Rockhounding in Wyoming

Saturday, June 18, 2011 – On the way to Cody, WY, we ascended Dead Indian Pass.  At the top were several signs telling the history of Chief Joseph, and a  metal sculpture of the Nez Perce.  In the late 1800's, the US government signed a treaty with the Nez Perce (who developed the Appaloosa horse, by the way) providing them with several million acres.  Within short order, due to mining and other commercial interests, the US government reneged and offered a new treaty with about 640,000 acres much of which were not the Nez Perce ancestral home.  Some of the Nez Perce signed, but Chief Joseph led a group of others who would not sign.  The government then forced them off their land (mostly in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) and attempted to capture Chief Joseph.  He led his people throughout the West and Northwest, fighting small skirmishes and always retreating.  At this spot in Montana/Wyoming, near Yellowstone Park, the army had him trapped, but Joseph ascended this pass and covered his tracks with many horse hoofprints going in all directions, and escaped for a time.  The army never defeated him, but they finally starved them out and forced them to surrender.



Dead Indian Pass



From this vantage point, on top of the pass, we could see the campground where we had stayed the evening before, and the Sunlight Road where we had hiked. 

On to Cody, where we set up camp at one of the many private RV parks in town.  We were truly out of the mountains now, so far fewer photograph opportunities came up.  Cody has beautiful public buildings and Buffalo Bill history imposes itself at every turn.  It appears that the energy industry has brought money into this area. 

We drove Moose north to Lovell and south toward Meeteetse looking for rockhounding sites, but did not have much luck, except for some calcite crystals, found all over, and some selenite crystals. At night, we charged up everything (razor, camera, cell phone, camper battery) and took showers, which felt very good after a day of rockhounding.

Sunday, June 19, 2011 – Leaving Cody, we drove south on Wyoming highway 120 toward Thermopolis and further south to the Boysen State Park, along a reservoir.  There was a big (walleye?) fishing tournament over the weekend, which you could tell from the many pickups pulling campers pulling boat trailers.  That traffic plus the weekend campers on the highway made the remote roads fairly crowded, but we found a good spot on the Wind River in the park and took off rockhounding once again. 

This time, although the site appears empty, even desolate, we were fortunate to find lots of agate and some small pieces of petrified wood near Tough Creek. 

Here, the first picture is what the ground looked like in places (no rocks were moved.)  The second is a sample of what we collected in the area.  It was fun to fill a sack with nice specimens after striking out the last few times in our rockhounding efforts.