Two Week Northern Rockies Adventure: Backroads, Eclipse, Anniversary and More

[SAS]

Great pictures--diverse terrain, and fantastic story well told! Thanks for posting this.

 

[Foy]

That's wild FOY...had the same experience in the same area...by south pass city, wy...one gentlemen was nice enough to talk to us for a few minutes...reacting the trail and experiences. a lot of LDS wards from the SLC, UT valley do this every year...kind of a "church thing" nothing like following two hundred people on a dirt two-track who appeared to be not so friendly...but, that's another story.

We met 4 or 5 truckloads of people, some with trailers loaded with camping gear, before really noticing that the "single spokesman" and "all eyes straight ahead" behavior was present in all of the vehicles. As we met another dozen or so truckloads, we observed more carefully. From what we could see, many of the adult women and children were dressed in 19th century garb. All were headed towards the Willies Handcart Company memorial site from US 287 near Sweetwater Junction. While stopped at the highway to unlock the hubs, an electric utility truck came by and we talked to the two guys in it for a bit. That's where we got the reenactor story. As we headed south on US 287, we saw a huge encampment on the Sweetwater River--hundreds and hundreds of campers and RVs. The electric company guys told us large LDS groups were camping there and doing their reenactments from there. We did a bit of Googling after that and it was our first exposure to the whole handcart company effort. We later the same day passed Martin Cove along WY-220 and there were at least a dozen buses and hundreds of people there. We read that descendants of the handcart company survivors have great respect from their colleagues and fellow church members. It was overall a completely fascinating day and given the exposure to a culture so entirely different than our own, a true overlanding experience.

We had no feelings of "sketchiness" whatsoever. We were cordially thanked by most of the drivers for our having pulled off of the two-track to allow their group of 2 or 3 vehicles to pass. Surely they noticed our North Carolina license plates and realized what was behind our "what the heck is this all about? expressions.

Foy

 

[mph]

Wild story...yeah, I think that area gets swarmed every summer.

We met 4 or 5 truckloads of people, some with trailers loaded with camping gear, before really noticing that the "single spokesman" and "all eyes straight ahead" behavior was present in all of the vehicles. As we met another dozen or so truckloads, we observed more carefully. From what we could see, many of the adult women and children were dressed in 19th century garb. All were headed towards the Willies Handcart Company memorial site from US 287 near Sweetwater Junction. While stopped at the highway to unlock the hubs, an electric utility truck came by and we talked to the two guys in it for a bit. That's where we got the reenactor story. As we headed south on US 287, we saw a huge encampment on the Sweetwater River--hundreds and hundreds of campers and RVs. The electric company guys told us large LDS groups were camping there and doing their reenactments from there. We did a bit of Googling after that and it was our first exposure to the whole handcart company effort. We later the same day passed Martin Cove along WY-220 and there were at least a dozen buses and hundreds of people there. We read that descendants of the handcart company survivors have great respect from their colleagues and fellow church members. It was overall a completely fascinating day and given the exposure to a culture so entirely different than our own, a true overlanding experience.

We had no feelings of "sketchiness" whatsoever. We were cordially thanked by most of the drivers for our having pulled off of the two-track to allow their group of 2 or 3 vehicles to pass. Surely they noticed our North Carolina license plates and realized what was behind our "what the heck is this all about? expressions.

Foy