Eagles and Scouts

July 27-28

We had 160 miles to go from Evanston to Pinedale, but after an hour or so, we needed to stretch.

We parked at the paved entrance to a dirt side road. We got out to look for animals. 

I was looking for a rattlesnake, but had no luck. I caught a glimpse of something round with fur diving into its burrow, a fat prairie dog or a gopher. 

Other than that, all I saw was various animal poop.

We stopped to read a few historical markers. I love those things. Somewhere near here something happened. I can’t resist standing in a spot where something happened.

We were following the Green River again when we stumbled on a marker that was a lot of fun. It’s called Names Hill, and it has this bit of graffiti chiseled into the stone:

James Bridger

1844

Trapper

There’s a mystery about that because Bridger is believed to have been illiterate. Maybe he picked up enough to spell his name. Maybe someone did the graffiti for him.

According to the marker, there are other cuttings on the rock made by Mountain Men, but I couldn’t find them. The rocks are covered in 20th century scratches and cuts by other people striving for immortality.

Two raptors, which may have been a golden eagle mating pair, landed on the top of the rocks just before we left. 

As we pushed farther north, the haze on the horizon kept growing thicker. What’s this? Are they burning that much coal up here?

Somewhere close to Pinedale, the haze took on the unmistakable flavor of wood smoke. At the hotel, we asked a lady at the desk about it. It was a forest burning.

A fire first reported on July 17 has burned about 15,000 acres in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. We stopped at the U.S. Forest Service ranger station in town and learned that the fire isn’t entirely contained yet. The Service is letting it burn in some directions, where it can have a beneficial effect on the forest environment. 

Some areas of the forest have been evacuated. The route from Pinedale to Jackson was closed all last week, but is open now.

We stopped at Ridley’s Family Market in town. Joanna has Napa and rice left over from the Wonderful Inn, so I bought Cheddar, Triscuits, and a tomato for my dinner.

Pinedale is a tourist town. It consists pretty much of a single strip full of motels, bars, and restaurants. As far as I can tell, the pavement ends after less than a mile on either side of the main street. 

It has the feeling of the not quite Wild West meets Disney World. An embroidery shop calls itself the Stitchin’ Post. A clothing store is called Cowgirl Chique. 

The Cowboy Bar and the Corral Bar—no, make that the World Famous Corral Bar—are a block away from each other. The visitor center has a fanciful bronze of a Mountain Man standing on a pedestal out front.

We went to the Wind River Brewing Co. pub, which I had discovered when Google maps showed me the way to the Baymont Inn, where we are staying. 

The pub had a ball game on TV, the Chicago White Sox vs. the Chicago Cubs. The man next to me was animated. By the bottom of the 6th or 7th inning, the only hits to score were home runs, three of them. The Cubs were up two to one.

The man on the neighboring stool was a Cubs fan and very happy.

He is from Chicago and in this area for a backpacking trip with some friends. He was in the bar to enjoy a beer before going into the wilderness, where there is none.

Many people like to do that, but I can’t imagine why. I give them all props, though, for knowing how. You sleep on the ground. You dig a trench for a toilet. Good for you, but not for me. 

Hell, this is camping for me. I’m in the middle of nowhere, not far from a forest fire, and there is only one bar that I know has good beer. I’m going camping in London in September, just off Russell Square.

The man ordered refills for Joanna and me, and commented on our appearance. I told him the truth:

I am a 1980s re-enactor. I haven’t changed the way I dress in more than 30 years.

I had the Wind River Bucking Bronc (yeah, it’s called that, but forgive them; it’s the Cowboy State) ESB; the Wyoming Pale Ale, a very nice and bitter brew; and a porter. which wasn’t bad, but a little on the sweet side. 

I brought home a four-pack of Wyoming Pale Ale (WPA) pints. I’m feeling very good now.

Thursday, the 28th, we went to see the Museum of the Mountain Man. It sits on a hill over the east end of town and is run by the county.

The county, by the way, is named for a Mountain Man, Bill Sublette.

I’ve always been fascinated by stories of people who can just wander off and take care of themselves in a world without roads, houses, or hot showers. What would it be like to have skills like that?

Since I sold the house, all my personal possessions can fit in a 5 x 5 storage cubicle. These guys fit all their possessions on their backs or in saddle bags. They lived through the Rocky Mountain winters in tents and lean-tos.

I met a man in Barcelona who said he did something like that from time to time. He was born in the Pyrenees and likes to travel to the north county in Scandinavia, where he will pitch a tent and let the snow drift over it. 

He has to keep the tent flap open because it would be suffocatingly hot inside otherwise.

He hunts for much of his food and stays, he said, until he grows tired of smelling himself. Then he comes back to civilization.

He was carrying an Amazon Indian type of bow that he had just bought when I met him. 

Some of the American Mountain Men came out to get rich in the fur trade. Most, I think, were more like the Basque man with the bow. Loners by nature, they wandered the wilderness and felt keenly alive.

The fur trade, and the Mountain Man culture, lasted about 15 years, from the mid-1820s to about 1840. No more rendezvous, but other opportunities presented themselves. 

Jim Bridger opened a trading post. Kit Carson became an Army scout and helped John Fremont, another ex-Mountain Man, take California from Mexico. 

Many hired on as guides to wagon trains during the Great Migration. Jedediah Smith was killed by Comanches (or, at least, that’s what is assumed) while scouting for water for a group of travelers. He went out looking and never came back.

The museum has dioramas representing typical living conditions. Most of the illustrations and paintings were done generations after the Mountain Men had disappeared and show the men with unruly beards. 

The images rendered by the few artists who actually saw the Mountain Men show them clean-shaven. According to a film that is part of the exhibit, if a Mountain Man wanted to take an Indian wife, as many of them did, he had better shave off his whiskers.

There are curiosities of various sorts, a rifle that belonged to Jim Bridger, an Indian bow made of sheep horn, “atypical elk” heads with assymmetrical antlers, and a diorama of Hugh Glass (who in this instance doesn’t look like Leonardo DiCaprio in the least) fighting the grizzly.

There are also several glass cases filled with row after row of commemorative Winchester rifles donated by two collectors named Vernon and Virginia Delgado. The exhibit includes a case devoted to John Wayne commemoratives—knives, boxes of ammunition, and specially stamped rifles, dedicated to “the greatest American.”

You’d think people out here, where cowboy stuff really happened, would know better.

John Wayne didn’t actually win the West. He didn’t defeat Japan single-handed. He was the only movie star in Hollywood who didn’t enlist in the armed forces during World War II.

He played the strong, silent type because he couldn’t really act.

Outside the museum is a structure that looks like a large teepee partly covered in tree branches. We saw that first, and while we were looking at it, a volunteer for the museum came up and explained it to us.

An expedition led by a man named Robert Stuart came through in 1812 and made note of a large structure 150 feet around and about 40 high. Three dead people were buried there. 

The explorers later found Shoshone Indians who were hiding from the Crow, who had taken the war path.

The structure at the museum is based on Stuart’s description.

It is called a Sundance Lodge and is used in Crow rituals, many or all of which may have to do with revenge. This one was built with the consent of the Crow people, whose representatives came to see it.

For lunch we went to China Gourmet, or Chung Gwok Mei Sik, which translates roughly to “Middle Kingdom (the Chinese name for China) Beautiful Food.” Well, not exactly beautiful, but an OK change.

Joanna had chicken in black bean sauce, and I had sweet and sour pork. We asked that they hold the MSG, and I think they did.

The elevation, the bright sun, and the distant smoke are tiring us out a bit, so we took it easy in the afternoon. Joanna has taken some annoying sunburn, and has developed a sore throat and a cough.

We stopped at the local clinic, which is right across the road from the museum, where we confirmed that she has no serious infection. It’s the dryness and smoke getting to her.

It think it has been getting to me, too. I didn’t even want a beer last night. I just went to sleep.

Today, we’re headed for Jackson, about an hour and a half from here.

More later.

Be well, all.