Wyoming folks are not shy about talking about their favorite places in our home state.
And I am going to take that habit to an extreme in my next book, which will include photos and stories of 101 of Wyoming’s favorite places.
So this is your chance to let me know what you think are the most fascinating and unique places in the Cowboy State.
Send me your nomination in 12 words up to 600 words and maybe we can squeeze it into the book. This new book will be out this fall and will be similar in format to my last book, Wyoming’s Seven Greatest Natural Wonders.
Obviously, I would put those original seven wonders at the top of my personal list: Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, Devils Tower, The Red Desert, South Pass, Thermopolis Hot Springs and the North Platte River system.
We can talk about mountain ranges like the Tetons, the Winds, Snowies, Bighorns, the Wyoming Range and others.
I love buttes like Oregon, Crowheart, Dishpan, Pilot, Black, Pumpkin and Blacktail.
And then there are all those magnificent Wyoming canyons. Like Sinks, Wind River, Crazy Woman, Red, Bighorn, Firehole, Tensleep and Fremont to name just a few.
We have amazing basins like the Big Horn Basin, the Wind River Basin, the Great Divide Basin and Thunder Basin National Grassland.
Our wildlife is unparalleled in the lower 48. I just travelled through nine states and nowhere are there elk, deer, antelope, wild horses and other critters like in Wyoming.
There are amazing man-made places like the Oregon Trail, the Lincoln Highway, the UP Railroad and the Burlington Northern Railroad through Wind River Canyon (which includes an amazing tunnel). Forts like Laramie, Casper and Bridger.
We have Pony Express stations, historical Mormon Trail sites, and the site of the original telegraph line across the country.
Wyoming has other man-made structures like the State Capitol, everything at the University of Wyoming, the old hotels in Yellowstone and Teton parks and the modern hotels and amazing ski areas in Jackson Hole.
Spectacular roadways like the Chief Joseph Highway plus amazing passes such as Teton, Togwotee, South, Tensleep, and the Summit.
Man-made wonders like the world’s biggest coalmines near Gillette and the gigantic trona mines under I-80 west of Green River. Vast natural gas fields like the Jonah.
The world’s first national forest stretches from South Pass all the way to Cody, called the Shoshone. Plus all the other wonderful forests in the state including such special places as Aspen Alley.
The Wind River Indian Reservation is full of spectacular spots such as Bull Lake, Washakie Hot Springs, the Crowheart area, and the amazing area known as the Washakie Needles in the south end of the Absaroka Mountains.
The ancestors of our native Indians created breath-taking petroglyph areas and the biggest site of all, known as American Stonehenge, is the Bighorn Medicine Wheel high in the mountains between Lovell and Sheridan. Plus we have ancient Indian sites that are 10,000 years old like Register Cliff north of Thermopolis. And dinosaur sites like Como Bluff and ancient fossil basins like Fossil Butte. The Vore Buffalo Jump near Sundance and the Steamboat Mountain buffalo jump north of Rock Springs are amazing.
River systems like the Wind River, which turns into the Big Horn River, which has two basins and two mountain ranges, named for them – and they are the same river!
The Green River is the main source of water for the huge Colorado River.
The Snake River in Jackson Hole is the main water source for a big chunk of Idaho. The Yellowstone River, likewise, is a major source of water for the country’s longest river, the Missouri River.
Reservoirs like Flaming Gorge, Boysen, Glendo, and those south of Casper contribute to our state’s recreation and irrigation and power generation.
And that leads me to the wonderful dams such as Buffalo Bill near Cody, which was the biggest in the world when it was built in 1910. There is also the big Pathfinder dam south of Casper, the Boysen dam and various other dams.
Who can forget the great museums like the Buffalo Bill Center, which is known as the Smithsonian of the West. The state is full of other wonderful museums.
These are just a few of my favorite things and places in Wyoming. Let me know which ones are your favorites and why you love them so much by writing me at mystory@mywyomingbook.com.
|