Today we did an incredible trail. We started just south of Labarge,Wy. on the Labarge to Alpine scenic byway. It was a steady climb up into the mountains and the Bridger National Forest, and once again, were blessed with some incredible sights. We followed the Labarge Creek for quite some time and passed an old homestead, as you can see by the pictures. Even Hogan was curious, as you can see!!
We continued along the bypass and came upon a sign directing us to Scaler Cabin, which turned out to be a ranger station tucked along side yet another creek (there are hundreds of them up here). It was neat and well worth the one mile we had to travel off the bypass. When we were ready to leave we made Hogan run back to the trailhead - good exercise. We had made him run one km. yesterday - even the dog has to get into shape!
Once back on the trail, we passed a couple of hunters/fishermen camped out beside the creeks. I had John stop a couple of times to take pictures WITHOUT the truck moving!!
We accessed another trail that in turn accessed the Lander Cutoff Trail which was part of the infamous Oregon Trail. What incredible history we experienced today. We passed several grave sites along the route as you can see from the pictures. One of these graves was of a 10 month old child by the name of M. Mead - died in 1861. Another was Wm. Durham - died in 1859. The original headstones were in place and still readable. There were also "County" headstone markers erected as well. John took some pics and hopefully they are clear enough for you to see the writing. It was incredible - such history - and to think, these original markers are 150 years old!! WOW. John and I are so blessed to be able to stand here today and pay respect to these early settlers. How ironic, they stood here 150 years ago with their horses and covered wagons and here we are today in a four wheel drive vehicle - amazing.
As we travelled further along the Oregon Trail, we came across the Lander Cutoff Incident, where a wagon had turned over, resulting in the death of a 10 year old girl. There is a historic marker there as you can see from the pictures but, they have never been able to find where the child was buried. Some of the county grave markers along the trail just say "unknown Oregon Trail dead".
Eventually the trail turned to pavement and into the town of Big Piney, where we stopped at the ranger station and purchased a back roads map for the millions of trails in the state of Wyoming. An invaluable item when you are in the back country.
With our book of maps in hand, we headed back out to do a loop trail that would eventually lead us back to the highway and home. On this trail we were lucky enough to see numerous deer (not too shy either) and several herds of antelope.
All in all, a great day. Home for chili (not as good as Ron's, my brother in law) but it hit the spot. Watched some TV while John downloaded pictures to the blog. We only did half the Labarge to Alpine Bypass today, so must do the rest tomorrow. What a different landscape from yesterday. Off to bed - more adventure tomorrow. Gosh - what a life!!
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