7/8: Dubois-Gillette via Thermopolis' Hot Springs State Park

After spending several days in Yellowstone National Park,  the afternoon before Steven and I had driven 50 miles southeast to the small Wyoming town of Dubois located by Whisky Mountain for the night.  

The next morning we stopped at the National Bighorn Sheep  Center in town.

Cute mask, don't you think!

It was reassuring to learn that while animals and people often need the same habitat to survive, the two competing interests here in  Whisky Mountain had learned to co-exist with private ranchers, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy creating a land exchange that was a win-win solution for bighorn sheep and people. 

The bighorn sheep population at Whisky Mountain has been managed by manipulation of the habitat, redistributing the herds on the winter range, and hunting. Moving the sheep from Whisky Mountain to other Wyoming locations and to neighboring states has also been another means of population control. Since the development of the Whisky Mountain Habitat Management Area, over 1,700 bighorn sheep have been translocated.

Ever wondered how much hay a bighorn sheep eats per day?! This much which is four pounds of vegetation! It takes from 500-1,200 square feet of land to produce the four pounds. One bighorn sheep needs up to 180,000 square feet of winter habitat with 'good' grass, i.e. about three and a half football fields. If there are more sheep in an area that it can support, those extra ones will die. 

The origins of wildlife management came about when people began to understand the need for conservation and preservation. The leaders in the movement influenced men like President Theodore Roosevelt to adopt policies of "wise use" and "preservation" of wildlife and wildlands. At the forefront was Aldo Leopold who founded the science of wildlife management and understood the interaction between wildlife, habitat, and human use of natural resources. 

Second from the left was Roosevelt on one of his many trips to this part of the country. 

The result of the early concerns was the creation of state and federal wildlife and land management agencies such as the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

With the arrival of the transcontinental railroad bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the West, domestic cattle and sheep occupied grasslands and shrublands from the prairie to the high mountains by 1900. Diseases like pneumonia and new sources of parasites such as scabies mite affected the wild sheep. The wilderness and the ways of native peoples were changed forever by the growth of farms, roads, fences, croplands, powerlines, and cities. At the dawn of the last century, wild mountain sheep were only able to survive in the most remote and rugged mountain terrain of northwest Wyoming.

The Sheep Eater Indians hunted and trapped bighorn sheep either alone or in groups, the latter while using large, elaborate traps. 

These Shoshone winter boots were made partly from bighorn sheep hide with hair on. 

When bighorn sheep clash with each other, each ram uses his massive horns like a sledgehammer to strike the other ram on the outermost corner of his horns in an attempt to drive the smaller ram backward. 

It was neat learning that sheep horns are made of a material similar to human fingernails and, like fingernails, they're always growing longer. If you ever get close enough to count the number of rings on a bighorn sheep's horns, you could get a pretty good idea of its age!

As you might imagine, bighorn sheep compete with several large mammals for food and space. Other large mammals, such as mountain lions, black and grizzly bears, and coyotes prey upon bighorns. This bear, named Bear 128, had to be killed after repeatedly returning to the same spots in Yellowstone National Park to gather food left out by thoughtless people.

This was the first in my collection of unusual bathroom signs in a long, long time!

As we drove toward Thermopolis Hot Springs State Park, I was glad Steven was doing the driving so I could take in the spectacular scenery!

More magnificent scenery on the aptly-named Wyoming Scenic Highway just south of Thermopolis! If you "ever just want to get away from it all" it would be hard to discover a place more beautiful than this part of Wyoming! The road and railroad ran next to the Big Horn River.

Even though we're both retired and theoretically have all the time in the world, it seems there's still never quite enough to stop everywhere that piques our interest. That was the case at the hot mineral pools in the state park as we "needed" to reach the city of Gillette that night in order to see Devil's Tower National Monument in the morning. 

We were lucky enough to find a pretty idyllic spot to picnic, however, in the park!  

A sign stated the state park's thermal features originated in the Owl Creek Mountains to the south where surface water had seeped down through layers of porous rock. As the water flows deeper into the earth it is heated due to a natural increase in the earth's temperature as depth increases and is channeled back to the surface. By contrast, the thermal features at Yellowstone were heated by magma near the earth's surface.

Suspension bridges, like the Golden Gate in San Francisco and Brooklyn Bridge in New York, and this one over the Big Horn River River, include a deck hung from cables via vertical suspenders. The cables are anchored into the ground ay both ends and supported by two tall towers. This was Wyoming's longest suspension bridge. The bridge was restored in 1992 but the towers dated to their original construction in 1916. (Thanks, Janina, for noticing my typo with the latter date!)

The up to 600 feet deep red cliffs that we saw in and around the park were called the Red Peak Formation and were part of the Chugwater Group. The lovely brick red color was caused by the oxidation of iron minerals in the rock. Some historians believe the name Chugwater was derived from a Native American story about a buffalo hunt. The hunt ended when hunters drove the animals over a cliff and into the stream below known as "water at the place where the buffalo chug."

Even though Steven had had his fill of seeing buffalo while we toured most of Yellowstone, I was still excited seeing the buffalo preserve just outside the state park!

Next post: More of small-town Wyoming with a stop in Worland en route to Gillette.

Posted on December 15th, 2020, from our home in Denver's suburbs, the day after the momentous Covid-19 vaccine was rolled out and President-Elect Joe Biden's election was thankfully confirmed by the Electoral College. We hope that you and your loved ones will be safe from the horrific virus until you can be vaccinated.