Our drive from Glendo to West Jordan would take us to Caspar, WY and then through the middle of the state before rejoining I-80 and crossing into Utah. We looked up things to do along the way and found out that some of the places I added to my "list of things to see" back in May were along our route. I saw a lot of paintings of natural features in the LDS Church History Museum that were things the pioneers saw on their trek to Salt Lake. Some of them looked really cool. The ones that stood out to me were Devil's Gate, Devil's Backbone, Independence Rock, Ayres Natural Bridge and Chimney Rock. The first four of those five were actually right along our route so we made plans to visit them, even if the weather wasn't the best today.
First on the list was Ayres Natural Bridge. It is near Douglas, WY, just southeast of Caspar and less than an hour from Glendo. This was one of many camping spots along the Oregon Trail and another navigational landmark. The Ayres Natural Bridge is a big chunk of rock extending over the La Prele Creek. It is now a park with camping and picnic tables available along the creek. This is an easily accessible feature. You can drive to within 50 feet of the bridge and it is a smooth walk to go right up to the rocks. The creek is shallow and can be crossed underneath the bridge and you can even climb up and walk across the top of the bridge. It is a really cool area and worth a stop in if you are ever driving through.
First on the list was Ayres Natural Bridge. It is near Douglas, WY, just southeast of Caspar and less than an hour from Glendo. This was one of many camping spots along the Oregon Trail and another navigational landmark. The Ayres Natural Bridge is a big chunk of rock extending over the La Prele Creek. It is now a park with camping and picnic tables available along the creek. This is an easily accessible feature. You can drive to within 50 feet of the bridge and it is a smooth walk to go right up to the rocks. The creek is shallow and can be crossed underneath the bridge and you can even climb up and walk across the top of the bridge. It is a really cool area and worth a stop in if you are ever driving through.
Bison farm on the drive into the park
Ayres Natural Bridge
La Prele Creek running into the park
Steep, but short trail up to the top of the bridge
Red cliffs visible from the top of the bridge
Walking across the top of the bridge. Not just a slab of rock on top.
After Ayres, we drove through Caspar with rain for most of the way. We caught a break while at Ayres and were able to hike around in the dry. Once we got west of Caspar, the rain stopped again and the wind picked up. We began to search for the Devil's Backbone. Of the places we planned to visit today, this one was the hardest to find before and during the trip. There is little info about its exact location online. The area is known as Rock Avenue, where rows of rocks stick up on their edge, jutting out of the land. It was another landmark on the Oregon Trail. Here, the path went between two rows of vertical rock ridges. The western end had the biggest rock sticking up and was called Devil's Backbone. It is hard to find now as the landscape has been greatly altered over time by blasting for construction. We couldn't find good directions to the rocks, so we just started searching in the area where we knew it should be. We struck out for the first little while and were about to give up when I saw some rocks in the distance north of the main road. We found a dirt road and worked our way in that general direction, parking on the side of the road at the bottom of the hill where I thought I saw the rocks. We hiked in the drizzly rain up to the top of the hill and found ourselves right on the old trail between the two ridges of rocks.
We hiked around the ridges and climbed up on the Devil's Backbone. Supposedly, this was another area where a few names were inscribed in the rock, but they are now lost due to damage by both nature and man. We couldn't find a single name still remaining. It was beautiful, but also sad as I'm sure this area looked a lot better in the past before the blasting damaged the rocks. It was only about 30 degrees with lots of wind, but we spent a good hour walking around just taking in the scene. It was really amazing to see these rocky ridges sticking up from what was otherwise smooth ground where the plains met rolling hills.
Coming up the hill into Rock Avenue
Small arch in the foreground with another ridge of rocks in the background.
Vertical rocks sticking up from the ground
We hiked around the ridges and climbed up on the Devil's Backbone. Supposedly, this was another area where a few names were inscribed in the rock, but they are now lost due to damage by both nature and man. We couldn't find a single name still remaining. It was beautiful, but also sad as I'm sure this area looked a lot better in the past before the blasting damaged the rocks. It was only about 30 degrees with lots of wind, but we spent a good hour walking around just taking in the scene. It was really amazing to see these rocky ridges sticking up from what was otherwise smooth ground where the plains met rolling hills.
Devil's Backbone
We were being watched
Pronghorn and a view
Ridge on the left, Devil's Backbone in the center and another ridge to the right. The Oregon Trail went between two of these ridges, making up Rock Avenue.
Further up the road we had a nice view of Alcova Reservoir before we made it to Independence Rock. This also was a meeting place and navigational marker along the Oregon Trail. The massive domed rock is located on a big plain. There are some rocky hills around, but nothing like this giant, fully-exposed hunk of granite. Independence Rock is the most famous landmark on the Oregon Trail. The name comes from emigrants that celebrated Independence Day on the rock on July 4, 1825. The first wagons began to come through in 1832. It is also called "The Register of the Desert," due to the names of emigrants carved into it. There are thousands of names carved all over the giant rock. It is also a major historical site for Wyoming and features markers dedicated to all the groups that passed by on their way to the west, including Methodists from 1834-1844 and Mormons in 1847. Most of those plaques were placed on July 4 of various years to keep with the theme. Independence Rock is also the site of the first Mason lodge in Wyoming in 1826, also taking place on July 4.
Overlooking the Alcova Reservoir
Independence Rock
Independence Rock is easily accessible. There is a Wyoming Rest Area right in front of the rock off Hwy 220. It is a very short walk on flat concrete to the rock. A gravel path circles all the way around and you can climb up onto the rock in several places to see more names and better views. Most of the names are located on the top on the end overlooking the rest area. There were rabbits everywhere! They were in the grass, on the trail, on the side of the rock and even running around on top. Shannon and I got separated when I decided to climb to the top. She isn't a fan of heights, but did end up making her way to the top and we refound each other.
Rabbit as we neared the rock
Rabbit on the rock wall
Narrow side path to see some names
Me climbing to the top
Nice views as I climbed
Rabbits even living on top of the rock
Walking across the top
We had one more stop to make before we set sail for Utah. Devil's Gate was a landmark we wanted to hike to. It was located just a few miles west of Independence Rock. Again, we had no idea it was part of the Oregon Trail, but it was another area of importance for the emigrants. Devil's Gate is a gorge where the Sweetwater River has eaten all the way through a mountain, leaving tall cliffs on either side of the river. On the western side of the mountain is Martin's Cove. If you are familiar with LDS church history, this was a significant area where the pioneers camped as they made their way toward the Salt Lake Valley.
The area is most well-known for a tragic event in 1856, when many Mormon travelers died on their way to Salt Lake. The Willie and Martin Handcart Companies were some of the last settlers to leave in the great church migration west. They departed England in May of that year, which was late for making the full trek to Salt Lake in a single year. They were delayed several times before finally departing Florence, NE in August. With cross-country communication being difficult in that time period, the people in Salt Lake had no idea these companies had left so late and were on their way. They encountered many more setbacks including broken wagons and the loss of cattle. They once lost over 30 cattle at one time when a herd of bison came running right at the company and the cattle took off with the bison. That forced the handcarts to take on more weight as they no longer had enough cattle to pull the wagons.
The Willie company reached Fort Laramie, WY in September and the Martin Company a few days later in October. They expected to restock with provisions at Fort Laramie, but none were available. They were forced to ration their food and leave behind any extra weight, including extra clothing and blankets. Another party reached Salt Lake the first week of October and delivered the news that the other two parties were coming. The President of the church at the time, Brigham Young, organized a search party to go find the two companies and provide them with supplies as winter was approaching. On October 19, a major blizzard hit Wyoming and both companies were severely affected. Both were nearly out of food and lacking the clothing necessary to combat the cold. Several members of the Martin Company perished between lack of food and the cold. They began to eat the cattle they had left in order to have some food.
The initial rescue party reached the Willie Company and gave them food to help them along to the next rescue party that would take them to Salt Lake. Part of the first rescue party continued on to find the Martin Company, who had now lost 56 members. A slaughtered bison helped feed the group and likely saved many lives, as did the arrival of medical help. Amputations were performed on the injured to stop the spread of gangrene and because of severe frostbite.
The group finally made it to Devil's Gate in November, going around to the western side which offered more protection from the weather. This area is now called Martin's Cove. A fur trading post had been located here, but was now abandoned. The emigrants had to cross the Sweetwater River on November 4 which was shallow, but wide and full of floating ice. It took hours to cross with all their people and carts, but they finally made it. The weather was bitterly cold that evening. The wind blew down their tents and then heavy snow fell, freezing most of the remaining cattle to death. Some of the fur post building was burned to create heat for the poeple. The Willie Company reached Salt Lake on November 9, while it would be November 30 before the surviving members of the Martin Company arrived. Some of the members of the rescue party had to remain at Martin's Cove over the winter.
We had no idea that we were driving right into Martin's Cove and a church history site. The church operates a museum and other displays documenting the journey and struggles of the pioneers. There is a trail around the property where you can take a wagon or handcart out for a little taste of what it was like back in those days. We toured the historical sites with the help of a missionary couple, then went for our planned hike over to Devil's Gate. It wasn't a long hike and was very easy. And it was very worth it. The sound of the running water was amplified by the rock walls. We climbed through the gorge until we couldn't find a way through to go any further, then turned back.
Fireplace in the museum made of rocks from all over the world, including a petrified mammoth tusk, which is the round thing on the left side.
Memorial marker for the rescue of the Martin Company in 1856 with Devil's Gate in the background.
Hiking along the Sweetwater River
Devil's Gate
On the trail into the Gate
Rock hopping inside the gorge
Video: Inside Devil's Gate
Stopping by Martin's Cove was a really cool experience. I cannot even begin to imagine the hardships of the people who walked the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. Devil's Gate was beyond amazing, even through the drizzle and cold. It was also very cool to hike along the Sweetwater River since our farm is called Sweetwater Farms. We actually came up with the name while driving home through Wyoming on I-80 a few years ago. There is one area where everything is called "Sweetwater _" and it just sounded like a nice name to us. Now I think it is even more fitting that we picked that name considering this river was a part of the history of the LDS church.
It was late in the afternoon when we ended our Devil's Gate hike. The last three stops took much longer than expected since we had to search for the first, got separate on the second and then stumbled upon much more to see than planned at the third. We had no intentions of following the Oregon Trail, we just wanted to see the natural features of Wyoming and it turned out that all the sites we chose were along the trail. I am glad we did it because reading all the pioneer history added much more to each of the places. Our only other stop on the day was for dinner in Rawlins, otherwise it was hammer-down to Gma's. We ran into a nasty thunderstorm on the last higher-elevation pass of Wyoming. On a day this cold the rain turned to snow on the small mountain and the road got a bit sketchy, but we made it through. We experienced our first thundersnow near Evanston, where it was thundering and lightning during the snowstorm. Lightning even hit a giant wind turbine next to the interstate and sent sparks flying. It was crazy for a few minutes, but once we reached Utah, the storm began to decline and we made it safely to Gma's house.
That wraps up the first leg of the trip. More from our time in West Jordan coming in the next post. Thanks for reading!
It was late in the afternoon when we ended our Devil's Gate hike. The last three stops took much longer than expected since we had to search for the first, got separate on the second and then stumbled upon much more to see than planned at the third. We had no intentions of following the Oregon Trail, we just wanted to see the natural features of Wyoming and it turned out that all the sites we chose were along the trail. I am glad we did it because reading all the pioneer history added much more to each of the places. Our only other stop on the day was for dinner in Rawlins, otherwise it was hammer-down to Gma's. We ran into a nasty thunderstorm on the last higher-elevation pass of Wyoming. On a day this cold the rain turned to snow on the small mountain and the road got a bit sketchy, but we made it through. We experienced our first thundersnow near Evanston, where it was thundering and lightning during the snowstorm. Lightning even hit a giant wind turbine next to the interstate and sent sparks flying. It was crazy for a few minutes, but once we reached Utah, the storm began to decline and we made it safely to Gma's house.
That wraps up the first leg of the trip. More from our time in West Jordan coming in the next post. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment