Piedmont Charcoal Kilns and Ghost Town

We had a free weekend and I wanted to visit a few ghost towns, so we loaded the car and headed out.  I really wanted to visit Blacks Fork Commissary on the north slope of the Uintas, but routed us through Piedmont to check it out too.  I am glad I did.  I learned some pretty neat things on the visit.

The Piedmont Charcoal Kilns and ghost town are located about 10 miles south of I-80, just off of exit 24 east of Evanston.  It's all on dirt roads, but they're dirt roads that are in good shape. 

Of the 4 kilns that were built, only 3 are still standing.  They look like big beehives.  There's a small part on the site, with an sign that tells more about making charcoal and the history of Piedmont. 

The town was built along the railroad tracks and lived and died by the railroad.  It lived as long as the railroad was there, but when a tunnel was completed a few miles north, the line was no longer used and the town withered away.  Now all that's left is a cemetary and 8-10 buildings. 

The sign had a few unique bits of trivia.

Apparently Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch met up in Piedmont on their way to rob the bank in Montpelier, Idaho. 

Calamity Jane lived in Piedmont when she was a young girl. 

My favorite "I didn't know that" was that the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Utah was delayed for 3 days.  Originally the Golden Spike Ceremony was scheduled to happen on May 7, 1869.  The Vice-President of the Union Pacific Railroad was on the way to the ceremony when a bunch of unpaid workers caught wind of it.  They threw a bunch of ties and rubble on the track and the train had to stop.  They then unhitched the car of the Thomas Durant,Vice-President of the railroad, diverted it to a side track, and told him they wouldn't let him go until they got paid. They also captured the telegraph office to ensure their demands were met.  Quite embarrassed, Durant wired $200,000 to pay the 300 or so laborers, who then let him go.  His car was hitched to the next train and he proceeded on to the ceremony. 

What's left of the town is about 1/4 mile west of the charcoal kilns.  It's on private property, so we just took pictures from the road. 


Nearest City: Piedmont, WY
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info:

Backpacking for Golden Trout in the Wind Rivers

Back in early January I had my annual performance review with my boss.  Part of the performance review includes setting both personal and business goals for the upcoming year.  One of my personal goals was to catch a golden trout.  I've dreamed about it for years, but after 5 trips had ended in failure, it was time to get serious.  So over the winter and early spring, I dreamed and researched.  Books, topo maps, the internet, and a few other sources all fueled the fire.  The best book I found for where to go is John Baughman's Most Complete Guide to Wyoming Fishing.  The best book I found for how to catch them is Flyfishing the Rocky Mountain Backcountry by Rich Osthoff.  With those two books and several topo maps, I finally narrowed my choices to two areas. 

 On a whim, I looked up Rich's Flyshop and called the number.  Rich answered and we had a great conversation. He dropped a tip about a lake that had 5 pound brook trout in it nearby one of the areas.  You don't see 5 lb brookies every day, so that settled it.  Destination set. 

I originally planned to be gone a week in late August, but my wife gave me an easy out.  She said I could go for half a week and not bring her or the kids.  I'd love to bring her, but hauling 2 kids under the age of 3 in addition to all our gear just didn't sound feasible.  If she came, the kids were coming.  When she offered the concession, I jumped on it and called a buddy and after consulting the weather forecast, set the date for July 23-25. 

We drove up Sunday night, with plans to camp at the trailhead and bust in there the next morning.  Signs telling us "No Camping" changed our plans, so we shouldered our packs and hiked in a mile or so to find a campsite.  The next morning we woke up and continued our hike.  The trail was pretty good except for a portion along a gnarly 4-wheel drive road.  

We got to a big lake, took a break, then continued on.  I thought the rotting wood portion of the old dam looked pretty cool.  Through this portion of the hike, we saw several small herds of elk, which spooked as soon as they saw us. 

We hiked on and reached the lower end of our destination lake.  Beautiful!  I couldn't help but think about how the water from this lake flowed to the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico since we were on the east side of the Continental Divide.  We hiked to the inlet, scouted around a little bit, and found a nice little campsite.  We hurridly set up camp, strung up our fishing poles, then hit the water to catch some fish. 

The first 20 or so fish I caught were brook trout, but then I landed one that wasn't as dark.  Golden Trout.  Success!  My first ever!  It wasn't very big or very bright, but it was a golden!  It was the first of several dozen that I would end up catching in the 3 days we were there. 

We spent the rest of the day fishing the stream above the lower lake.  The higher we got, the brookie numbers declined until all we were catching were golden trout. 

What a beautiful area!  Not as beautiful as some areas in the Northern Winds, but beautiful nonetheless.  Most of the fish preferred royal wulffs on the surface, or a copper john nymph as a dropper.  By the second day, we were looking for other flies to temp the fish with, but we couldn't find others that did the job as well. 

We got to the upper lake and caught a few larger fish.  Goldens as well, but not completely pure.  The guys at the Wyoming Fish & Game said these ones were 98% pure, with the remaining 2% being rainbow.  They weren't as colorful as the stream fish, but they were hard fighters, diving to the depths, the rocketing to the surface for some fantastic jumps.  We fished until nearly dark, then high-tailed it back to camp for dinner and our sleeping bags. 

Tuesday morning, we woke up and after an oatmeal breakfast, we hiked out to look for the big brookies.  We got up to the lake and were nearly blown away by the strong wind.  A half-hour of attempted fishing in the face of strong winds resulted in nothing and there was more winds and storm clouds rolling in.  We turned around and hiked back toward camp. 

Once out of the wind we hiked around, soaking in the beauty, and  continued fishing.  A rainstorm rolled in and it rained pretty heavily for half an hour or so, but blue skies came again. 

I really liked this picture.  The Wind Rivers are beautiful! 

I  had to post a few more pictures of the golden trout from the streams.  So colorful!  Some of them still had their parr marks, like the one above.  Others, like the one below, didn't have them anymore.  Their reputation as the prettiest trout seems well reasoned to me. 

Wednesday morning I woke up, had a quick breakfast, then spend a few hours catching golden trout.  Three days of golden trout.  I think that I'm the one hooked!

We broke camp, loaded our packs, then headed down the trail.  We stopped along the way and fished a few lakes and streams.  My friend caught 30 fish in half an hour at one spot.  It was pretty amazing.  I was trying to catch 2 at once, but couldn't land both. 

Farewell Winds!  I shall return!

Nearest City: South Pass, WY
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: More- always more!
Difficulty: Strenuous
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

The Dinosaur Bone Cabin

In the late1800's Medicine Bow, Wyoming was an interesting spot.  It was located along the transcontinental railway and had a diverse mix of western ranchers and cowboys, as well as numerous upper-class easterners.  Why?  Dinosaur Bones.  Dinosaur bones had been discovered east of town on Como Bluff. 

Caught up in the mix, two friends O.C. Marsh and E.D. Cope had a falling out, and became bitter rivals in the race to find new and better specimens to send back to their respective institutions.  I'm not going to go into the details of their rivalry, but lets just say that neither let much stand in their way.  If you're interested in finding out more, just google "fossil feud" or "dinosaur bone wars" and you can find quite a bit of information. 

 Near Como Bluff is a dinosaur bone cabin.  It's made up of 5,796 dinosaur bones and bone fragments.  It was originally built as a tourist stop along the old Lincoln Highway.  It's no longer open, but it still makes a good stop for pictures and out of curiosity.  At one time it was called "the world's oldest building", but I'm not sure if it's still marketed that way.    Somewhere in the eastern plains of Colorado is a building made out of petrified wood that would be fun to see, as a companion building to this one. 

Nearest City: Medicine Bow, WY
Location: N 41° 51.895 W 106° 04.400
Time Needed: Brief Stop
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yeah
Additional Info:

Fort Laramie

On the way home from our South Dakota trip, we stopped at Fort Laramie. It was time well spent. We arrived about half an hour before the visitor center closed, so we watched a short video then went and wandered the grounds of the old fort.


There are numerous old buildings still standing, along with the even more foundations. The fort covers a large area, but most of the buildings are all around the parade ground.
My favorite two buildings were the old officer's quarters and the barracks.

They said at the visitor center that Fathers Day weekend of every year is a mountain man rendezvous and celebration. If anyone's around then, stop in- you may be in for an extra special treat.

Nearest City: Ft. Laramie, WY

GPS Coordinates:

Time Needed: 1-3 hours

Difficulty: easy

Kid Friendly: yes/no- it depends on their attention span

Additional Info:

The Aladdin Tipple

The Aladdin Coal Tipple is one of the few remaining coal tipples in the west. The coal was brought out from the mine, then dumped in the top of the tipple. As gravity pulled the coal down, it sorted it into different sizes of lumps.

The mine entrance. It's been blasted shut just inside, so the current view is for show, but it still looks pretty cool.

There are piles and piles of the mine tailings & coal dust. One very cool thing about it is the environmental remediation that's being used to clean it up. Apparently it is very acidic, but some bacteria in it helps to make it less so, enough that some trees and plants can grow in it where the bacteria is. Students from across the state line in South Dakota come out to study it.

View from the base.

Nearest City: Aladdin, WY

GPS Coordinates:

Time Needed: 30 min-1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Kid Friendly: Yes

Additional Info:

Devils Tower National Monument

We rolled into the Devils Tower Campground late in the evening. The tower looked impressive in the gloom, but we had camp to set up first. We got situated in the campground in preparation for our visit to the tower in the morning.

In the morning we woke up, ate breakfast, then drove up to the tower to see it more closely.

It certainly is impressive! I think it looks like a big tree stump. There are several hikes around the tower. We took the closest one to the base. It is paved the whole way around, so is accessible to just about everybody.
We spent several hours admiring and gawking before heading along to other sites.

Nearest City: Heulett, WY

GPS Coordinates:

Time Needed: 3 hours

Difficulty: Easy

Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: Admission is $10/vehicle. Camping is $12/night.

Ayre's Natural Bridge

We got out of Fort Collins for a little trip last week. I'd heard about this natural bridge and really wanted to check it out. The natural bridge is in east central Wyoming, about 2 hours or so north of Cheyenne. It's a Douglas County Park and is open most of the year. The bridge is about 90 feet long and 20 feet high. The creek flows underneath it. It's a really pretty area. A small trail goes to the top of the bridge as well. There's a few campsites on site, as well as restrooms, picnic areas, horseshoe pits, a volleyball court. To me it looks like a great spot for a get- together. Another draw to me was there are fish in the creek. Just upstream from the bridge is an old powerhouse. It's pretty sweet. Nearest City: Douglas, WY

GPS Coordinates:

Time Needed: 1 hour

Difficulty: Kid Friendly: Yes

Additional Info:

The Dinosaur Museum at WWCC

As we drove back to Colorado, we planned a stop to see the dinosaur museum at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs. The Natural History Museum exhibits are scattered throughout the main campus building. The main attraction would have to be the T-Rex skeleton. The pamphlet says it is one of six in the U.S.


The stegosaurus was pretty cool. Some of the tail spikes seemed bigger than the head.

The triceratops was pretty sweet too. It was huge!

There is also the fossil of a xiphactinus audax- a huge fish. It is one of only a few complete skeletons found.

There were dinosaur eggs from China, and several other fossils and exhibits.

Another museum on the campus is the Weidner Wildlife Museum. We got lucky and arrived when it was still open. It's not open as much as the natural history museum (see hours below).

There were numerous stuffed heads of animals from around the world. Many were North American big game.

There were also African animals.

There was also a unique species called a Jackalope. It's a taxidermic hybrid (made only through taxidermy, it's kindof like in-vitro fertilization, but the parents both give their lives and the offspring is non-viable) between a male deer and a female jackrabbit.

Nearest City: Rock Springs, WY

GPS Coordinates:N 41° 35.520 W 109° 14.225

Time Needed: 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Kid Friendly: Yes

Hours: The natural history museum is open every day from 9 AM to 10 PM. The wildlife museum is open Monday and Wednesday from 10 AM to 1 PM and Tuesday and Thursday from 1 PM to 4 PM.

Additional Info: The fossils are located in the main building at Western Wyoming Community College. Exit I-80 at College Drive (exit #103), then head south and take the 2nd turnoff into the college. Park in the main parking lot, then walk inside.