TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

In the Pandemic Year of 2020, I was working in Colorado but had a couple of breaks where I was able to sneak out to visit some of my favorite places. In August I went to Jackson Hole and stopped on the way to fish the Green River, up above Warren Bridge to the headwaters at Green River Lakes.

There is a great BLM campsite at Warren Bridge, right on the river, but there are miles and miles of trails that offer great dispersed camping options. Highway 352 follows the valley north towards the river and it is paved until it reaches the National Forest boundary, where it becomes forest road 650 and turns to dirt. In the three visits I’ve made, I’ve never found it in a condition that I want to drive my motorhome down, so I’ve tried to find a spot to boondock shortly after the dirt starts, and there are plenty. In 2015, I arrived in October and stayed at the Whiskey Grove campground, which was closed for the season but left accessible for visitors to use without services. (water, trash pickup)

There is also a dirt road that parallels the river from Warren Bridge upstream on the west bank for about 8 miles, with lots of fishing access and dispersed campsites.

Way up at the head of the river, where it spills out of Green River Lakes, there is a wonderful old homestead to explore. I wrote about one of my favorite old ruins in Montana recently, and this one is my favorite in Wyoming.

Searching for any history online drew a blank when looking for this particular property, but the history of the valley in the hands white people started to boom with the tie hack industry in 1867, as camps were built for lumberjacks to cut timber for the railroads. Prior to that, it was home to fur trappers, prospectors and adventure seeking trailblazers.

On my visit in 2015, I snapped a pic of this sign, which is well downstream of the above homestead. I’ve read that cattle ranches started being founded around the same time as the tie hack business, and there are some ranch families that have been herding cattle along the Green since the 1880’s.

I wonder what it was like to convince a wife that it was a great idea to build a house way up here at the top of a river, miles and miles away from civilization. The nearby town of Pinedale wouldn’t be founded until 1904, and Daniel, 50 miles down river was barely a speck when it was home in 1833 to the Green River Rendezvous, a gathering of trappers, Indians and fur traders.

Sounds like a great time! That link has some incredible information about Captain Benjamin Bonneville, who named the Great Salt Lake after himself on his first journey west. The Mountain Man Rendezvous still has a loyal following, I imagine along the lines of the Renaissance Fair people that get together every year to revel in some good old-time debauchery. I drove by one ongoing in a field outside of West Yellowstone somewhere in the last few years, but it isn’t listed on the Rocky Mountain National Rendezvous website, so there must be more than one group organizing these things! There is a deep rabbit hole of related information out there, if you are so inclined…

Here’s a few images from this wonderful old Wyoming home on the Green River.

(click any image for larger versions and captions).

Do you know any more about this particular location, or want to share any other interesting local knowledge? Share in the comments form below.