Cody, Wyoming And Some Environmental Stuff

One of the interesting things about spending the entire summer in Montana is a kind of collective psychology we found here; it's reinforced daily by news and casual discussion, and can be summarized as follows: fire, and the risks associated with it, the likelihood, location and/or the extent of destruction in any given season, are inescapable facts of life in this region. Our visit to Cody to see the Buffalo Bill Museum, and the historic district there, constitute a specific case in point. You will begin to get what I mean if you are persistent enough to finish this seemingly-aimless post. Keep at it; this is not an easy one to compose in an orderly and structured form, but I'll try real hard to fake my way through it...

As my readers may or may not be aware, the United States Forest Service philosophy regarding the suppression and containment of wildland fire has undergone a radical shift over the last thirty years or so. Used to be, any forest or wildfire was considered a bad thing, an adversary to be fought implacably and without quarter; the only satisfactory outcome was full containment. This strategy has been shown to be disastrously short-sighted. It allows the buildup over the years of dry, flammable underbrush that make subsequent, inevitable blazes hard or impossible to stop. Additionally, and sometimes worse, it is now known that biological pests (example: the incredibly destructive pine bark beetle) preferentially attack trees that have been stressed by dense undergrowth (and climate change/drought, but that's a whole 'nother rant). Trees weakened by such ancillary stressors are much more likely to succumb to bug attacks and die. Thus begins a vicious kind of feedback loop, with dead and damaged tracts very flammable, more likely to ignite (and 'crown', look it up) during a lightning storm or due to human stupidity.

Read below an (edited for brevity) article from the Lander, Wyoming newspaper:

By CHRIS MERRILL
Star-Tribune environment reporter
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 2:07 AM MDT

CODY -- Mother Nature has doused Wyoming's largest wildfire, the Gunbarrel event, with rain and snow, reducing it to smolder through the underbrush, forest officials said Tuesday.They warned, however, the return of hot, dry weather could reinvigorate the blaze. The fire has been consuming beetle-killed trees in northwestern Wyoming for more than a month.

And even though the Gunbarrel fire has cost the federal government nearly $10.5 million so far, officials are saying it has been economically valuable -- even cheap, if one considers the ecological benefits.

The fire, ignited by lightning on July 26, has burned almost 105 square miles of dead and fallen pine trees between Cody and Yellowstone National Park. Wapiti District Ranger Terry Root said the Gunbarrel blaze consumed trees that "needed to be burned" west of Cody. The "decadent" timber was in the wilderness, and it couldn't be removed otherwise, he said.

"So burning is really our only option to recycle the forest," Root said. "We feel like it has actually been pretty good, economically -- actually pretty economically valuable. It comes out to about $153 an acre." It costs the U.S. Forest Service about $300 per acre to perform fuel reduction projects regionally.

The result will be a 35-mile stretch of rejuvenated forest in the coming years, Root said. "We lost no private residences, no structures, and we had no serious injuries. We're looking at it as a real success," he said.

OK, this is me again. Anyway, we had an unexpected (and informative!) box seat ticket to this thing while we were in Cody. The fire was burning its merry way up the Shoshone River Canyon, just north and west of the Buffalo Bill Reservoir and about twenty miles from the city. We were there for three days, and depending on wind direction we spent time a) coughing from the smoke and fumes of what smelled like the world's biggest campfire, b) spending time brushing the almost-unbelievable amounts of drifting ash off the car, out of our hair and clothes, and outta the dogs' eyes, and c) marveling that there was no sun visible at all (even though according to the weather guy the sky and wind were clear and calm!) beneath the dark plume emanating from the canyon.

SO, to (finally- and I'm certain I can actually hear the sighs of relief out there in ReaderLand) tie all this diarrhea-of-the-keyboard together, we saw first-hand the new-and-improved wildland management theory, at least as it relates to fire, while we were in Cody. The USFS only opposed the Gunbarrel event when it directly threatened structures or specific herds, and otherwise just let it do its thing. If you are interested, another fire we saw this year that was managed in much the same way is designated 'Cascade', over by Red Lodge, and if you Google it there's lotsa stuff there.

OK, now for Cody itself. The main attractions here all (as you may imagine) have something to do with 'Buffalo Bill' William Cody. He founded thie place and his figurative fingerprints are everywhere, from the historic downtown Irma Hotel (named after his daughter) to the AMAZING museum complex. The Historical Center has six separate venues, is known as the 'Smithsonian of the West' and has our wholehearted endorsement. We spent one entire day there and wished we had had more time. Here is a synopsis, unashamedly filched from their Web site:

The Buffalo Bill Museum examines both the personal and public lives of W.F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and seeks to interpret his story in the context of the history and myth of the American West.

The Whitney Gallery of Western Art presents an outstanding collection of masterworks of the American West. Original paintings, sculptures and prints trace artistic interpretations of the West from the early 19th century to today.

The Plains Indian Museum features one of the country's largest and finest collections of Plains Indian art and artifacts. Explore the cultural histories, artistry and living traditions of Plains Indian peoples, including the Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Blackfeet, Sioux, Gros Ventre, Shoshone and Pawnee.

The Cody Firearms Museum contains the world's most comprehensive assemblage of American arms, as well as European arms dating to the 16th century.

The Draper Museum of Natural History integrates the humanities with natural sciences to interpret the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and adjacent intermountain basins.

The Harold McCracken Research Library advances the understanding, appreciation and study of the American West.

Here is the Web site if you wanna look for yerself:
http://http://www.bbhc.org/museums/

While we were in Cody we stayed at a very cool Bed & Breakfast called Robin's Nest:
http://http://www.robinsnestcody.com/
...run by, appropriately enough, a lady named Robin and her husband. In addition to the B&B, Robin is an accomplished artist, works in a variety of mediums, and her stuff is sold all over the Cody area. The man of the house doubles as a Yellowstone guide and is completely capable of setting up anything from a day trip to a month-long horse pack trip in the park.

We were not very good about photos on this trip; sadly, I would probably suck at hosting a Travel Channel show about our exploits. Come to think about it, though, I don't suppose Samantha Brown, Anthony Bourdain, or Andrew Zimmer have to worry about doing their own camera work. NOT FAIR! Maybe I'll hire me a roadie...

Where We Stayed:


The Canyon At Buffalo Bill Dam:


The Dan Miller Country Music Revue:


Buffalo Bill Reservoir North Of Town:


Smoke From Gunbarrel Fire:


An Understatement Along Highway To Yellowstone:


This Is NOT A Regular Cloud:


Look Close-Chopper Dipping Water


We also visited a neat place called Old Trail Town. See here:
http://http://www.nezperce.com/trltown.html
for more on that. It's a collection of old buildings from all over Wyoming and Montana, and it has a kind of 'buildingography' about each one. The Sundance Kid, Bill Cody, Jesse James, etc., they all stayed in these or, in one especially interesting case, partied and gambled there. There's also an actual cemetery, and lots of people whose names you know are planted there.

Conclusions: Cody is cool. Go there. Go to Dan Miller's Cowboy Music Revue, it's a blast, but unless you wanna be pulled up on stage, DON'T sit in the front two rows. GO TO THE HISTORICAL CENTER; you will never regret it, but allow a full day for that alone. Robin's Nest summary: clean, comfortable, friendly owners, and great food.

Bye for now...

Scary Bighorn Mountains

July 15th, we headed off to pack into the Cloud Peak Wilderness, part of the Bighorn Range in northern Wyoming.

Our Ford TurboDiesel 6.4L with 4.81 rear end gears was still no match for the unbelievably steep road ascending the Bighorn Plateau from Lovell, Wyoming. Even not towing anything, the EGT (that's the Exhaust Gas Temp for the diesel-uninitiated) tripped about 3/4 of the way up, the intercooler was roaring like a banshee, and we had to stop in a turnout to let the thing cool down. The road into these mountains from the west is the steepest U.S. Highway I have ever seen, and that includes the creepy climb west from Furnace Creek in Death Valley up into the Sierra Nevada. This had durned well be worth it!

Spent the first night in a campground at the National Forest (and had the pleasure of setting up in the pitch dark), then in the morning negotiated the labyrinthine network of logging roads, finally ending up at the trailhead.

NOW, you should be aware, Dear Readers, that we had done essentially NO research on the place we were going, called Bucking Mule Falls. Turns out it's about four hard-sloggin', steep, rocky miles from the trailhead. We had gotten the idea from one of the doctors at the hospital where Allison is working. Our first clue about what we were getting ourselves into should've been the fact that the surgeon whose advice we so blithely followed RIDES A HORSE on this trail, never walks it, and especially not with 40 or 50 pounds of gear on his back... maybe that's why he's a doctor and I'm not. HE'S
SMARTER THAN I AM!!!

Anyway, after lotsa sweating and swearing (it was hot that day, even at 9,000 feet) we arived at the overlook for the falls. Beautiful. Breathtaking. NO WATER ANYWHERE NEAR US. DAMMIT. Well, not that we could get to, anyway. See caption below.

This Is The Closest Water:


Allison At The Trailhead:


From Summit Across Desert Toward Lovell:


BEFORE We Were Mad At Turning Back:


Top Of Bighorn Plateau:


Summary: We got to where we were going, found out I would hafta rappell if I wanted any water, and headed back to where we had crossed Tepee Creek about two miles back. Got back there, spent about two hours clearing a campsite, cooked our lunch, got eaten alive by swarms of mosquitoes and biting flies, surrendered and packed ALL THE WAY BACK OUT. This is becoming an unpleasantly common occurrence...

And that's all I have to say about the Bighorns (that can be reasonably entered in a site that children read, anyway). By the way, I have again become Capital-Punishment remiss in updates. My apologies to all, or any, who follow this thing. The good news is that I have committed to bring y'all up to date within the next three days, and that will entail at least four more new posts, and some of them are worth reading. SO: stay tuned!