Day 12 -- Rock Springs to Pinedale, Wyoming -- 100 Miles

Today I thought we'd be a tad slow getting on the road since we had to do some grocery shopping before leaving Rock Springs and heading north in the direction of Yellowstone Park. To my surprise, after packing up, then finding a local supermarket and shopping for our short list of items, we still managed to roll out of town by 9:30 a.m. Since that time was just thirty minutes later than our usual departure time, I was pretty impressed. Naturally, it helped a lot that while seeking out the grocery store, I happened to glance in just the right direction and saw a sign for Wyoming Route 191, which was exactly the road we needed to take to reach Pinedale, our intended lunchtime destination.

We weren't actually headed for Yellowstone Park, of course, but for the Mountain Man museum in Pinedale about one hundred miles north of Rock Springs. But since Route 191 is called, in some literature, "The Gateway To Yellowstone," I thought it might help my readers pinpoint where on the map we were traveling today. Route 191 actually ends in Jackson about sixty miles north of Pinedale, and you have to take a couple of differently-labeled routes to reach the southern entrance to that famous National Park.

I'd love to say that Yellowstone is one of my favorite national parks, but I can't. We went there not long ago, entering the park via the west entrance near the town of West Yellowstone. It turned out to be an absolute nightmare and just one giant traffic jam as we headed toward the southern entrance and many of the most popular attractions. Even though tourists are forbidden to stop their cars in traffic to photograph the animals (pretty stupid), or, incredibly, to get out of their vehicles to approach the animals while their car is blocking traffic (even more stupid), the tourists did just that. I think it took us two hours to drive from the west entrance to the south entrance, which is perhaps, at most, a twenty mile trip.

Today, Route 191 turned out to be even more lovely and picturesque than yesterday's Route 13/189 from northern Colorado to southern Wyoming. The road was wider, the shoulders more ample, and the state had provided a multitude of places to both pass and pull over. Under a blue sky full of fluffy white clouds, we stopped just about every chance we got, and certainly every time we saw a historical marker to read and appreciate.

We stopped at a field full of dead trees, an overturned hay-baler, and a wheeless 1950 Chevy that had seen better days. We stopped at the pull-out where the old Sublette Cut-off on the Oregon/California Trail crossed the present highway. And we stopped to read about endangered fish in the area. But our favorite stop was that created for a point just south of the town of Pinedale where the Sand Springs Lander Cut-off crossed the present highway.

We thought that the historic marker was so informative that we included the entire narative here. It reads: "This site is a crossing of the Lander Cut-off, the northern fork of the Oregon Trail. Originally called the Fort Kearney-South Pass-Honey Lake Wagon Road when it opened in 1858, it was the first federally-funded road project west of the Mississippi River."

"F.W. Lander mapped this new route, shortening the trip to the Pacific by 5 days and avoiding a ferry crossing to the south where price gouging was alleged. Sand Springs was the only reliable water available to immigrants between Muddy Creek, eight miles to the east, and the New Fork River, ten miles to the west."

"Until the coming of the railroad in 1869, up to 300 wagons and thousands of cattle, horses, and mules may have passed here in a day. The trail ruts visible behind this sign and continuing over the next ridge are reminders of the largest known voluntary migration in world history."

"From homesteading in the 1880s, until use of the automobile in the 1920s, Sand Springs remained an important watering hole for travelers and stock on the north/south New Fork to Rock Springs wagon road."

We really liked the idea of being able to stand at the historic marker and gaze out along the line of travel of the hundreds of wagons and fortune-seekers a century and a half ago. It would have been a bit iffy to try and drive the RV to see the trail ruts of which the historic marker speaks, but were I driving an off road vehicle I would have done it in a heartbeat.

Once back on the road from the Lander Cut-off, we had only to drive twelve more miles and we arrived at our destination for the day, the Mountain Man Museum, which sits on a bluff overlooking the tiny town of Pinedale. I was certainly thrilled that after three attempts, I was finally going to reach a goal that I had set for myself some years ago when fortune let me get close, but kept the destination just out of reach.

I'm not sure just when I became interested in the saga of the mountain men, though it might have been Hollywood to blame. But wait, it may have happened way back in the very early 1960s when my mother, the genealogist, dragged the family all over the west in search of family ties for her research. To keep myself busy while riding in the back of Dad's pickup truck, seated as my brother and I were on an old Studebaker seat facing backwards, I started buying and reading magazines like True West, Real West, Frontier Times, and -- my favorite -- Old West.

Not all the stories were about mountain men, of course, but a significant number were. I read about Liver Eating Johnson, a trapper who would later be played onscreen by Robert Redford. I read about Hugh Glass, a trapper who would later be later be played in the movies by both Richard Harris AND Leonardo DeCaprio. I read about Jim Bridger, and "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick, and Joesph Walker, and Jim Beckwourth, and Kit Carson, and a raft of others and just loved their stories. Nowadays, I find it truly amazing that we could be living in a town named for Kit Carson, perhaps one of the most well-known of the mountain men.

In more recent times, I've become intensely interested in just how the mountain men did what they did. Concetta and I have watched all nine seasons of the TV show, Mountain Men, where we often get to see virtually all the techniques once practiced by the mountain men of the 1820s and 1830s. Though we have never been to a rendezvous in progress, we have several times visited the sites of one of those famous gatherings of the faithful. Not too long ago, I even purchased a throwing tomahawk from Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and taught myself to successfully hurl it at a stationary target and hit what I was aiming for.

So, as you might guess, today's visit to the Mountain Man Museum was really a thrill, and Concetta and I got to see first-hand all the tools, and weapons, and handiwork of those incredibly creative and independent Americans of two hundred years ago. I was especially intrigued to finally get to see clothes made out of the Hudson Bay Company's blankets that you read about in history books and that were so common for these guys who had to survive winters in the wild. Buckskin clothing was also fascinating to see. Beside their personal needs, all the tools the mountain men had to carry to maintain their weapons, to maintain their traps, to care for their horses, and to skin and process their furs were wonderfully interesting.

Though I was a little disappointed in the museum's selection of T-shirts, their book collection on the subject of mountain men was outstanding. I picked up a couple including one on the life of Hugh Glass which is on my reading list for tonight.

Tomorrow we're heading further north to the town of Jackson where we hope to find a hand-crafted walking stick for Concetta and maybe one for me as well. From Jackson we'll be drifting to the northwest and the Idaho border. Though we've crossed Idaho a time or two, we feel that there is probably much more to see. We won't know until we get there, but we're sure it will be fun and interesting.