Along Wyoming's emigrant trails

Wagon wheels, wild horses and wide open spaces

By Eric Lindberg

An estimated half-million people funneled through Wyoming during the mid-1800s on their way west along the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. They left few records of their passage. But scattered across the state are intriguing remnants of this great migration.

Today, in the country's least-populated state, traces of these historic trails remain in wagon wheel ruts, forts and cliffs where early emigrants etched names and dates in ancient rock. Travelers can follow the old routes through landscapes little changed since that time.

I join the trail at Fort Laramie, not far from the Nebraska state line. Nestled along the banks of the North Platte River, the fort was once the most important outpost of the new frontier. Here, travelers replenished supplies, obtained fresh animals and mailed letters home before continuing westward.

On this breezy afternoon the parade ground is quiet. Restored infantry barracks, captain's quarters and guardhouses look much as they did when the post was the center for Indian Affairs and a Pony Express station. Stark ruins of the hospital rise from a bluff overlooking the fort. Deer browse under shimmering cottonwood trees. On the hour, a lone bugler blows his horn, sending clipped military notes across the grass.

Driving west along the river for 30 minutes, I turn south at the town of Guernsey and follow signs to Oregon Trail Ruts Historic Site. Here wagon wheels and ox hooves carved gashes up to five feet deep in the soft sandstone, as thousands of emigrants climbed the bluffs above the river. The rolling hills, once livened by the commotion of travelers' voices and clattering wagons, are silent now. Only the wind whistling through the pines breaks the stillness.

A few miles away, cream-colored Register Cliff rises 150 feet above the river. The long rock face is covered with hundreds of names and dates from the mid-1800s, etched by men and women passing through on their way west. Most would never return to the homes they left behind.

As I follow the trail, standing in the ruts, reading names carved by their hands, my respect grows for these early travelers. One in ten would never complete the journey, felled by disease, winter cold or accidents on the trail. But most would succeed, pushing on to start new lives.

I turn west, joining the thin stream of pickup trucks and horse trailers on the interstate to Casper. Traffic is sparse. Next to the road, pinto and appaloosa horses graze on sagebrush slopes. Sightlines spread for miles in every direction. Plains rise into hills and plateaus, then fold into distant dark mountains.

Downtown Casper is an assortment of historical buildings dating from the oil boom of the early 1900s. The elegant 1921 Rialto Theater blazes with neon light as the sun goes down. At Lou Taubert Ranch Outfitters, I join ranching families as they socialize and browse over four floors of Western shirts, Stetson hats, cowboy boots and fist-sized belt buckles.

On a sandy ridge overlooking Casper sits the National Historic Trails Center. Opened in 2002, the facility combines technology with old building materials to recreate the experience of the pioneers crossing the new frontier. Since the surrounding area is off-limits to hunting, herds of semi-tame antelope are a permanent fixture around the center, allowing close views of these normally wary animals.

It's easy to get away from the crowds in Wyoming because there are none. But I want to go where civilization hasn't left its mark, a high, lonesome place where echoes of the old west still blow across desolate stretches of nothing. A resident directs me to the South Big Horn/Red Wall Scenic Backway, off the interstate just west of Casper.

One of several Scenic Backways in the state, this 110-mile gravel loop road winds through spectacular scenery, from prairie grasslands and badlands to red rock canyons. Flocks of horned larks spring from the road. Antelope look up from grazing to watch me pass.

I stop where I like, surrounded by a vast country that sprawls far to the horizon. Wind rattles through the sagebrush, breaking the immense silence. This, I imagine, is what the emigrants saw. In four hours, only two cars pass.

Back on the interstate, I reach the town of Shoshoni, crossroads for Thermopolis Hot Springs and points north, as well as the road west to Yellowstone. It's also the home of Yellowstone Drug Store, boasting "the best malts and shakes in the state" since 1909. Road-weary travelers congregate here and choose from more than 50 flavors of ice cream.

Turning south, the road passes through ranching communities and larger towns. At Lander the lure of coffee houses and bookstores along the main street provokes an unplanned stop. Fortified by latte, I chat with several locals at an espresso bar. "Watch out for elk on your way up the pass," one of them tells me. "You run into one of them and it's hard to say who'll be in worse shape, the elk or your car."

South of Lander the road climbs into the Wind River Range. Pine and aspen cling to the steep hillsides. At the top of South Pass I rejoin the Emigrant Trail, more than 100 miles after leaving it in Casper.

Here at 7,660 feet, a monotone sea of knee-high sagebrush spreads for miles in all directions. Crows chase across an empty sky. A small roadside monument marks the area where emigrants crossed the Continental Divide and passed into Oregon Country.

Beyond the stone marker, shallow ruts from wagon wheels fade into the distance and disappear in the scrub desert. Travelers' spirits must have risen at this point. Their journey was two-thirds complete.

The lure of wild horses pulls me south to Rock Springs and Sweetwater County, home to 3,000 of the state's 5,000 feral horses. They are descendents of domestic animals that escaped from emigrants, cavalry and Native Americans a century ago. Countless herds now roam the region's plateaus and ravines.

Just north of Rock Springs, Pilot Butte rises sharply from the surrounding high desert. It's the site of the Wild Horse Scenic Loop, a 23-mile self-guided drive where visitors can view horses from their car. The tourist office has directed me here with the assurance that I'll have a "98% chance" of seeing at least a few.

The road climbs the plateau's backside and snakes across the flat tabletop. Jackrabbits bound away as my car approaches. Several sage grouse, called "bombers" by the locals, flush from the bushes and fly off. In the clear air, I can see 100 miles southwest to the distant Uinta Mountain Range.

Around a bend, a small herd of wild horses appears on a nearby rise. A brown and white paint, the dominant male, stands guard over three chestnut mares and two leggy colts. Nearby, a bay stallion with bite marks on his back eyes the herd, challenging the authority of the paint.

The herd leader is edgy, watching the bay and standing erect whenever he comes too close to the harem. Finally, his tolerance exhausted, the paint charges and drives the smaller horse away. Dust settles, and peace returns to the herd.

Like the wagon wheel ruts and fading names immortalized in rock, the wild horses endure, untamed remnants of the old American West.

Eric Lindberg is a freelancer writer and photographer based in Lakewood, Colorado.