Toadstool Park

Toadstool Geologic Park is not exactly on the way to and from anywhere, unless you're a coal train headed from Gillette to Atlanta.  It's about as far to the top left as you can go in Nebraska without being in either South Dakota or Wyoming.  I didn't spend much time there, and didn't seek out fossils or Eocene footprints (of which there are supposed to be many), but I did wander the short loop that wanders through the bizarre eroded formations and badlands that define this long topographic break across the high plains.

Black Thunder Mine

Long before the issue of coal exports raised its head in Washington this past year, I had wanted to spend some time around Gillette checking out the mines and the trains.  Reading John McPhee's account of a coal train in Uncommon Carriers was one impulse, but there were others.  Including my long-time fascination with energy, geology, and railroads.

My first introduction to the Black Thunder Mine was in 1981.  I had been offered a job with Schlumberger and the first thing they did was to fly me up from Denver to Gillette to go out on a logging job - probably the idea was to either whet the appetite of new engineers or to convince them to find another line of work.  I was checked in at the Holidome? and late that night my host engineer called to say a job was ready south of town.  I remember being amazed as we drove past the lights and equipment of Black Thunder sometime after midnight, on our way out to the rig site (which was somewhere farther east).  Something about the dragline at night looked like a scene out of science fiction.  The oil rigs turned out to be pretty cool at night, too.

I suppose a large fraction of the electricity generated in the U.S. is "mined" within a few tens of miles of Gillette.  And then shipped all over the country in conveyor belts that look a lot like long railroad trains with a big loop of track at each end - one at the mine, one at the power plant.  The rail system developed to service the mines in the swath that extends south from Gillette is pretty impressive.

The mines are a very real presence in this area, as are the oil pumps and rigs, the rail yards, and miles of industrial service and supply warehouses.  Personally, I have far more trouble with the commercial strips and the boom-bust character of the towns and the social problems that go with the young, transient population than I do with the coal mines and the oil wells themselves!  Maybe it's what I took away from several years in places like Williston, Dickinson, and Fort Morgan.

Thunder Basin

The Powder River Basin lies between the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains.  Some of it lies within the Thunder Basin Grassland, although I'm not sure what that management designation does or does not represent.  There are cattle and bison, prong horn and sage brush, crude oil and bituminous coal.

The sky is huge, the floor is olive gray, and the horizon is a continuous circle.  Mesas and buttes and rolling prairie and occasional sandy river bottoms compete for space.  I zigzagged my way from Casper north and east to Gillette and then southeast to Newcastle - I think I was trying to get a better sense of the wide-open multi-use landscape.  And just lots of chances to observe antelope, drag lines, oil rigs, and trains, along with lots and lots of sage brush and short-grass prairie and the American Steppe.

Independence Rock

I think despite all my driving across Wyoming, I never drove this section between Muddy Gap and Casper.  And never visited Independence Rock - one of numerous geologic landmarks along the old trails (Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluff, Pompey's Pillar, City of Rocks, Register Cliff, etc) - that lent themselves to carving initials and graffiti.

Independence Rock was so-called because travelers on the Oregon Trail typically reached this area in early July and may have often celebrated Independence Day here.  This would have been an amazing place to watch the wagon trains go through during the 1850s and 1860s.

I guess this qualifies as a granitic inselberg or a bornhardt, although it's not as large or as isolated as many better examples. It is an easy clamber to the top - just beware nooks and crannies hiding poisonous snakes.  And no need to add initials - the originals are interesting, the recent ones are not.

Jeffrey City

I remember driving through here frequently in the late 1970s and early 1980s - it's the main route between Laramie in the SE part of Wyoming and the Wind Rivers and Yellowstone in the NW part.

The west is full of towns like this along desert and high plains highways - I can picture several in the Mojave to add to those in Wyoming and Montana.  They are the archetypal "wide spots in the road."  What makes this one is unique is not its up and down history - that's a common theme - but it's association with uranium and its emergence as a commodity in the second half the 20th century.

Castle Gardens

I discovered Castle Gardens by accident when planning the trip - maybe a google search on Wyoming Petroglyphs - and only later recognized the connection with McPhee's book (see below).  It's not exactly on the main road.  And the BLM doesn't advertise it heavily, in part to protect some stunning native american artwork with a history of vandalism. But both the geologic landscape and the rock art are well worth the trip - as long the the road is dry. I suspect these roads would be impassable after a rain storm.


I re-read John McPhee's Rising from the Plains this spring in anticipation of this trip. It's partly about the geology and the landscape of Wyoming, but it's built around the geologist David Love, whose family's homestead and ranch was just a couple of miles west of here.

Oregon Buttes

The Great Basin is the largest interior drainage basin in the U.S., but not the only one.  The Great Divide Basin in central Wyoming is another place where drainage can go nowhere.  Of course, there's no water to have to drain in the first place.  I crossed the Continental Divide Trail (I should have been looking for it, although I doubt it gets the traffic that the Appalachian and the Pacific Crest get) and dropped over the rim, finding a perfect little spot for the tent in a little copse of alders.  The next morning - early, since the sun discovered my east-facing site quickly - I headed down into the basin and then eventually north through Oregon Buttes towards South Pass.

Oregon Buttes is so named because it was a landmark just south of the Oregon Trail where it crosses South Pass, the most anti-climatic (and therefore practical) crossing of the Rockies anywhere.  I rejoined the highway and had a late breakfast at MacDonalds in Lander.

Killpecker Dunes

One of my goals this trip was to explore back roads and remote places - hoping, of course, that my new car would not break down in the middle of nowhere, because I would have absolutely no idea how to fix it if it did.  I didn't see many cars on these roads - or animals, or signs, or buildings.  Verizon was far out of range. I can see why folks from Europe and Japan find this aspect of the U.S. so fascinating - the sheer amount of empty space is overwhelming within a nation that in most places craves development and connectivity.  I guess it's why I find it so appealing, too.

Green River Basin

I camped in the Wyoming Range, then drove north to Jackson for coffee and to find a copy of  Roadside Geology of Wyoming.  The drive south pushed all my nostalgia nerves - I think it was the Half Moon Motel in Pinedale where I stayed the night when I hiked out for supplies back during my five week solo in the Wind Rivers (in 1981).  Fremont Peak was clearly visible (it's a great hike to the top), as was most of the rest of the range (my post from Pinedale on our 2007 trip).

I continued south almost to Rock Springs, stopping in Farson long enough for more coffee and to check out real estate.  North of White Mountain I turned off the pavement and into the wilderness.

Bear Lake

I enjoyed getting off the freeway in southern Idaho, since I've done the direct route from Seattle to SLC many times at many hours of the day.  But it was a reminder that the mountain ranges all go north and south and that to go east or west, you inevitably zigzag, whether you are a covered wagon or 21st century Subaru.



After City of Rocks, I drove north again, reconnecting with the Interstate system for a few tens of miles - getting on the freeway was thwarted for 15 minutes while a herd of cattle was shepherded across an overpass.  Red Rock Pass is where Lake Bonneville overflowed into the Snake River system during the waning ice age and it is where Great Salt Lake (the leftover part of Lake B) would flow out of the Great Basin if it rained really hard for a few hundred years.

Bear Lake straddles the Idaho - Utah border, just east of their mutual border with Wyoming.  It drains into the Great Salt Lake and therefore is within the Great Basin - its waters are destined to evaporate without ever reaching the ocean.

City of Rocks

I somehow found it surprising that before planning for this trip, I had never heard of this place.  I can understand why I hadn't been there - it's sort of off the main road - I just couldn't understand why I hadn't heard of it. It's a fantastic landscape of granite knobs, a mecca for rock climbers, and it also turns out, an important landmark along the California Trail.