Michael Janke

I can’t resist posting a couple more pics of Buckhorn Draw and the Wedge Overlook.

We left the area a couple days ago, heading north through Flaming Gorge. This time on the west side of the gorge. To get from east to west one crosses over a gnarly mountain pass. We saw a couple of really nice forest service campgrounds up in the pass, but unfortunately by the time we agreed they’d make a nice spot for the night we had driven a ways down the switchbacks and didn’t have the energy to turn around and head back up. Maybe next time.

The next day we headed for Lander, Wyoming and Sink’s Canyon. The upper canyon is still closed – presumably there is still too much snow. We hiked a few miles along the Popo Agie river in the lower canyon. A nice hike.

From Lander we headed east along the general route of the Oregon Trail. At the Split Rock turnout we caught a distant view of the Wind River Mountains.

The scenery in central Wyoming can be beautiful. Here’s a view from the Red Canyon Overlook south of Lander.

Tonight (Friday) we’re camped at Pathfinder Resovior in one of the county’s primitive campgrounds, watching the occasional rain shower pass by. It’s quiet here. One camper (us) and one fisherman.

Many of the turnouts and much of the signage in this area is devoted to the Oregon Trail. I’m never sure how to feel when I see the remnants of the westward migration.

I think that the Trail and the westward migration needs to be viewed both through the lens of one that is treking west following their hopes and dreams, but also through the lens of one whose home of hundreds or thousands of years is being invaded by foreigners who thought of you as sub-human and whose army was often quite happy to see you and your family laying dead on the plains. So we don’t spend a lot of time sightseeing the remaining bits of the Oregon Trail.

From here we head east to home.