The greatest Western movie ever made, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome
Dove, tells the story of two aging Texas Rangers, who by the year 1876 had done
their job so well, they were no longer needed. Augustus McCray and Woodrow Call,
as young men had tamed the wild element found in the Texas Rio Grande Valley;
or as Gus put it, “we done hanged or shot all the bandits who made this place
interesting.” Needing one more adventure before taking up the rocking chair,
the two were told by a friend of a magical far off land called Montana, a still
lawless frontier where a recent massacre by Indians of General Custer and his troops had
occurred. Not hindered by a fear of hostile Indians (“We whipped ‘em down here
didn’t we?”), the two former lawmen devise a grandiose and high risk plan to
drive a cattle herd from Texas north to Montana and establish the area’s first
ranch. “Fortune to be made to whoever has the guts and the brains to get there
first,” they were told. Woodrow had other
motives; “I want to see that land, before the lawyers and the bankers all get
ahold of it.”
I have often bemoaned the lost chance of my generation to
see such vivid and untamed wilderness; such as Montana in 1876. Today, in the
lower 48 states, much of what is left in a preserved state of wild has been
restricted to human use. What is still unchained and wild often requires a half
day hike to experience. Other former natural and pristine areas, such as
Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, were years ago overdeveloped where today,
despite their incredible natural beauty, can be considered as only slightly
above over-hyped tourist traps.
It is late September, 2014 and I am making a much put off
trip to the Front Range of the Rockies. I have arrived on an early morning
flight from St. Louis, MO to Denver, CO. As a child, Denver was my enchanted
city. Even the name itself, in my child’s mind, would drum up images of
adventure. Today, Denver is a major drag on any trip I make to the Rockies. I
tolerate the town as a necessary hub for any air travel to the region. Denver
is no longer as I recall it in the 1960’s:
the edgy town- lit and alive with the energy of non-conforming
adventurers seeking a life in the Mile High City. The modern day Denver is a
dirty city exposing all the same urban decay that can be found back on the
eastern seaboard. The air is bad, the infrastructure is decaying and gang
graffiti is everywhere. Strip Malls abound.
I stumbled upon Encampment, WY like I have found most of the
interesting places and people on my wanderings; by happenstance. I had a late
afternoon appointment in Rawlins, WY to interview a bureaucrat from the
United States Forest Service. He was to fill me in on the recent
extensive damage from the mountain pine beetle to the forests in Rocky
Mountain National Park. By killing off millions of acres of trees, the mountain
pine beetle has left in its wake infested lodgepole and ponderosa pine forests.
A recent decision allows, for the first time in a generation, timbering in the national
forests of the area. Rational for the change in policy is the clearing efforts
are to eradicate dying trees that have turned the national forest lands of the
west into a tinderbox for potential wildfires.
My flight into Denver had touched down at 8:25 am on a clear
and brisk early fall Tuesday morning. My meeting in Rawlins was at 2:00 pm. I
had the option of taking Interstate 25 north out of Denver, crossing over into
Wyoming on the way to Cheyenne, then take Interstate 80 west into Rawlins. No
need to stop or slow down on the interstate route, a straight freeway shot at
80 miles per hour. Or, I could take the two lane through Fort Collins to
Laramie and then due west through the Medicine Bow National Forest, raising up
and over the Medicine Bow Mountains on two lanes of pavement labeled on the
atlas as the “Snowy Range Road.” After crossing the range and descending into
the Platte River Valley, my trail would cut north at the intersection of
Wyoming State Road 130, just to the east of the 11,000 foot Mt. Bridger, then
on to Rawlins. My atlas showed the entire back roads route with a
parenthesized note that warned, “Closed in Winter.”
The interstate option for my trip was 150 miles from Denver and
would take two hours to drive. The 40 mile route on the Snowy Range Road alone
would also require two hours. It would be a challenge I was warned at the
rental car desk in Denver; white knuckle mountain driving at its best, while navigating
numerous switchbacks and steep mountain curves.
Time moves in one direction, memories in another. As always
with me, the schedule be damned, I chose the high road, literally. I found the
Snowy Range Road, as promised, to be breathtaking. Nothing clears the head of
unneeded clutter like the “High Country.” I have never had a bad day above
8,000 feet. I refer often to the high country as my “Mountain of Youth.”
Three and one half hours out of Denver, I had crossed the
Snowy Range Road. I then descended 2000 feet in a mere distance of 10 miles, traversing
from Alpine mountain forests onto a sparkling high plain as I crossed the North
Platte River at the point that its main tributary, Sweetwater Creek, flows in
from the west. I entered the valley from the south on Wyoming State Highway 130
and in 14 miles crossed the city limits of the town of Saratoga, population 1690.
The town sits atop a natural pass accessible from both south/north and the
east/west directions, a route that would prove to be instrumental in the nation’s
western movement and expansion on the Oregon Trail. Two hundred years prior, partners
and employees of the fur magnate John Jacob Astor, were returning east from the
mouth of the Columbia River when they passed through land that is modern day
Saratoga, discovering a low point in the Continental Divide near the head of
the Sweetwater River. The town of Saratoga survives to this day due to the
fortunes of geography, still a cross roads community.
Mountain people are different. The rugged lifestyle they
embrace- while taking pleasure in strutting their toughness in the face of an outside
world of flat landers- is continuous to mere tourists passing through. Most who
live closer to sea level do not understand the rigid grip the mountains can
take on the true believers. This past July the body of a man lost on Mont Blanc
in the Alps in 1982 was recovered and returned for internment in his home town;
or perhaps re-interment after 32 frozen years on a mountain top; would be a
better description. Patrice Hyvert was 23 years old when bad weather trapped
him and he was never heard from again. His Grandfather told Reuters he would
have preferred his Grandson had been left where he fell. "I'm a mountain
man, and I would have preferred him to stay up there," he told RTL radio.
"He was better on a mountain than in a coffin. He was in his
element."
I parked on the town’s main street next to the Wolf
Café and Hotel, a bustling area of restaurants and shops, teeming with the
lunch time crowd. I pulled out my cell phone, happy to see I had service for
the first time since leaving Laramie, and made a lame excuse call to cancel my
impending appointment in Rawlins. This place looked too good to pass on the
opportunity of getting acquainted with the locals, peeking under the hood and
finding out what everyday life in this beautiful valley was really like.
When entering a new town and wanting to quickly become honed
in on the character of the community, I almost always employ one of two
strategies; either visit the local bar or the community newspaper. In Saratoga,
I now was in a quandary necessitated by timing. It was 1 pm which meant that
the local drinking and eating establishments would be packed with tourists, a
clientele that could not relate to me the local color I sought. But, Tuesday
afternoons, I knew from experience, is most often deadline time for local
weekly newspapers, a burden requiring a narrow focus from every employee in the
small shop, leaving no time to entertain a nosy outsider. I glanced across the
street and quickly located the town newspaper, designated by a sign hung above
its Main Street locale. Small town papers are always located on the town’s main
commercial street, I guarantee it. “The
Saratoga Sun, The Platte Valley’s Newspaper since 1888,” read the sign. I
crossed the street and decided the paper would be my launching port in my discovery
of Saratoga, WY. The bars, all six, would be bumped to this evening’s agenda. I
viewed it as a win/win for both my research and my thirst.
As I entered the front door of the paper’s office, I found
the week’s edition of the Sun was coming out the front door, literally. I
bumped square into the backside of the editor Liz Wood. The pages for the
week’s edition were laid end to end from the back of the shop to the threshold
of the front door, garnering one last visual check by the stooped over editor before
heading to the printer in Casper. “Have a bigger edition, you are going to need
a bigger office,” I quipped (wise cracked). Ms. Wood stood, turned and
introduced herself while requesting I “return in an hour.” Never argue with an
editor on deadline. Besides, it left just enough time to re-cross the street
and quench my thirst at the Wolf.
“I have had this job for 11 years,” Ms. Wood began, “and for
an outsider, I will admit there have been times that have been rough. This is a
very conservative community in a very conservative state and sometimes the
paper’s views don’t always agree with the views of a majority of our readers. I
grew up in Des Moines, IA but I will tell you that for me, after some rough
years, I admit, to get accepted, this is home. Saratoga is a wonderful place to
live.”
Joining our conversation were the paper’s two young
reporters: Mike Dunn and Erik Gnatt; both also, “outsiders.” Both had taken
curious paths to employment with the Sun: neither had a journalism education
and both had followed a significant other who had secured employment in
Saratoga. “I enjoy the job,” said Dunn. “Sometimes we have to dig into topics
that might make some of the locals uneasy, but we do it professionally.” Added
Gnatt, “People here are fair, once they get to know you. It is a very close
knit town, not real open to outsiders, which is ironic since tourism is so
important to the local economy, but it is a very supportive town. If someone
has a problem come up, the whole town pitches in to help. I have seen that many
times.”
Wood explained her editorial style. “’I’ never write an
editorial, it is always ‘we.’ We go over things as a staff and the more
controversial the topic, the more we go over it. We also respect the other side
of the issue, we listen and the citizens know they have a voice through our
paper. We will print other views in letters to the editor and guest editorials.”
Is it not a slippery slope to navigate, Wood was asked, to balance the life
line of advertising dollars from the local commerce and the risk of offending
just said people who can at a whim pull those dollars? “You ask tough
questions,” chuckled Wood, “but yes it is.”
Our conversation turned to the local schools. How important
are they to the community’s self-image and to cohesiveness? “Very,” all three
agreed. “We devote a lot of print space to the local schools,” said Dunn, who
does the bulk of sports reporting. “My dad was a small town high school football
coach, so I have lived the life to know how important sports are to a small
town.” How are the Saratoga high school teams faring this year, I asked? “They
try really hard,” Dunn diplomatically answered.
“If you want to see a good small town team and a community
that supports them in unison, you should come to Encampment this evening and
watch the high school girls’ volleyball game,” Wood told me. “They start in an
hour. I am on my way over to take pictures for next week’s paper.”
Encampment, I was informed, was a small town of several
hundred located 14 miles to the west of Saratoga. “How big is the school,” I
asked. “Normally graduate about 10 in a class,” Wood said, “around 40.” 40? In
grades 9-12? And they have a volleyball team worth going to watch? “Yes,” was
Wood’s one word answer. I made the drive and soon I would bare testimony that
the volleyball team at Encampment, WY High School, enrollment 41 (18 girls), is
indeed, very good.
South Park High School from Walden, CO, 40 miles south
across the Colorado boarder, provided the evening’s opposition. The visitors’ also
possessed a talent level above what I had expected, but they were overmatched.
The home court Tigers were outstanding, winning the match in three lopsided
games.
I see a lot of high school volleyball and I expected in such
small enrollment schools to see maybe one or two players on each team with
talent, but also a majority of players who would possess little or no skills, a
game dominated by volleys over the net and underhanded serves. Such was the arrogance
on my part. I should have been forewarned of my misjudgment when I entered the
packed gym, half way through the Junior Varsity match and observed the far wall
covered with rows of red state championship banners, testament to the long time
dominance of the locals.
I struck up a conversation between the junior varsity and
varsity matches with one of the line judges, Home Economics teacher Cheryl
Munroe. “I have been teaching 42 years she told me.” Assuming that “Mo”, as
everyone in the school addressed her, had not begun her career in front of the
class at the precarious age of 12, she was at least 10 years older than I would
have guessed by her appearance. “I grew up on an Indian Reservation on the
other side of the mountain and began teaching over there for seven years. I went through a divorce, moved to Encampment
for a change, met a rancher, and married him and have never had a thought to
leaving. This is a wonderful place to call home.”
The drive across the Snowy Range that morning had been
spectacular, the vivid fall golden colors of the high country forests providing
the exclamation point to a natural visual masterpiece. But, as the locals so
well know, the turning of fall colors in the mountains is an onerous forewarning
for all, human and animal inhabitants alike, who make these mountains their
home. “This is a hard place to live,” Munroe told me, “But a great place to
live. You learn to get things done. We got the last of our hay in last night or
I wouldn’t be here tonight. Winter is coming and right now, everyone is getting
ready. Winter up here is long and dominates your life, not only in the 8 months
we live it, but in the other four months when we prepare for it.”
Between matches, I introduced myself to Encampment Schools’
Principal Mike Erickson. I told him I was surprised how good the Tiger’s volleyball
team was. From his body language I felt I had offended him, or at least that my
condescending praise had in some way disrespected the caliber of the students
in his charge. “We expect to be good……. in everything,” he told me. Erickson
was in his 8th year at the helm of the K-12 school. He confirmed to
me that the student enrollment in the high school level grades 9 through 12 was
41 with 18 girls, total. According to the program I picked up at the gate, the
Encampment Tigers were composed of a roster of 15 players; five freshman, four
sophomores, five juniors and one lone senior. I wondered to myself if the other
three girls in the student body were in attendance, selling popcorn, maybe? “You
only have one senior girl on the roster, was it a weak class,” I asked
Erickson? “We only have one senior girl,” Erickson responded. I reaffirmed that
was my question, just a group that didn’t have much interest in sports? You
don’t understand, said Erickson. “(Until this year) we only have one girl in
the senior class, period.”
After leaving the game that evening and going for a work out
run on the pitch black track back in Saratoga, I was consumed with pondering
what it must be like to grow up in such a small and isolated community as
Encampment. 41 students, total. 8 months of snow. “We had 20 inches of snow
fall on the 18th of May last spring,” Principal Erickson had told
me. With little transient movement of students, most had known their classmates
as far back as starting school at the age of 5; almost family members, putting
an incestuous label on any dating amongst classmates. 41 students, total, in
the entire high school? I told Erickson that on some days as a principal,
“I have suspended more students before noon than you have in your whole
school.”
“We have a great school and a great community and you will
find that pride in everything we do,” Erickson told me. “We expect our kids to
be involved and we expect them to be successful and as you can see we are,
across the board; athletics, academics and activities. I will put our small
student body up against schools 10 times our size and I will assure you, we
will compete head to head very well.”
Upon entering Encampment, it was obvious that the town was
isolated. I found none of the commercial clutter that detracts from over
developed and overpriced mountain towns like Aspen and Breckenridge. A sign at
the city limits proudly proclaimed to any environmentalist who might sneak in
to stir up the locals, that Encampment was a “multi-use community,” meaning if
you leave us to our hunting and four wheeling, we will leave you to your hiking
and cross country skiing. Yet, the surrounding mountain peaks dressed in their
full color splendor where of the finest I have seen anywhere in in the Rockies.
How had this treasure gone undiscovered, but even more importantly,
undeveloped? “People here like the outdoors and a variety of activities,”
Erickson had told me. “We have been able to keep the lifestyle without a whole
lot of outside interference.”
Less than one hundred miles south of Encampment sits the
town of Steamboat Springs, CO. Many I talked to on the front range of the
Rockies pointed to Steamboat as a former rustic and isolated mountain town that
had lost its quaint allure over the past twenty years of overdevelopment. “Too
much damn money, too much damn glitz,” bemoaned a man I spoke with at a book
store in Denver, lamenting his distaste for present day Steamboat Springs. Having
found Encampment, I needed to dig deeper into this overlooked treasure I had
blindly stumbled upon while crossing the Platte River Valley. Could this be
finally a hidden jewel of the former state of the frontier so many yearned for?
Could somehow, the “lawyers and the bankers” have overlooked Encampment, WY and
this beautifully underdeveloped land, nestled between the peaks of the San Juan
and Sierra Madre Mountains?
Could I hang around for a few days and visit the school
during the day, I inquired of Erickson, at the completion of the evening’s
volleyball match? With no hesitation, he graciously agreed. “And by the way,
you sure have a good volleyball team,” I added, in thanks.
The next morning, I was buzzed into the Encampment school by
an intercom security system that has become common place today in even then
most pristine and safe of school settings. It was in some ways an affront to my
vision of this small town’s education system, but a mandated necessity in any
2014 school building, I will grudgingly admit.
The highlight of my day of visiting the school was my
interaction with the students. I immediately recognized Cassidy Little as a high
jumping and hard hitting junior I had watch perform at the previous night’s
volleyball match. I congratulated her on the team’s fine performance. She was
embarrassingly gracious at first, but quickly informed me the Tigers had bigger
fish to fry this season. “We went to state last year,” she told me. “We intend
to go back this year and we plan to win it all this year.” Been there and done
that and now hell bent on adding to the proud legacy set by those before her; to
add to the collection of state championship banners hanging in the gym. I
complimented her with all intentions of stroking her ego. She deafly ignored my
praise but added, “the little girls look up to us just like we looked up to the
older girls when we were little. That motivates us all. Besides, I am better at
basketball.” She was the quintessential leadoff hitter for my introduction to
the students of Encampment. Little shared that she hoped to someday become an
elementary teacher in a small town and Encampment would be at the top of her
wish list for future employment. “I really like working with the younger kids
here, helping them with their reading. We go into a class one day a week.” Any
down side with living in such a small town? “The drama, my, oh my, we do have
that up here,” Little told me. “But it’s good, in some ways. You are for sure
not going to get away with anything here that will not be back to your parents
by the time we get home.”
Harold Jackson is the president of the student body and a
ready spokesman for the benefits of an Encampment childhood. “We have to get
along,” he tells me. “We all hang together, we have no choice. We spend a lot
time hanging out at my house and everyone knows they don’t need an invitation,
just come on over.” Can there be such a thing as too much familiarity with your
classmates. “Maybe, but we make it work. As for dating, no one around here is
really into that. If they are, often they will date someone from another area
school. Around here, dating would be awkward, we are too much like brothers and
sisters. We have a new student who moved in this year and we immediately
invited him to hang out with us, both in school and after.” Has he come around
yet, I asked. “No, but we will keep asking. Sometimes I do worry that it will
be hard for me to adjust to a totally different environment when I go away next
fall to college. I mean, we don’t even have a TV at my house. But still, this
is a great place. I can’t imagine any school with any more of a…, a…, I can’t
think of the word.” Nurturing, I offer? “Yeah, that’s the word, we are a
nurturing school, or a more accurate statement might be; ‘we are a nurturing
community.’ Everything I need to be happy is right here in this valley,
everything.”
Luke Pantle is a senior who spent his sophomore year at
South Park in nearby Walden, CO. “Our ranch is in both districts, and both
states,” said Pantle. “I can choose which school I want to go to. I like it
back here.” He never offered why he had left Encampment, or Walden; and I only
slightly pressed him on the issue. Owning an outstanding 31 on the ACT college
entrance exam, Pantle will have his choice of many colleges. “I am interested
in some kind of engineering, but I don’t want to go too far away and I also
would like to play basketball in college; so I will probably end up in a small
school, which is ok by me.” Luke’s mother recently retired as a social studies
teacher and earlier that day had gave me an informative tour at the area’s
outstanding and award winning community museum. “My family has been in this
area for a long time and I doubt I will settle anywhere too far away,” Luke
said. When asked about his preparation from a small school whose enrollment
would limit curriculum choices available to him, he hedged his answer, “bigger in
some ways would be better, but bigger is some other ways would be worse.”
Junior Guy Erickson has a tough gig for any teenage high
school student to endure; his dad is the principal of his school. “I am use to
it by now,” he told me with a shrug. “It has been this way since we moved to
Encampment when I was in 3rd grade.” An accomplished athlete as
well, Erickson said he fits in well with his classmates. “Sports are big here
and we start playing very young, so right away when I moved here, it gave me a
good connection with the kids my age. I can’t imagine school or my day without
sports. We play and practice all the time and we know the community is behind
us. We have high expectations for our basketball team for the next two years.
We have some good players.” There is talk of drug testing all the athletes at
Encampment and nearby Saratoga High. I ask the younger Erickson his thoughts on
such an intervention. “Not needed, but go on and test, if you want to, is my
answer. We don’t have time for any of that stuff. Plus we all are together so
much that if someone did have a drug problem, the rest of us would know right
away and we would see that it stopped.” I inquired as to future plans. “I would
like to do something in the medical/science field,” Erickson told me. “We are a
small school but I don’t think that will hold me back. Sometimes, we might not
have all the advanced classes that a large school might have, be we do have the
internet and we can take on line classes. Whatever I end up doing, I don’t see
myself ever moving very far away. This is home, to me.”
Winter and the incessant snow it brings dominates life in Encampment,
on that all I spoke with agreed. The bitter season is never far off. There is
ice along the banks of the Platte River in early October and often the year's first
snow falls before the World Series—a biting white and wet snow that swirls
across the high plains and drifts amongst the fall leaves on the one block downtown
main street of Encampment. There will be snowbanks by Thanksgiving of over 10
feet and winter may not end until one final wet blizzard is deposited on the
flower beds of May. Last year was an
especially long snow season, I am told. All who call this area home must learn
to enjoy such extreme weather. “We moved to Louisiana when I was in 4th
grade,” Cassidy Little tells me. “I hated it, no snow. I was so glad when we
moved back after only one year. I missed the snow and I missed the quiet that
comes with it.”
Now several weeks removed from Encampment, I must confess, I
am still smitten. What would it be like to hunker down for a long winter in a
small Rocky Mountain town, cut off from the outside world for 8 months of the
year by twelve foot snow drifts? Conjuring up images of hot chocolate filled
frigid nights snuggled up to a warm fire, wrapped in a homemade quilt and
engulfed in a good book? Naïve? Probably, no place is perfect. What about cabin
fever. One local in Saratoga explained to me that the long winters play havoc
on marriages. “Always a new lineup when the spring thaw comes than what we had
back the previous fall. Lots of nights we will drive around on snowmobiles just
to see whose truck is parked at whose house, it is our winter entertainment.”
Ah yes, carnal pursuits; a life force of winter, an
addictive nourishment that simply cannot be forgone. A man of many mountain
winters once told me: “These winters can get really bad and you got to have
someone to snuggle up with. I have had many friends of the female persuasion
over the years and we have helped each other get through the long and cold
winter. What you don’t want to do is be bedding up in the middle of a Rocky
Mountain winter,” he reasoned, “with some skinny women. Forget fashion magazine
‘looks,’ a good mountain women has got to have some meat on her. Up here, the
old timers call a really bad winter blizzard ‘an all-night, all-day,
stay-inside- and-hold-your-women storm.’ Yes sir, she got to have some meat on
her when the weather really turns cold.”
“Mountain people are tough people,” he continued, “they have
to be to survive. They are hunters, they are trappers. Out here it is kill or
be killed. It is not always pretty, but it is pure, a throwback to an old way
of life. Many easterners come out here and think they will find everything
gentle and kind, like it would be in a nice painting of the snow on the
mountains they hang in their log cabin. Listen, it’s not like that. John Denver
didn’t settle this harsh land, tough, and sometime not all that nice of people,
did.”
There is only one way I know of to answer the question, “What
is it really like?” You have to live through it. I am planning on a
dead-in-the-heart-of-winter return visit to Encampment. I want to experience
this enchanted land up close, before “the lawyers and bankers all get ahold of
it.” I will keep you filled in.
