Road Trip 2015 Colorado-Home

We left Steamboat Springs this morning. We will go to Craig, Colorado; Baggs, Wyoming; take I 80 East to Rawlins, Wyoming; then go north to Muddy Gap, and northwest to Riverton. We will spend the next several days with Shirley's brother Terry and wife Donna. This will complete the loop as we started from Riverton on our extended Road Trip.

From Steamboat Springs to Craig, we followed the Yampa River. The mountains changed to low hills and flat farm and ranch land.

The closer we got to Craig, the more arid the landscape.

Craig, Colorado is a community with a population or about 9,500. In the 1970's and early 80's the largest power generation plant in Colorado and several coal mines were constructed in the area.

Colorado highway 13 is the major highway from Craig to Baggs, Wyoming. Notice the lack of mountains (some little ones in the distance about 7,800 feet in elevation are almost in Utah).

This part of Colorado looks just like southern Wyoming.

Heading for Wyoming on CR 13

Almost to Baggs.

Not much to look at in this part of Wyoming between Baggs and Sweetwater Station. There are a lot of oil and natural gas wells.

Shirley and I have been in this part of Wyoming before, so we kinda blew like the Wyoming wind through this area. On an earlier road trip, we went to Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, the Sun Ranch which is near Martin's Cove, Martin's Cove, the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater, Split Rock and Rock Creek. My Grandmother's Grandfather (as a young man) was a member of the Willie Handcart Company which was stranded here. Several of my ancestors are buried in this area.

At Sweetwater Station, we headed for Sand Draw and on to Lander and Riverton.

Beaver Rim and the Wind River Range in the distance.

Entering Riverton, Wyoming.

We arrived in Riverton on Wednesday and left for home on Friday. This is a backtrack of the first part of our 2015 Road Trip from Riverton to Mackay.

Our Arco desert is a pretty sight.

Heading up the Big Lost River Valley. We will be home in Mackay in about 20 minutes. This has been a great adventure. We were gone for a month, traveled 6,665 miles; were in 21 states (22 if you count Idaho) and Washington D.C.

Comments

Early Mining on Mackay Peak

Early Mining on Mackay Peak Mackay Peak (10273 ft ) Ore was first discovered in what is called the Alder Creek mining district in 1879. However the prospectors who discovered the ore were too poor to develop their claims. In 1884, additional discoveries, including one in the area of what would become the Darlington Shaft of the Empire mine, created a boom in the area. NOTE: The Darlington Shaft (700 feet in depth) is located at the top of the the current open pit mine. . A 50-ton smelter was built at Cliff City on Cliff Creek This smelter was build by Wayne Darlington as an experiment to see if it would be economically feasible to recover copper from the ore by smelting. Wayne Darlington NOTE: I t could be said that Wayne Darlington was the visionary who saw the potential for the mining of copper in the Alder Creek Mining District. The Office of State Engineer was establ...

Wayne Darlington Mining Visionary

WAYNE DARLINGTON MINING VISIONARY It could be said that Wayne Darlington was the visionary who saw the potential for the mining of copper in the Alder Creek Mining District. “Mr. Wayne Darlington, one of the most successful and experienced mining engineers in America, was for five years in charge of John William Mackay’s mining properties.” (Harper’s Weekly – 1907) Wayne MacVeagh Darlington was born on March 3, 1862 in Pennsylvania. The early 1880s found him in Idaho. Idaho State mine records show that Darlington had a theory that smelting rock containing the copper ore would be an effective way of recovering the copper. Darlington persuaded some New York investors to help finance his operation. Upon securing financing, a 50 ton per day through put smelter was built and operated from late 1890 to February 1891. Darlington would have been about 28 years old at that time. The smelter produced about 200,000 pounds of base copper bullion by di...

Lake Creek Trail

Several years ago (probably more like 8 or 9) Shirley and I went camping with friends in the Lake Creek Campground, Salmon Challis National Forest, (about 60 miles from our home in Mackay, Idaho). Our friends went some where with their kids fishing, so we decided to check out the trail to the chain of Lake Creek lakes: Round Lake, Long Lake, Big Lake, Rough Lake, Golden Lake, etc.. Well we got up the trail about 6 miles or so and the trail being so rocky and rough and because we were both on one 4-Wheeler, we decided to turn back to camp. Also, no one knew where we were because we left after our friends had gone and we had been out several hours. We never got to any of the lakes, and always wondered what the rest of the trail was like and what the various lakes looked like. Well, a few weeks ago, we got to find out! Our son Dirk called and said that he and his family would like to go camping for the weekend. They wanted to camp at the Lake Cr...

Wayne's Reflections