End of the Journey.

On Wednesday September 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm I finally finished "the ride".

My immediate family all met me at "This is the Place Monument" in Immigration Canyon, Salt Lake City Utah.

Everyone of them are outstanding people and they set a high standard for me to try to live up to. Each of the children are beautiful, obedient, smart, strong and good. I will name everyone by Family starting with my oldest daughter's family and ending with my youngest daughter's family.

Shawnelle, Dale, Jessica, Kaycie and Adyson Aston

Ed, Kimberly, Joshua, Megan and Zachary Carter

Angela, Mike, Sydney, Braden, Justin and Nathan Drake

Stephanie, Josh, Halle, Madeline and Jackson Fugal

Jennifer and Scott Chalmers (their two dogs Bo and Tay can be seen in the Fort Bridger family photo).

I apologize for taking so long to update the blog to the end of the trip but I have been so busy enjoying family interaction that I am suprised that it is done even at this late date.

I have added 12 pictures with narrative today. Since I posted the first picture and narrative first you will have to read it last. If you want to find out what happened on Monday September 7 you will have to keep reading.

Thanks for your interest in and comments about my adventure.

I will not be updating it again.

Sunday evening September 13 I stayed at Kim and Rhonda Petersen's home. Kim is my wife Kathleen's nephew and I have known him for 42 years. He has always been a good kid. They live in Lyman Wyoming and have raised their family there. It was really fun stay at their home, visit and catch up. They also fix great meals.

I thought the rest of the trip was going to be a straight downhill shot from the high plains of Wyoming into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. It is approximately 110 miles from Lyman to Salt Lake City. I thought that would be two easy days or one long day - doable because it is downhill. I did not do my homework. It actually took me three days.

The 37 miles from Lyman to Evanston includes a steep long downhill and then a very long steep uphill that even causes semi-trucks problems. Monday September 14 I only rode to Evanston. I ran into a major storm with headwinds so stiff that they stopped me even while riding downhill and rain so intense that I was soaked in minutes. I estimate the wind gusts at over 40 MPH.

Tuesday September 15 I rode from Evanston to 3 miles past Henefer Utah before the storm hit again. I only got 44 miles on tuesday.

That left me with about 35 miles to Salt Lake City on Wednesday September 16. I rode up over Hogsback Summit and down to East Canyon Reservoir. There is a really neat resort named "East Canyon Resort". It is right on the Mormon Trail and has Condos, RV sites, camping, a fine restaurant, store and recreational facilities like tennis courts, etc. It was a welcome resupply point just at the right time. It is at the base of a long climb to the summit of "Big Mountain". The resort owns 10,000 acres that can be used for hiking in the summer and cross country skiing or snowmobiling in the winter. It is managed by a friendly, dynamic guy named Rod Myers.

This picture was taken at the summit of Big Mountain by a friendly biker. There is a lot of serious biker traffic between Salt Lake City and the summit of Big Mountain but not a lot of traffic down the other side to East Canyon Reservoir. From Salt Lake it is a 17 mile climb that gains 3200 feet elevation. There is also a smaller mountain on the route called "Little Mountain" by the pioneers. Both mountains were a challenge for a tired old biker looking forward to seeing his family at "This is the Place Monument".

On Sunday afternoon September 13 four of my five children and their families met me at Fort Bridger Wyoming. We had a great time learning the history, visiting, eating and relaxing.

I don't know if you can tell by this picture but everyone of them is smarter and better looking than I am. It is really satisfying to see improvement from one generation to the next.

I will name everyone in the last blog - Family Group picture.

The minor miracle on Friday September 11 put me back on schedule to attend Church.

Saturday September 12 I rode 73 miles to get to Little America on US Interstate 80. My Daughters Stephanie Fugal and Jennifer Chalmers and their husbands Josh Fugal and Scott Chalmers and granddaughters Halle and Madeline Fugal met me at Little America. It was great to see them. We ate and stayed in a warm, dry, clean motel room.

Sunday morning, September 13, I got up early and rode 30 miles to Church in Lyman Wyoming. I actually do not know how it happened but somehow the Lord was able to meet my goal set in Casper to attend Church in Lyman.

Stephanie shot this picture of me riding on I-80 from her motel room door. You may not notice but I am not carrying any equipment. Stephanie transported it to Church in her car.

South Pass City is another old gold mining town. It has been restored as a historical district by the State of Wyoming.

South Pass was a critical gradual slope route through the Rocky Mountains and over the continental divide. All of the Pioneer Trails crossed it. Later on gold was discovered there.

To really understand what is going on you will have to read the next blog entry.

It is now late in the afternoon of Friday September 11. I still had to ride another 5 miles on a dirt road to get to Highway 28. I wanted to ride another 6 miles on Highway 28 and get to a Wyoming Rest Area to camp for the night.

I got to highway 28 and a minor miracle happened. I was riding downhill and I had a tail wind. It had taken me about 8.5 hours of riding, eating and relaxing to get to this point and I had only covered 26 miles on dirt. I had about 2 hours of sunlight left and I decided to see how far I could go. In the next 2 hours I covered 40 miles. I arrived in Farson Wyoming with sunlight to spare. The ride was exhilarating. I seemed so powerful. I sped downhill at 30+ MPH. I even powered up the rolling hills at about 18 MPH.

My suggestion is if you want to go on a bike ride choose downhill with a tail wind.

On Friday Morning September 11, I got up early and rode 16 miles on the dirt county road to Atlantic City Wyoming. It is a great old gold mining town that is not on a paved highway. A few good and very interesting people live there.

I ate a couple of very good meals, relaxed and celebrated the fact that I was back in "Civilization". Then I rode another 5 miles on the dirt road to get to South Pass City.

About 50 - 60 miles west of Martins Cove the Mormon Church has created another Visitors Center. It is at the location where the "Willie Handcart Company" was rescued from the same winter storm that got the "Martin Handcart Company".

Both companies were rescued by wagon companies that Brigham Young sent from Salt Lake City when he learned that there were still pioneer companies on the trail in Wyoming late in the season (in addition to the two handcart companies there was a wagon company).

It is an interesting but not widely known fact that Brigham Young sent the rescuers out before the winter storm hit. They were also blasted by the storm as they searched for the 3 delayed pioneer companies.

The Willie Visitor Center is on US highway 287. US 287 junctions with State Highway 28 forming a triangle with Lander Wyoming at the top and the Mormon Trail as the base. I eventually wanted to get to Highway 28 so I decided to ride on the Mormon Trail for 30 miles as a shortcut to the continental divide over South Pass. That would save me about 30 miles.

It was now Thursday September 10 and I was way behind schedule because I had spent so much time at Martins Cove and also I had been riding against headwinds all week so I had covered less than one half the distance. I still hoped to make it to Lyman Wyoming for Church on Sunday morning and it was a couple of hundred miles away.

This picture is a shot of me biking along the Mormon Trail. I did not ride fast on the trail. It was too soft for my skinny, hard road bike tires. There were lots of sharp rocks and the ascents and descents were extreme. This was not a prepared road. There was no grading or leveling or laying a road base. This was just a wagon trail across the prairie. I am very glad that I rode on the Mormon Trail for the experience. I saw and learned a lot but it was slow and difficult traveling.

After about 15 miles the Mormon Trail crossed a county dirt road. I gladly transitioned to the county road. It was still dirt but it was a graded, prepared road and my bike did quite well on it. I camped on top of a ridge with just the coyotes for company and decided I would do better on Friday.

This is a picture of a couple of the many Sun Ranch buildings that are at the Martins Cove Visitor Center. See next picture for a more complete description.

This time I did not reverse the order of the pictures. I blogged them in the sequence that I took them. For you that means that you will see the last first and the first last.

This is one of many pictures I took of the cove where the Martin Handcart company tried to find protection from the winter blizzard, many froze to death.

This picture does not really show the whole area adequately. You will have to visit and see for yourself.

I spent most of Tuesday September 8 at the Martins Cove Visitor Center. It is a great place to actually experience some of the pioneer activities.

Martins Cove marks the location of an 1856 pioneer winter tragedy. However it is now regarded as a sacred place to celebrate faith, courage, strength, endurance and sacrifice for others.

A ranch in this area was established by Tom Sun, a French-Canadian frontiersman who later became a pioneer cattleman. The Sun family owned and operated the ranch for the next 130+ years but they never plowed or disturbed the land. It is now essentially the same as it was during Pioneer times and you can still see the indented wagon trails worn into the prairie.

The Mormon Church purchased a portion of the Sun Ranch and established a permanent, year around visitors center using many of the Sun Ranch buildings. It is staffed by Senior Couple Missionaries who do a great job teaching and demonstrating all Pioneer and Ranch activities that took place there. They give you an opportunity for a real hands on immigrant experience. Everyone is welcome and it is free. You can resupply water but there is no food, bring your own.

There are handcarts that you can check out and pull along the old Mormon Trail. I checked one out and pulled it about 3 miles. Then I parked it and walked along a trail that took you through Martins Cove. You even get to cross the Sweetwater River (luckily they have built a bridge).

Every year the Missionary Couples sponsor and support youth groups who come and pull handcarts along the Mormon Trail. It can be a life altering experience for modern teenagers. They must learn to cooperate and get along with others in their "Company". They pull, camp, prepare meals, sing & dance and try to do all the things that the pioneers did before them for a one week period. However I don't think that 1 in 6 of them die like the pioneers experienced.

Devil's Gate was another important landmark on the Mormon, Oregon, California and Pony Express Trails. It is about 6 miles west of Independence Rock.

Although it is hard to see in this view the gap in the mountain was cut by the Sweetwater River and it still flows through the gap. There are some interesting Indian Legends about what took place there. The Indians named it "Devil's Gate" in their own language of course.

In Mormon history, Devil's Gate also defines the approximate location of "Martins Cove" where a Handcart company sought protection from an early winter blizzard in 1856.

On Monday September 7 I left Casper Wyoming to begin the remote wilderness portion of the ride. Resupply points are few and far between so I restaged the panniers and tie on bags to carry additional food and water. The ride from Casper to Independence Rock was 60 miles.

There is a Wyoming State Rest Area at Independence Rock that serves as a great visitor center and in my case I used it as a campground.

Independence Rock was named by some earlier Pioneers traveling to Oregon (in 1842 I believe). They calculated that if they could reach that easy to identify landmark by July 4th they could make it to Oregon before winter. That became the standard for most other companies crossing the plains.

It is a very impressive rounded granite rock rising from the surrounding prairie. Quite a few pioneers carved their names and date in the rock when they arrived. In fact the Mormons even stationed some professional stone masons there to carve peoples names in the rock for a fee. There were some very talented professionals who joined the Church in Europe and then immigrated to the Rocky Mountain Great Basin. They were quite creative in the way they raised money for supplies. Some 150 year old names are still visible.

Sunday September 6, 2009

WYOMING – STILL THE REAL WEST

I spent Monday 8/31 getting my bike ready for the puncture weeds in the west, catching up the blog and eating as much food as I could stuff in. It seems that I cannot eat enough to supply energy for the ride. Monday evening Tim and Sylvia Burmeister invited me to stay at their home in Scottsbluff Nebraska. They have a great family of energetic teenagers. We had family prayer Monday evening and scripture reading and family prayer on Tuesday morning. They do everything right in their family and it is working.

I saw some awesome wagon ruts on Wednesday 9/2 and went to the free Western Pioneer Museum on the State Fair Grounds in Douglas Wyoming on Friday 9/4. Again this is an indication that the State of Wyoming has plenty of funds. The museum is fantastic and very well staffed. Someone is paying a lot for support and maintenance but it is not the museum patrons. You might think that going to a museum is kind of wimpy but let me explain. In one convenient location you can see a lot of authentic, old, historical items and learn a lot of historical facts and stories. It is just that you do not see the items in their authentic location but the re-created displays do a good job of showing you “how it was”. You could spend years running around seeing all the right things in all the right places instead of one day seeing and learning it all in a museum. I will attach pictures following this post.

This week was a more relaxed week. I only rode about 220 miles to get to Casper Wyoming on Friday evening 9/4/2009. I relaxed and purchased new equipment and supplies on Saturday to prepare for the “Big week”. Casper is the last place I can attend Church for the next 360 miles. It is also the jumping off point for the “Wilderness Ride”.

Wyoming is the real west. The ranges are mostly grass not corn or other crops. Trees are scarce. You see cattle and wildlife but not farm houses. I have seen deer and antelope and lots dead rattlesnakes (road kill). The ride is up and down over rolling hills but with a gradual constant climb up. The people seem to be friendly, quiet, strong and healthy (in good shape) but the small towns are widely spaced apart. The highways are great and have wide shoulders to ride a bike on. The State of Wyoming must have quite a bit of money coming in from gas, oil, iron ore, coal and other mineral taxes. I do not think there is a personal income tax here. They have many of the very best ”rest stops” that I have ever seen. I have camped in 3 so far and may camp in more. The ride this week has been against headwinds almost every day. Climbing gradually against a headwind has tested my resolve and patience but as I noted last week I have received compensating help with both strength and attitude.

I do not know what it is about me and headwinds but if I change direction so does the wind -- to stay in my face. I have an Iphone with the “WeatherBug” application that does a great job keeping me informed about all aspects of the weather. I follow it closely and am just amazed at how consistently the wind blows right at me usually at 10 – 20 mph but it is sometimes 20 - 30 mph. To be honest and truthful I have had some days with no headwind. I only remember 1 full day of riding with a tail wind. Usually I note the wind direction in my personal notebook so it would be possible for me to count the “headwind” days.

Lately however, I have noticed a weakening of my body and a drop in energy. I ran out of supplemental protein (“Designer Whey” brand chocolate drink) a week or so ago and I think that my body does not have the fuel that it needs now. I did buy supplemental protein in Casper Wyoming so I think I will be good for the “Wilderness Ride”. I did not believe that the supplemental protein would have that much effect but apparently it does.

Let me define the “Wilderness Ride”: For the next approximately 300 miles there will be only a couple of small towns along the route. I will be following the Oregon / California / Pony Express / Mormon Trail (they are all largely combined at this point). As far as I can tell water re-supply points may be 50 – 75 miles apart and food re-supply points may be as far as 150 miles apart. There will be quite a few important “Mormon Pioneer Historical” sites and lots of mountain passes. I will go over the South Pass Continental Divide at around 7700 feet elevation.

Here is a synopsis of the route: a) Leave Casper heading south west on State Route 220. b) Junction with state route 789 / US 287 and head north west to Lander Wy. c) Leave Lander heading south east on state route 789 / US 287 and junction with state route 28. d) travel south west on SR28 over South Pass (continental divide) and through Farson Wy to the junction with SR 372. e) Travel south east on SR372 to the junction with I-80 in Green River Wy. f) Travel west on I-80 to Lyman Wy and Fort Bridger Wy.

I am hoping to intersect I-80 at Green River and ride into Lyman Wyoming by Saturday Evening 9/12/2009. That will be approximate 350 – 400 miles for the week counting side trips to historical sites. For the last 50 miles I will have all services available including food, water and cell phone service along the I-80 corridor. With the predicted thunderstorms, the predicted headwinds and the known high mountain passes this schedule may be a bit too aggressive for an old guy but we shall see.

That would leave an approximate 110 mile ride down the canyon into Salt Lake City. I am planning to terminate the ride at “This is the Place” Monument on the east bench of Immigration Canyon.

Can you imagine wagons cutting ruts like these through solid sandstone rock.

These ruts are on the Oregon Trail (south side of the North Platte River). Depending on which narrative you believe there were 500,000 or 600,000 pioneers who used the Oregon Trail.

The Mormons used the Mormon Trail (north side of the Platte River). Between 1846 and 1869 when the railroad was completed there were between 50,000 and 70,000 mormon pioneers who trekked across the plains on foot.

At this point the Mormons had already crossed over the North Platte River and were using the Oregon Trail so these ruts were cut by both Mormons and non Mormons.

Fort Laramie is located about 15 miles south east of here. Brigham Young had gone into Fort Laramie and was told that the route along the north side of the North Platte River would be extremely difficult or impossible because of heavy swamps. So based on that information Brigham Young lead the Mormon Pioneer across the river and jointed the Oregon Trail. Maybe the estimates of 500,000 Oregon Pioneers was without including the Mormons and the 600,000 figure did include the Mormons.

This is another view of the awesome ruts cut by the wagons through the soft sandstone as they came along the trail.

This is a picture of a modern biker waiting to greet any late, lost pioneers coming down the trail.

This is one of the many Pony Express Station locations along the North Platte River. It is meant to show the beauty of the area around Guernsey Wy (close to the previously seen wagon ruts).

This is the first of the 7 pictures posted from the Western Pioneer Museum in Douglas Wyoming.

It is a great museum with numerous displays and stories about cowboys, indians, gunfighters, world war I heros, world war II heroes, Italian Prisoners of war, German Prisoners of war, Prisoners of War helping with the harvests, guns, saddles, horses, wagons, carriages, clothing, household items, battles between the cattlemen and the sheepmen and everyother interesting thing that happened in the west.

I call this statue "Mountain Man Hunting for a Wife".

This is the rear view of the Mountain Man heading home with his new bride.

Don't you women just love a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it.

It should be noted that it was against the rules for a Mormon Pioneer Man to court a wife in this manner.

This is a real fine bar used in one of the area saloons. I believe it was made in Boston and shipped across the plains.

Look at this great tin bath tub. Cowgirls never had it so good.

This is the re-created kitchen from the cowboy cabin home in the museum.

This is a re-creation of a sitting room in an early cowboy cabin home.

This is the last of the 7 pictures posted from the Western Pioneer Museum in Douglas Wyoming. However, I have many many more pictures from that museum. Contact me if you want to see them.