YCGL - The New Adventure - Ryan Park and Encampment - August 12, 2022

  

 I hope this works!

It didn't, so here's what happened yesterday.

I went over and talked to my neighbors after lunch.  They have a tear-drop camper, and certainly the nicest I've seen.  I didn't take pictures because that would have been rude, and really non-Scandinavian.  A nicely stocked kitchen in back under the "trunk lid" (the British Turtle Back really fits here.)  The cab is a queen sized bed with clothing and toiletry storage.  They have a changing tent (and I'm sure a potty) so they don't have to changing in the cabin sitting down.  And they can shower in the tent also.  They were heading up to the Black Hills on Saturday.  Actually, remember I said there was a group camping loop.  The group this weekend was for tear-drop campers.  When they tried to reserve a spot in May, they were already filled with people from this Denver club.  

I decided to go to the Grand Encampment Museum today/yesterday, the 12th.  The town of Encampment is the location of one of the Grand Encampments (or Rendezvous) of the fur traders in the 1820s.  Some of the people there were Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jim Baker and Charles Fremont.  It has been a meeting place for thousands of years, with native american artifacts preserving the historical record.  The museum is quite something.  About 15 buildings of historical significance to the community.  

  

A huge boon for the community was the discovery of copper in the mountains to the west.  While there were many mines opened, the best know was the Ferris-Haggerty Copper Mine.  The ore was smelted in Encampment/Riverside at the Boston-Wyoming Smelter.  The difficulty was the mine was over 15 miles west of Encampment and the 20 mule team wagons were expensive to haul the ore.  The solution was to build a 16.4 mile aerial tramway.  At the time, it was the longest tramway in the world.  The mine opened in the 1890s but closed in 1908 due to a fire in the smelter and a 35% drop in the price of copper.  This was a substantial mine, listed as one of the top thirty copper mines in the world.  While most of the ore contained 5-8% copper, significant rocks held up to 35% copper by weight.  Most current copper ores are at less than 1% copper.  

The loss of the mine was an economic blow to the community in 1908 and it has never regained its former wealth or importance to the state.  The biggest industry in the area is cattle ranching, but being high, the cattle need hay for the winter, so it is a costly business. There is also forestry and tourism, with several large dude ranches around.  The North Platte River goes through town and is renowned for its fishing and hunting.  

Of course, the best known building at the museum is:

 

The famed two story outhouse!  This is a replica of the real one, which a rancher built when he got tired of shoveling snow to get to the outhouse.  He decided that just building a taller one made more sense!

Encampment is also important to me as it is the location of my last research project for the university.   A section of WY 70 between Encampment and Baggs, WY had a short stretch of road with a significant frost heave problem.  Working with a good friend, Roy Mathis and his company, we injected a 3-4 inch layer of structural polymer below the highway subgrade that insulated the soil and prevented the water from freezing below it.  There are a lot of interesting details about the freezing process, but I'll let you read the final report we submitted to WYDOT.  (If you can find it.  Talk about obscure!)  Anyway, after leaving the museum, I drove up there and drove over the section.  Not terribly exciting during the summer, but our research showed reduction in frost heave from 3-4 inches to under 0.5 inches.  You can't feel it when you drive.  (:))  (Happy Face emoji with a beard.)  Driving back into town, I was struck again about the beauty of this location.  As many times as I drove down this hill, I never lost the interest in this view.

I had tried to make reservations at Bella's, an Italian restaurant in Saratoga, 20 miles north but was informed that they were full for Thursday-Sunday and I could make a reservation for next week.  So instead, I ate at the Mangy Moose in Riverside.  The MM was a rocking bar and restaurant, well known throughout the area.  When I was there at 6:30 on a Friday evening, they were cooking hamburgers out on the deck and there were maybe 8-10 people hanging out there.  The hamburger became a double patty cheese burger that really was good, but inside the building, it was empty.  It was really sad.  

Driving back, I found by accident a spot about a mile west of Brush Creek Ranch that had two bars of Verizon signal.  This is significant, because there is no Verizon activity for miles around.  Brush Creek Ranch is this little resort located on 33,000 acres when we were there two years ago, but they were in negotiations for another 4,000 acres so who knows how much there is now.  Rooms are between $800-1200 a night,  and people come to hunt and fish and push poor cows around and all.  They were telling us when Jared and Ivanka come to visit, they rent out the entire ranch, bring their own staff, including chefs, because, hey, you wouldn't want to be uncomfortable at a guest ranch, I guess.  You may notice a little bit of mixed feelings about the place.  A bunch of rich folks buying up land.  I know, I know.  But the family ranch is getting to be a thing of the past, and we are going to pay for it in the end.....

  

So, when I got back to the campground, I got my folding WES chair and went and sat by the stream and read til it was too dark to read anymore.  And it cost me $5.00 a night.  Thanks Golden Pass.  I brought my own chef also, but I probably don't cook as well as they do....

The ridge line along the horizon is the Continental Divide, about 50 miles away.  I love this place!