supposed to be spectacular and are very colorful.

Well, I will stop here. Perhaps next week, I will tell you about my travels in Yellowstone National Park. I spent quite a few weeks there with family, friends or by myself. Later, I may also tell you about life in Laramie, where I went to the University of Wyoming.

**Part 2:** 

When I lived in Wyoming, I spent a lot of time in [|Yellowstone National Park]. I learned to camp and fish and backpack so I eventually found my way to Yellowstone. Yellowstone was originally called Colter's Hell because the description by the first white man to describe it, [|John Colter]. Because Yellowstone is filled with paintpots, geysers, [|mudpots], [|fumaroles] and sulfurous springs, it is a smoky, stinky place. When Colter made it back to his expedition, he made it sound like the classical vision of hell and I am sure his friends didn't believe him at first. After all, mountain men were notorious for their tall tales, like the story of the [|glass mountain] in Wyoming.

Sure enough, though, it was determined that Colter didn't tell a tall tale and Yellowstone became a big attraction because of its mysterious beauty. It was so popular that it became our first national park.

Yellowstone was formed from the giant [|caldera] of a dormant volcano. What is the difference between an active, a dormant and an extinct volcano? The volcano is [|monitored] to make sure we are prepared for the next eruption. Yellowstone is a very large park and big sections of it are filled with all of the active volcanic features known generally as thermal areas or thermally active areas. I spent may days walking around the park, both on prepared walkways and on back country trails. I really enjoyed the thermal areas because they were beautiful and weird looking. When you approach a mudpot or a hot spring, you have to be very careful because the ground is like the crust on a pie; placing too much weight on it can cause you to fall into the thermal area. Many of the volcanic features are hot enough to cause serious burns.

My first trip was in 1979 with my parents. We didn't camp but had rooms in a lodge and drove around the park. Many of the features of the park are located a short distance from the main road and they have wood plank walkways that are easy for people of all ages and abilities to walk. I didn't know it at the time but this would set me up for my next few trips.

It took me a while to go back again and this time my brother, Tim and my best friend, Danny, joined me. My friend had just graduated from LSU and was looking for something fun to do. I decided to take him backpacking. We did not initially go to Yellowstone because it was not an easy trek to get there from Laramie. We first stopped at [|Devil's Tower] National Monument. Devil's Tower is an igneous intrusion. Look that up and see what it means. We walked around the tower and then camped in South Dakota in the [|Black Hills]. I remember it rained that night and the three of us were pretty cramped in my [|dome tent]. Eventually Danny left the tent and slept in Tim's Ford Explorer.

The next day, we drove across northern Wyoming to enter Yellowstone from the Northeast entrance. We found a place to camp for the night while we planned our first trip. It was cold that night, even though it was early June. We decided to pack along the Yellowstone River in the northern part of the park. We hiked in a few miles and set up our first camp. I wanted to see a waterfall that was a mile past the campsite so I left Tim and Danny cooking our dinner while I went off by myself. Along the way, I found a great big, steaming pile of poop in the middle of the trail. It looked like human poop but I knew there were no other human hikers in the area and humans are supposed to clean up their waste in the back country. I knew what it meant. A [|Grizzly bear] was letting me know he or she knew I was there and was telling me that he knew. He must have been there only a minute or two before me because that pile of poop was still warm! I wasn't scared but I should have been because Griz are pretty big and can be pretty mean. Anyway, I saw the waterfall and headed back to my friends. I let them know what I had seen. They thought I was telling a tall tale.

I will tell you more about this trip and my favorite trip in a few days. Bye for now.