Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 107; Wind River Canyon

When River Canyon an ancient gorge filled with white water big trout and rich history join us for a trip through tug and the creek belt on a main street Wyoming classic. For most people who live elsewhere Wyoming is the Grand Tetons and Old Faithful. But the Wyoming outdoors has many more marvels some of them secret or little known. To reveal to those who live here. We never Canyon within the Wind River Indian Reservation

is one of those places. Here the river unexpectedly cuts its way through the Al Creek mountains and down into the Big Horn basin. There are some big smart fish y water rapids and a wealth of history as Debra Heaven's found out in 1906 when she began exploring 30 minutes is barely enough time to scratch the surface of a Precambrian Canyon over 500 million years old. So like other stops on Main Street Wyoming we go back again and again. In my case hoping one of these days one of those smart fish will get. Drowned. Then we. Must sing you a song about our homes just a little low extremely low. Down the road. On Main Street the same street less chance road. Becky. Is home. Well you got your feet down. Main Street. For millions of years the Wind River has slowly carved its way through the Elk Creek mountains.

Belonging to the Shoney's a northerner rap a hose of the Wind River Reservation the Wind River Canyon is rich in tradition and memories for tribal members. One of their stories says that if a feather is caught by the prevailing winds it will be carried through the canyon sail past the rocks over the water. Soar by the cliffs. Until finally it will find its way to the mineral springs located in Wyoming's Hot Springs State Park. Over the years and through the seasons the Wind River Canyon has inspired countless travelers. But we'll be taking a closer look through the eyes of those whose lives have been touched by the Wind River Canyon.

Well you know. What you. Are. Darrin Calhoun and his father Pete on Wind River Canyon Whitewater which offers both rafting and fishing trips. Deron who had worked in Jackson as a river guide told us it was his father's idea to start the business. And we took my father rafting trip. And he said on the bus ride back in town we should start a rafting company on the reservation. And I said where. And I said whenever Canyon. And I never thought much of it and I thought Yeah well that's a good idea. I thought a couple years to go to University of Wyoming and when I graduated in 1090. We sat down and talked about a business plan. Got traffic counts from the state of Wyoming and from opposition talk to the Chamber of Commerce. And. Went for it. So we opened in 1902. So it was two years

after I graduated. That's how I got on and people use it think it was my idea to start it but it was my father who's a rancher it was his idea. Because the canyon is part of the Wind River Reservation. Baron and his father needed permission from the joint tribal Business Council to start their Whitewater venture. They. Had told us they'd had plenty of requests in the years previous by you know various groups and people to do commercial rafting and they'd always turned the request down. And for the first time they were being approached by two enrolled members of the tribe and they allowed us to have the permit and have access to commercial trips in here. They offer a variety of river experiences. Everything from Class 3 and 4 rapids to overnight sleep back. There and also guides fishing trips with catches averaging 18 to 22 inches. Anything over 22 inches you know is a good fish. We've had a couple go over 30 and that's a fish to get excited about.

I do remember coming over fishing as a young kid thinking. What an amazing place to go fishing because the fish are so big. So fast. The. We often see deer mule deer along the banks of the river. Lots of beaver. Me. Yes muskrats things like that. Lots of water fowl ducks geese and a few years ago down around the corner. Two years ago actually the tribal Game and Fish Department the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wyoming State Game and Fish did a transplant of big horn sheep into the winder of a canyon. They released 43 big horn sheep taken from the whiskey mountain herd up by Dubois and planted them here in the canyon. Last year they were reported to have 19 lambs this year. They were reported at 18 lambs so they figure there's around 80 head of Rocky Mount

big horn sheep in the canyon now and there are plans to release more in the future so. And we have spotted them on our trip sometimes So yeah we see anything from ducks to not sheep. We spoke with two of barons river guides about their impressions of the river and Canyon in terms of this float trip. It's unique to to Wyoming and generally most most White Water trips. Around and around the area and in the sense that it's it is on the reservation. So they keep it very restricted when River Canyon White Water is the only outfitter permit to permit it to float this canyon. Individuals can't just come and float it. So in terms of when you're floating you're taking a trip with us you're going to be the only people on the river. You're not going to have you know you know I can have other Rast behind you are in front of you. There's not going to be a bunch of kayakers hanging out you know just beat it it's just that much more of a wilderness experience. So my favorite rapids on the river washed he follows. Sharpness FINK That's really fun rapid. A lot of the names of the

rapids are named after. Indians like a fort washed he. Black called he was an Arapahoe Indian chief. And. Knows his fate there's a lot of fun just because it's a longer rap it. Gives people kind of a taste of. What could go wrong I guess if they told. Work as a team. I just love it. I love being out here. And it amazes me with the cane and amazes me every time and I have done a hundred trips this year and every time I'm just amazed by it I think more so than it than any of my customers are. Beauty throughout the seasons is evident for one

particular group. The canyon holds a special fascination. As Gretchen Hurley takes groups on tours of the Wind River Canyon. She described for us why the canyon is considered a world class site. This canyon exposes a lot of rocks that you just don't find exposed in a lot of the places in the Rocky Mountain West or back east. You see some of the rocks that are the oldest rocks on Earth in this canyon. And not only can they study rocks of varying ages here in the canyon because they're so well exposed but you get to study a lot of the fascinating aspects of geologic structures. Mountain ranges are exposed basically as this is a cross-section of the Elk Creek Mountain Range. And so you can study geologist in fact to study the way that mountain ranges are formed in the past and by studying this mountain range in Wyoming. You're able to extrapolate that information and apply it to a lot of the other mountain ranges in the state.

Well I guess the question is then if this is why is this so unusual. What created this so that that it's unusual to find a situation like this. Well. First you have the uplift of the range that took place approximately 70 million years ago when Wyoming was being basically squeezed between two plates essentially which is a long story. But when you have a crust that's being compressed like in a vise the crust has to respond by shortening essentially and compressing thickening. And what happened along the whole Rocky Mountain West actually was that the crust buckled upwards and some of the crust went up and some of the crust went down and where it went up you've got a mountain range went down you've got the beginnings of a basin. So what do we see right here right here we're standing in the middle of a mountain range. And as we travel north through the canyon we're going to go into older rocks at the tunnels where we're in the very core of the Elk Creek Mountain Range. And then if you go north you're coming into the Big Horn base and studying the rocks that are layered on top of that core that's been uplifted. You don't

find this kind of situation where it's exposed in a canyon with a road going through it in very many places and the way in the West. It's interesting right here where we're just a little bit downstream from boys and damn this bigger thing down to the south here bigger and rivers right here and it's interesting right here because what we're standing on is the silt from the first boys and dam which was built downstream a little bit in the early 1800s which had to be torn out when the railroad could no longer go through the canyon to the dam here threatened to fill up the canyon with silt. So they had a blast that dam out of out of its original location and moved the dam back upstream here. But that what we're standing on here is still the other neat thing I would point out would be that there's a fault right here behind us one of hundreds of faults that crisscross this area south of the tunnels. That's important to remember when you're studying this mountain range is that south of the tunnels and River Canyon the whole thing goes to heck is just chaos. It's what they call the fault zone. And so what we're looking at here is one fault where you see this brown limestone going across. Then you lose it and you see a sort of a draw and you know pick it up a

little higher and you'll see it continuing. That's a classic normal fault right there where the rock was at one point horizontal and then it was halted like this you'll see this all over the fault zone. Normal Falls is what we call this where things are pulled apart and and trapped up and down relative to one another. Our next stop with Gretchen was at the site of the original boys. There's a dramatic change in the color of the stone here writes the geology story here. Well right here we're standing on one of the major faults associated with a mountain range called the boys in normal fall named after the original dam site. And basically it's a big chunk of pre-cambrian rock almost three billion years old. You know it means Precambrian means prior to the Cambridge basically is the oldest rocks on Earth anything older than 600 million years old really is Precambrian. And this rock is roughly 2.8 billion years old it's called Amphibia light it's a black very hard metamorphic rock. And you'll see a big block of it here behind us that the tunnels are blasted

through. And eventually get exposed here I mean how could the oldest rock be right next to this relatively new and I really I'm still a good question. And that all comes back to the fact that when Wyoming was being compressed in this vice of compression due to Plate Tectonic motions millions of years ago chunks of what we call basement rock. And that's a real sort of a basic term geologist used to describe the oldest rocks way down deep in the basement. These are crystal and rocks and granites and shifts and amphibia lights things like this. It was basically shoved upward with tremendous force. But over millions of years in this compressional regime that that operated back then. And so these older racks were were brought up were thrusted upwards. And everything that was above them the horizontal layers it was light above the the basement racks was deformed structurally over those uplifts. And what we're looking at here is one of those big blocks that came up from way down. There's approximately 30000 feet of of this placement on these faults that that run through these mountain ranges almost as high as Mt. Everest.

Well how old the river is and how long did it take it to carve this path through this now. That's a real good question. The river is very old. Millions of years old. And it took roughly 10 to 12 millions million years for this river to start carving its Canyon. But a lot of people are curious Well how can a river see right through a mountain range. Most rivers start at the top and work their way down both sides. This river on the other hand is what we call super imposed on the Elk Creek mountains. It started out higher in elevation than the mountain range. And cut down until it intersected with the crystal and it rained hard sedimentary rocks of the mountains and its side down through just like a chainsaw if you will over millions of years. And that's what we call super imposition of mountains or rivers and mountain ranges. Excuse me. And so here we have it today still working downward. And it's been it's been operating like this for the last 12 to 15 million years. So what that tells us is that the elevation of the mountains was much higher at one time and the basins the

Wind River Basin and the Big Horn basin actually intersected over the top of this mountain range and the river disc was at that elevation and cut right down through. Next stop at the canyon. Was that what geologists call the great conformity. A place where there is a 2 billion year gap in the geological record. Well right here we get into the sedimentary rock record of the of the canyon as opposed to the basement rock which is what we're standing on the granite and crystalline rocks. And this is where we can study the sedimentary rocks and the fossils that are found in those rocks. The different kinds of rocks. Sandstone limestone Shales geologists like to study rock types and try to determine what sequence of events took place in the rock record is that the rock record is like a big book and the rocks of the pages and that's a neat way to look at it. Basically you're studying the type of rock the age of the rock what kind of environment that it was the positive in the fossil Fina of the rock and anything else pertinent to the rock layers and then you can correlate across areas of the river canyon. His one a geologist or anyone who

is interested just of. The open book if you will. It's all right here. Read some of the other pages. OK. Say what we've got again is the flat had sandstone on either side of the river here that the very first sedimentary rock formation that was deposited in Wyoming during this time Wyoming was located farther south almost of the equator and California didn't even exist at this time. It was under water so it was Wyoming at that time and the whole layer of sedimentary rocks you see here basically was deposited when Wyoming was located under the ocean. It was this is what we call marine deposition that you'll find your marine fossils right not exactly and that's all you can find marine fossils like shells and and corals up on the top of a mountain range because it's been uplifted. Having once been formed in an ocean. Is there anything else you'd like people to know about the Wind River Canyon. But just that it's a world class site to come and visit to study numerous aspects of geology and encourage him to come and look at it. I'd also like to credit if I could some of the geologists that have done a lot of work on this can help me learn a lot about it. And

that's John Fanshaw who in 1939 did his Ph.D. dissertation on Wind River Canyon and the structure of the Wind River Canyon. Edwin monde of the U.S. Geological Survey. Donald Blackstone professor emeritus down at University of Wyoming. And David Love who is of course a renowned recommended geologist out here in the West. I like the cradle them they've they've helped geologists all over the West understand these mountains better the structure. And they deserve some credit for that. The Canyons white water rapids in pre-K Marine cliffs presented a considerable obstacle to exploring so. Many early trappers were unsuccessful in their attempts to use the Wind River for transport of their first to market. Some of them did try to go through the canyon not too successfully and that most of them were in over the top with their for. The canyon was located in the vast area of land called home by the Eastern

Shoney's. In 1868. Their leader chief. Signed The Fort Bridger treaty creating the Wind River Reservation. The canyon remains within its boundaries. To learn more about the modern development of the canyon. We visited with historian Dorothy melike. She explained why the first poisoned dam was built mostly because of their the gold mining on Copper Mountain and long Spagna mountain and that was about one thousand six and so they were going to run the electricity up on the top of the mountain in order to be able. Processor gold and it was also as I understand it tied into the opening of the reservation over around research and they were going to plant and provide electricity to I believe she showed me in Riverton was the idea that Boysen had behind them. Well when did the railroad come into the canyon. They started surveying I magine around one thousand seven and the railroad got

to the office 1910 and then they just built south from there. It was actually punched through the canyon in 1911 but there was no regular traffic going until 1913. And of course it was it. As I understand it it broke several contractors because of the hardness of the rock you know all of that granite and everything in there. They really and there were several lives lost of course building it which is to be expected in a project of that sort. With the building of the railroad it eventually became necessary to build a new dam. When the railroad came through the dam had so much water that it would run over the railroad tracks and the symbiont you had more poor political clout I guess and the boys than did. And so that's why they had to take it down. And it was quite a new building I'm sure you'll see or the structure itself was very interesting. Well what about the highway when they put it in actual work on the highway started in one thousand twenty

two and it wasn't completed until 1924 and there again it was a tremendous job. They've brought in the girls to haul freight in from both ends of the canyon and they I think they also brought freight in on the railroad and loaded it across or ferried it across to help with the construction of it. But I knew you know that they had barrels stabled here and some oculus and quite a number of them. What about some of the people who lived in the canyon can you tell me about them are there some colorful characters. Oh I think one of the favorite characters out there is Barney Smith. This fellow who had worked for the railroad company built a camp and. Cafe and a few shacks right there at that first tunnel and then when he saw it he sold to this Barney Smith in Barney was an interesting character he had. He had a pool hall here in Demopolis And he also had a home out in the canyon.

And as the story goes on his home is across the Fremont hotsprings county line. And he had plenty of gambling tables at his establishment at the tunnel and if he heard of an impending raid on his gambling why he just picked up the game and moved to his house which was in Hot Springs County. And I'm sure that's probably quite true. And another The stories they tell on Barney was that there were restrooms across the highway from the cafe and you were thinking and it was his favorite joke. He had it wired with the speaker and it was his favorite joke to wait until the song Lady especially got in there and then Ian say something like oh ouch don't sit on me or you're standing in my way or. Something like that. So he had a pretty good sense of humor. But it sure scared people a lot of people came flying out there.

Bonnie bleak spotter bobwhite homesteaded in the Wind River Canyon. Today Bonnie and her sister Betty continue to live in the canyon. Along with their cousins the Dawsons. This is Blake your father homesteaded here how did they end up here. What period of time without a Van pointed out.

He was working on the railroad he came in from Montana and he was working on the railroad and land across here and there. So he swam the river and looked it over and that is that. What about the house it's really an interesting house how did you go about building now. It was a dugout at first. This in the back of my house or both. And then if you pitch a tent on the top and boarded it up that first and then gradually just deal with what it could find and what came down the river. There wasn't any road you couldn't get anything in here they were just built with what was here what was wrong and that came down the river in flood time. While this is on the reservation How was he able to Homestead Air at that time it was there it was reserved as a power site because of the damage voice in the first on The Voice and dam and this was all reserved as the power site. So we got in here and settled and then later when we reverted back to the Indians

the Indians gave us so many weeks to leave or they'd burn the building. So he wrote a letter to President Hoover was at the time and got an answer back and they told the Indians to cease and desist. Believe at the moment we were legal. All that come out still there. Well how did he get supplies in here. This was in 1920 it was before they had a road and they went across the river and caught the train the train the passenger trains and stopping for you. They don't anymore but they did then. And that got him and then he would There was a swinging bridge down the canyon about six miles. And he would get groceries and things in a gunny sacks several of them and then haul them across the bridge and then haul one at a time a mile and then you know the one haul in a mile and then that slavery made them home. There's one at a time until course nobody bothered at that time there was nobody else in here. Go man go.

So the canyon that was basically lived here so we could raise go. To true good thing here. But they would range from. Oh about three miles down the canyon. When my kids had to go for them in every night. So we really grew up in the. Canyon. Every day. I used to call me Heidi in school. Yeah. There was one bridge six miles down the road and another one of the boys and four miles up the road. So the guys would go in a boat if they wanted to go to town. But the women who always wore dresses and. Had the boys. For miles to catch the train. So needless to say we didn't go very often. The children never way. You've seen a lot of changes over the years but back in those days

were there certain ways that you doubt with people coming through in those days we always kept the lamp in the window at night in the wintertime. In a storm so that if anybody you happen to be stranded in here they'd have a place to go. And. At one time my parents were in town they had gone in on the train to get groceries. And us kids were here alone. So this cowboy came by on a horse who needed a bear. So we gave him a bed in that old dugout over there which is all lie under a rock. A mouth when they got out of there came along DNA. And we were a little bit afraid of him but he got up the next morning for breakfast and refitting brick for that we were armed with knives and clubs and anything we could hold to protect ourselves. We never said a word he just ate and then he left but he left $5 on the table. But you know days or weeks when you. When you lived here you're home by now you don't have a California hair it's a whole different can you

tell me a little bit about what it's like to live here today. Well it's beautiful. It's absolutely a paradise it's a paradise. Now in the early days that nobody ever would want it that. Nobody would want to get in the. Pool. This may tell us about the creation and twice with of these rocks. Historians make us about man's role here. And sportsman may tell us about the adventures that wait. But if we look if we listen. Then we'll discover for ourselves what makes the Wind River Canyon so very special. Thanks to my guests and thanks to you for joining us on mainstreet Wyoming.