From the moment I saw my first picture of a Dinwoody Style petroglyph on the internet, I was hooked.  As I researched the Dinwoody Style, I knew I needed to make a trip to Wyoming, with the primary purpose being to see as much of this unusual style of rock art as I could.  Early on, I sent Billy a picture of a Dinwoody petroglyph near Trail Lake that the locals called “A Boy and His Dog”, and Billy too was intrigued — when I suggested we plan a trip to Wyoming, he was all in!  So I began to research Wyoming rock art sites in general and Dinwoody style sites in particular, and the outline of a trip began to take shape.  It turned out to be an enjoyable trip, with the Dinwoody style as the centerpiece.  As you will see, the trip had lots of interesting rock art, wonderful weather, a little adventure, and a visit to “The Happiest Place on Earth”…  Hope you enjoy!

When researching rock art sites in Wyoming, I ran across a place called Castle Gardens.  This site contained a unique style of rock art called, you guessed it, the Castle Garden Shield Style — whose primary elements were shields that were incised then painted.  I also ran across a story about a famous turtle from the site.  As the story goes, around 1940, a well-known petroglyph at the site, called the “Great Turtle Shield”,  was cut from the sandstone and removed from the site.  The locals were very ticked off about this, and put the word out that if the turtle didn’t show back up, they would hunt down the thieves and put them six feet under.  Lo and behold, the Great Turtle Shield petroglyph was anonymously “donated” to the State Museum of Wyoming in Cheyenne on September 29, 1941, where it still resides today.  (For more information on the Castle Gardens Site, see:  https://www.historicwyoming.org/profiles/castlegardens.)  So, we decided our first stop in Wyoming would be the State Museum in Cheyenne.  We also decided after visiting the museum, we would make our way to Riverton (where we would spend the night prior to visiting the Castle Gardens Site the next day) by traveling on a highway that followed the Old Oregon Trail.  We wanted to stop and hike around Independence Rock, a very famous landmark on the Oregon Trail.  Early settlers heading to Oregon along the trail had to reach Independence Rock by July 4 if they had any chance of making it over the mountains before winter set in.  (For more information on Independence Rock,  see:  https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/independence-rock ).

On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 22, 2018, I traveled to Billy’s ranch and spent the night.  We left early the next morning and drove to Colorado Springs, spending the night there after a full day of driving.  We got up and left early the next morning and arrived in Cheyenne shortly before noon.  We located the State Museum and found our Turtle.

After visiting the State Museum, we headed west along the Oregon Trail.  Our next stop was at Pathfinder Dam, which is on the North Platte River.  This historic dam was built between 1905 and 1909, using quarried stone.  The dam was faced with stones between 24 inches and 36 inches —  the core between the two faces consisted of irregular granite blocks of up to ten tons each, bedded in mortar.  The dam was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.  We hiked to an overlook and enjoyed looking at this magnificent structure.  We also paid a visit to the Pathfinder Cemetery, which contains seven graves, some of them being of those who died in construction accidents during construction of the dam.  We also drove over to a marina on the reservoir, hoping to get a lead on rock art in the area, but did not meet with any success.  It was a nice stop to look at some history and stretch our legs.

After leaving Pathfinder Dam, we traveled down Highway 220 until we spied Independence Rock in the Distance.  We spent a couple of hours hiking around the base of this magnificent rock, enjoying the many historic signatures of early travelers along the Oregon Trail.  On the way to Riverton, we also stopped at the viewpoint for Split Rock and the marker for Ice Slough, both of which were important to those who traveled the Oregon Trail.  Friday night, August 24, 2018, found us at the Paintbrush Motel in the small town of Riverton, Wyoming.

We woke up Saturday morning, August 25, 2018, excited to be headed to our first real rock art site of the trip.  Although we had good directions to the site, we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up traveling about 20 miles on a bad dirt road.  We backtracked and found the right road and made it to the site around ten in the morning.  We spent most of the day exploring the area and enjoying the wonderful Castle Garden Shield style of Wyoming Rock art.  A couple of highlights: we found the spot where the Great Turtle Shield was cut out of the limestone.  We also found an isolated shield element high up on a bluff that still had remaining color painted on the figure.  Not many visitors to this site will find this one!  I will post a full gallery of the pictures we took at this site (hope you take a look!)…. The rock art was plentiful, complex, and magnificent!  Here are just a few pictures from the Castle Garden site.

We left the Castle Gardens site and drove to Ring Lake Ranch.  We checked in with Amanda Verheul, the site manager, got settled into our cabin, then drove into Dubois to purchase  our day passes for the Wind River Indian Reservation, which we planned to visit bright and early the next morning.  When I was doing my research for this trip, I ran across an academic article that mentioned there was some nice Dinwoody style rock art on private land owned by something called Ring Lake Ranch.  A google search revealed that Ring Lake Ranch was a non-profit spiritual retreat.  (For more information about Ring Lake Ranch, see:  http://ringlake.org ).  I called and spoke to Amanda, and she arranged for us to rent a cabin for three nights, even though we were not registered for the spiritual programs that were ongoing at the ranch while we were there.  Our cabin was near the front gate to the ranch, close by Amanda and her husband Ben’s home.  Ben is the facilities manager for the ranch and they (with their two children) are the only people who live there year round,  as the winters are harsh at this elevation.  Amanda, Ben, and the ranch guests we met over the next three days were all so kind, and so interesting!  Our cabin was very comfortable; it was perfect for Billy and I.

After we returned to the Ranch from going into town to get our day passes for the Wind River Reservation, we still had enough daylight to hike to the rock art located on the ranch.  The art is mostly located on a cliff below the main structures (dining hall, chapel, and guest cabins) of the ranch, overlooking Trail Lake.  If you look at a map of the area, you will see that Ring Lake Ranch lies between Ring Lake and Trail lake, and is accessed by crossing over Torrey Creek, which is a robust creek fed by melting snow from the mountains.    Our cabin was just a few steps from Torrey Creek and the bridge that crosses the creek into the ranch.  We enjoyed the rock art, and there were a number of very nice panels as well as a few isolates and some smaller panels on free-standing boulders.  It was a satisfying and exciting introduction to the Dinwoody Style!  Here are a few pictures from our first afternoon at the ranch.

We got up very early on Sunday morning, August 26, 2019, to drive to the head of Dinwoody Lake on the Wind River Indian Reservation.  The information I found on the internet about this site was sketchy and conflicting — conflicting in the sense that I found information that indicated the site is no longer open to anyone who is not a member of the tribe.  But I also found a post that seemed to say that, if you purchased a day use permit, you might be allowed to visit the site.  So Billy and I both purchased day use passes and, with passes in hand, we set out blissfully ignorant.  We saw no one until we reached the trail head at the upper end of Dinwoody Lake.  Upon arrival, we saw a pickup truck parked there, and we were afraid it might be someone guarding the site who would advise us to leave.  I approached the truck and found a man and a woman inside.  The man never spoke to me and did not look at all happy that we were there.  I explained who we were and that it would be a great honor for us to be allowed to hike up and view their sacred place.  I assured them we would treat the site with the greatest respect and reverence.  Then I just asked them, point blank, if we could hike up, and the woman gave me a slight affirmative nod.  So Billy and I climbed up to the site.  The reservation had put a high chain link fence around most of the site, and the light was poor, so photographing it was difficult.  But the site was magnificent, and I was so grateful that we got to see it.

Later that evening when we returned to Ring Lake Ranch for supper, both Amanda and Ben Verheul expressed concern that we had visited the sacred site on the reservation.  They said that, in recent years, non-tribe members were not allowed to visit, and were intercepted and turned away, or worse.  So, I guess ignorance was bliss for us that day.  Had we talked to Amanda and Ben ahead of time, we might have been dissuaded from visiting the site.  During a later visit with Ben, he told us of visiting Dinwoody Canyon upstream from the lake, many years before.  He said that his father was a plumber and worked on some of the residences in the Dinwoody Lake area, and they allowed him to hike and camp in the canyon.  He said he had personally seen caves that contained magnificent art and artifacts, but that these places had been strictly off-limits to non-tribe members for many years.  Bottom line —  I am glad we got to experience the Dinwoody Type Site on Dinwoody Lake; it was an experience that Billy and I will never forget!  Here are a few pictures from that day that I hope you enjoy.  I will be posting complete galleries from this site, as well as from Ring Lake Ranch and Trail Lake.

After our adventure on the Wind River Indian Reservation, we headed back toward Trail Lake.  We still had plenty of time left on that Sunday afternoon, so we decided to drive past Ring Lake Ranch to the Glacier Trail — the trailhead was located several miles past the ranch on the forest road that goes along Torrey Creek.  Billy’s daughter asked him to take some pictures of waterfalls.  We had read that there was a nice waterfall a few miles up the Glacier Trail,  so that was our goal.  We enjoyed a nice hike up the waterfall that afternoon — the scenery was stunning.  On the way back to Ring Ranch, we explored some more of the Dinwoody rock art located on public land overlooking Trail Lake.  We were a couple of tired old men at the end of this day!  Here are a few photos of our afternoon hikes that day.

We spent most of Monday with Johanna Thompson, site manager for the Dubois Museum.  We had made arrangements for her to meet us at the ranch and guide us to the rock art on the public land along Trail Lake.  She also gave us a presentation on the geology and history of the area.  After hiking to the rock art, we followed her into town and then to a trailhead for the Welks Sheep Trap Site.  We hiked up an old Sheep Drive Line/Tie Hack Road to the Sheep Trap Site.  The weather was beautiful when we started the hike, but about half way up, it began to sleet and snow.  Luckily, we had rain gear and fleeces with us.  By the time we hiked back down, the weather was sunny again.  We finished our time with Johanna with a late, late lunch topped off with pie a la mode.  It was a good day!  Here are a few pictures.

We said goodbye to Ring Lake Ranch early on the morning of Tuesday, August 28, 2019.  On the drive out to the highway, I managed to stop and get a photo of “The Waterghost Woman”, an iconic Dinwoody panel that is near the road but located on private land.  We drove north to Thermopolis through stunning scenery in the Wind River Canyon.  We went straight to Legend Rock outside of Thermopolis and enjoyed several hours of exploring at that magnificent rock art site.  We went back into Thermopolis for lunch, and paid a quick visit to the Hot Springs State Park which was located right in town.

We left Thermopolis and headed north on Highway 20 which follows the Big Horn River.  Our destination was the Medicine Lodge State Historical Site, where we planned to spend the afternoon exploring the rock art then spend the night at the park.  The site was a bit of a disappointment.  The rock art was badly weathered and did not stand out well on the rock surfaces.  Simply put, this site cannot compare to Legend Rock or any of the Dinwoody sites around Dubois.  So, we decided to drive further north, hoping to get an early start the next morning exploring Weatherman Draw and the Valley of the Chiefs.  Here are a few photos from the Medicine Lodge Site.

We departed Medicine Lodge in a bit of a funk.  We headed north toward the Wyoming-Montana border, looking for a place to spend the night that would facilitate an early start exploring Weatherman Draw the next morning.  We hit a jackpot!  We stopped in the small town of Greybull, Wyoming, thinking it was the last town where we would find a motel before entering Montana.  We took an instant liking to the little town.  It was neat as a pin, with lots of flowers and not a piece of litter to be found anywhere.  But it was the people we met that day that caused us to decide Greybull, Wyoming, was indeed “The Happiest Place on Earth”.  The lady who checked us in at the Greybull Motel was infectiously happy.  Not your commonplace happiness, but genuine, from the heart happiness.  As we strolled down the main  drag in search of a place to eat supper, each and every person we saw had a megawatt smile that shouted “I am Happy”!  Our waitress at dinner was not only very pretty and very kind, but she too radiated a genuine and heartfelt happiness.  After dinner we stopped in at the Greybull Museum and the 89 year old woman volunteer we encountered there was, you guessed it, incredibly happy.  The museum itself was a delight.  It was amateurishly curated, but all of the exhibits were either donated or on loan from local Greybullians — the whole place just reeked of happiness.  As we neared the end of our walk back to our motel, Billy spied something laying on a sidewalk bench.  It was a hand-painted rock, with a message on the underside —  “Enjoy Today 2018”.  This simple object and the thoughtfulness it represented made us both incredibly happy!

We reluctantly left Greybull, Wyoming early on the morning of Wednesday, August 29, 2018.  Shortly after crossing into Montana on Highway 310, we headed east on Cottonwood Road, a dirt track that, after about 12 miles took us to the trailhead at Weatherman Draw, also known as Valley of the Chiefs.  I was unable to find much information on this place, other than it was supposed to be home to a large number of sacred places and lots of rock art.  Billy and I did our best to methodically explore the canyon and we had some success, finding a number of interesting pictographs.  But, because of time constraints and the large area, we just scratched the surface.  A few years after our visit, I ran into an archaeologist in El Paso who did the first survey of Weatherman Draw.  After I described to him the areas we covered, he said we were about two miles from the highest concentration of sites.  That, of course, means we need to go back some day!  After finishing our hike at Weatherman, we headed toward Lewiston, Montana, where we would spend the night before our visit to Bear Gulch.  We stopped in Billings to visit Pictograph Cave State Park (the name was just too seductive for us to pass it by).  This little state park was such a disappointment that we decided to call it “No Pictograph Cave State Park”.  There may have been pictographs there once, but they are no longer visible, even with D-Stretch.  I wouldn’t waste my time at this park.

A few years back, my friend Charles Pollard called and told me about a television show he had seen on Fox Business Network (“Strange Inheritances”…see this link to watch the show on you tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JajuDqIbU0&list=PL13p5C4mqlql6Om6wOcgVww3LkCncjOrA&index=10&t=0s ) that featured Bear Gulch and the large quantity of rock art located there.  I tracked the show down and watched it.  It was very interesting, so I added the site to my list of places to visit.  Billy and I had arranged to meet the owner of the site on the morning of Thursday, August 30, 2018.  The site was about 23 miles on rural roads from Lewiston, where we had spent the night.  We spent about four hours exploring the site with Ray, the son of the lady that owns the property.  Ray was a very nice fellow, and enthusiastically shared his love of the canyon and the rock art treasures located there.  The scale of the art is quite small — no hero sized figures here.  But the rock art is plentiful, and unique in its own right.  I think Billy and I agreed that it was certainly worth the effort to see this place.  The bottom of the gulch (looked like a canyon to us!) was filled with Chokecherries, which attract bears, hence the name.  After our time at Bear Gulch we started the long slog home.  The return trip was uneventful, except for a wrong turn outside of Billings, Montana which resulted in us going a couple of hours out of our way!  Here are a few pictures from Bear Gulch, Montana.  As is my custom, I will post a full gallery of this site on my website under Rock Art Galleries.

In retrospect, we had an enjoyable and successful trip.  We accomplished all of our main goals, we did it safely, and we met some very nice people along the way.  And, of course, we got to visit the Happiest Place on Earth!  If I never make it back, I will always have vivid memories of the beautiful landscapes we enjoyed, as well as the many cultural resources we were able to visit and contemplate.  I am forever grateful to to my friend Billy Ward — he patiently puts up with my character defects, and his friendship has been steadfast and enduring over these many years.  It is truly a blessing to have someone like him to enjoy these adventures with!