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June 18, 2021

Casper & Thermopolis, Wyoming

Visited June 14 (Casper) and June 15 - 18, 2021 (Thermopolis)

By Marty


Fellow travelers!  Could this be us in 20 years?? Will the beast live that long?

After a long overdue and very enjoyable Denver visit with Matt, Garrett, and Arlo we headed west, much as the pioneers did in the mid 1800's.  Well, not exactly. We were driving an air conditioned motorhome on paved highways.

We stopped in Casper, Wyoming for one night to visit the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. This one caught my eye while doing our Wyoming research late last year. I thought it would be interesting and boy was it ever! 

Above is a Prairie Schooner, so named because it's canvas top reminded emigrants of sails on a ship. These light farm wagons could carry about 2,000 lbs of food and supplies.

Between 1841 and 1868 an estimated 500,000 American emigrants passed through Casper, WY on their way to new lives in the West. The Oregon, Mormon Pioneer, California, and Pony Express trails all passed through Casper. 

Why?  I'll tell you why: The best place to cross the Rocky Mountains without the benefit of an air conditioned motorhome is at South Pass, WY, about 200 miles west of Casper. At an elevation of 7,411' South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the central and southern Rocky Mountains. South Pass was the only place suitable to cross the Rockies by way of ox drawn wagons. 

The starting point for the emigrants was Independence, MO for the California and Oregon Trails and Nauvoo, IL for the Mormon pioneers. The Great Platte River Route was the common route, following the Platte and North Platte rivers west for roughly 600 miles. Casper was the point at which the emigrants had to cross the North Platte river to continue their westward journey.




A well done and informative 17 minute video about the migration was presented on the curved screen above the displays.



The three trails diverged beyond South Pass in southwest Wyoming

I was curious as to how many of us living in the west today are descendants of those 500,000 hardy souls that passed through Casper, Wyoming in the largest voluntary migration in US history. I had no luck whatsoever in tracking down this number so I calculated one myself. I used historical US birthrate numbers from the 1840's until now and came up with a ROUGH estimate of 13 million people. Might one of you reading this trace your lineage to those adventurous and determined Americans?


This image provides a visual sense of the geographic challenges faced by the pioneers: mountains, snow, rivers, deserts.


Crossing the North Platte River at Casper.


Crossing the river was dangerous. In the early years of the migration the only way was to ford the river while swimming the animals across. The goal was to reach Casper and this river crossing by June in order to make it over the western mountain ranges and reach the destination before winter's onset. Unfortunately June is also when the river was running the highest and coldest.

For a detailed and interesting account of the challenges and methods of crossing the river by the westward pioneers check out this article:  Crossing the North Platte River

 

Against my better judgment Janell decided to cross the river in a covered wagon. When she puts her mind to something...





We were able to spend a few hours in Casper on a travel day because we only had 135 miles to travel to Thermopolis. I chose Thermopolis for a four night stay because I thought the name sounded cool and because the town is known for hot springs. More on the hot springs later.

Thermopolis is the largest town (population 3,009) in Hot Springs County, which is Wyoming's second smallest county. Did you know that Wyoming has the smallest population of any US state at 580,000 people? Neither did we!





Have I got a deal for you kid...

 Wyoming's first state park (1897)

 Thermopolis is from the Greek for "Hot City" and the big attraction in town is the hot springs. 

 

Thermopolis claims to have the "World's largest mineral hot springs".  If you read it on the side of a hill it must be true, right?


The mineral hot springs flow over colorful terraces along the Big Horn River at a rate of 18,000 gallons every 24 hours with a constant temperature of 128 degrees F.

 

The springs are open to the public for free as part of an 1896 treaty signed with the Shoshone and Arapaho Indian tribes who turned the land over to the city.



The mineral water flowing into the Bighorn River


The State Park free Bath House has indoor and outdoor mineral hot springs pools, maintained at 104 degrees for therapeutic bathing. Janell and I went for a very therapeutic "soak". 


Wyoming's state bison herd has called Hot Springs State Park home since 1916



Someone is feeling his oats today....


Approaching with caution. We have seen signage repeatedly when we have been in bison (buffalo) country that these animals can be unpredictable and dangerous!


Throwing caution to the wind..

"I'll have a coke, french fries and a bison burger... err, on second thought, make that a turkey sandwich..."


We drove an hour northeast of Thermopolis to the hamlet of Ten Sleep to check out the Ten Sleep Brewing Company. The brewery setting was quite the pretty picture.




From the "curious minds want to know" department: The town name "Ten Sleep" results from it's origin as a Native American place to stop and rest that was ten days' travel from Fort Laramie (southeast), Yellowstone National Park (west) and the Indian Agency on the Stillwater River in Montana (northwest)



We took a rafting trip on the Wind River through the beautiful Wind River Canyon. The chart above shows the location of the rapids. Most were Class II and III with one Class IV near the end.  We have no photos of the rafting trip to show you because there were no decent ones taken by the tour operator photographer (she was the van driver standing on the side of the river). I didn't bring my phone for photos because: a) there aren't many opportunities to pull it out of the dry bag when you have to be ready to paddle at any moment and b) the tour operator strongly suggested not bringing "anything you don't want to lose" in the river.



These photos of the Wind River and Wind River Canyon were taken from the roadside on our way out of Thermopolis.


The Wind River headwaters begin east of the Grand Tetons at the continental divide. The river flows southeast before turning north at the Wind River canyon. The Wind River flows mostly through the Wind River Native American Reservation, one of the largest reservations by area (7th) and population (5th) in the US. The Reservation is shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes.

Interestingly the Wind River becomes the Bighorn River at the north end of the canyon just outside of Thermopolis. The name change occurs at "the wedding of the waters" at the northern edge of the reservation. It seems that the Wyoming settlers were heck bent on naming the river the Bighorn and did so as soon as the river exited the Indian Reservation.

More river talk (I find this stuff interesting):  The Big Horn river flows north to the Yellowstone River which flows to the Missouri. And of course the Missouri flows to the Big Muddy. You'll remember from a prior post that the Mississippi River watershed covers 40% of the USA and that this watershed is the fourth largest in the world. So the water that Janell and I rafted in will eventually drift past the French Quarter in New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico. That's thought provoking.  

And don't get me started on the fact that the Big Horn River flows north. As do the Yellowstone and Little Missouri Rivers. That just seem wrong. Doesn't that defy the law of gravity?































2 comments:

  1. That was a fantastic museum, and very interesting about Thermopolis history during the westward travel of the pioneers. Beautiful Wyoming scenery too. Did you go by Green River on I80 to see any changes in the last 51 years since you were there?🤣 😘

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great pics. I might have to steal your Thermopolis pics. The colors are gorgeous. My pics look down right dingy in comparison.😀

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