South Pass History and Brooks Lake Scenery

I have friends who ski outside Steamboat Springs.  I had never been there, but it’s on the way to Buffalo Pass in the Zirkel Mountains.  An attractive town, neat and prosperous, it is also welcoming.  It’s out in the middle of nowhere, but so is Aspen.  I drove east out of town toward Buffalo Pass and the Continental Divide.  I envisioned a ridge line with sweeping vistas to the right and left as I hiked north.  Instead, I found a locked gate across a public right-of-way after ten plus miles of graded road.  I was irked.  Instead of turning around, I shouldered my tripod and decided to hike up hill on the road, perhaps reaching the pass.

In less than an hour I came upon the problem.  Snow covered the road as far as I could see.  Glacier lilies were in bloom where the snow had melted.  Pine siskins were about, too.  And a Cassin’s finch was singing.  I just made the best of it, but snow was once again blocking my way.  This was a pass, not a mountain top….and it was June 21!

I am not much of a history buff, but if there is a dollop of adventure in the events, I can get excited.  Lewis & Clark’s journal, Shackleton’s story in Endurance, the history of the Khyber Pass, I can get just as caught up in these as I did South Pass, which I visited next.  I took US Hwy 287 north out of Rawlins.  When it angled west, the view turned dramatic: undulating hills with the snowy peaks of the Wind River Range directly ahead of me in the distance.

Those fur traders and prospectors who followed Lewis & Clark didn’t want to deal with the Rocky Mountains.  If they went very far south, the rivers were too swift, deep and wide: the Colorado, the Green, the Rio Grande.  But in 1812 an Indian guide led Robert Stuart with the Columbia Fur Co. around the south end of the Wind River Range.  Although it was very much north in central Wyoming, the spot was still south of the other options.  So it was immediately known as South Pass.

When the great western emigration began, the California Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail and the Pony Express all went through South Pass, the only common point for each.  Upwards of 300,000 souls, some with wagons, some with stock, some with only barrows, passed this way between 1812 and 1869 when the transcontinental railroad was completed.

The Continental Divide and the Continental Divide Trail both traverse this spot.

In 1867 when gold was discovered nearby, a town of 2,000 sprung up, and South Pass City bloomed briefly, until 1875 when the mineral played out.  Old buildings have been renovated and personal effects set in place by the Wyoming Division of Parks.  For $4 you can stroll along “Main Street.”  Commemorative “tombstones” identify many of the buildings that no longer exist.  I walked out of town on the CDT.

After doubling back to US Hwy 287, I continued north just past a spot on the map marked Dubois.  Five miles up a gravel road landed me at Brooks Lake Campground.  Thank you, Teresa Martinez.   I never would have found this without you.  The lake is a jewel; the setting is a panorama of sheer mountains.  My first day there I took a detour off the CDT to search for Jade Lake, which I didn’t find.  It didn’t matter.  I took a sun bath in front of a dramatic escarpment and then dropped back down to the campground.

By the way, the drive from Dubois to Grand Teton National Park on Hwy 287 gets on that short list of best wild and scenic highways.

Next:  Through Yellowstone and into Montana and the terminus of the CDT.