Natural Wonders & Historic Treasures By Dina Mishev
Fossil Butte National Monument
Wyoming may be one of the newer states (became the 44th state in 1890), but the land within its borders can take you back millions of years, revealing long-extinct animals and the beginnings of mountain ranges. Since the land isn’t going anywhere, unless you’re talking geologic moments, take a leisurely few days to look back in time.
Day One: Fossil Butte National Monument
You wouldn’t know from looking at it today, but Fossil Butte National Monument used to be Fossil Lake. Back in the day – and by that we mean roughly 50 million years ago – you couldn’t have missed Fossil Lake if you tried. Fifty miles long and 20 miles wide, it was one of the Great Lakes of its time and home to everything from dog-sized horses to stingrays and crocodiles. There were also 25 species of fish in the lake and its banks were lined with palms, fig trees, cypress and willows. Scientists know all of this because these ancient flora and fauna were kind enough to turn into some of the most remarkably well-preserved and detailed fossils ever found. Over the last 100 years paleontologists and private collectors have unearthed millions of fossilized specimens. Many billions more remain buried.
No one knows for sure why so much of the life in Fossil Lake became a fossil, but the monument’s visitor center has a few ideas. After a peek inside the center and at its display of museum-quality fossils (all taken from nearby, of course), hit one of two short interpretative hiking trails.
While you are not allowed to remove any fossils from the monument, there is a nearby for-fee fossil quarry – the national monument doesn’t cover the entirety of the former lakebed. Most everyone leaves Ulrich Quarries with something.
Day Two: National Elk Refuge
Jump forward to the more recent past. Millions of elk blanket much of the continent. But, by the early 1900s, over 90-percent of these elk are gone, their historical rangelands homesteaded and turned into farms. Northwest Wyoming remains one of their last strongholds … until homesteaders
Bull elk standing in field
make it even here. This increased human population, coupled with several back-to-back severe winters (even by Wyoming standards) cause thousands of Jackson Hole elk to starve to death. Not surprisingly, locals didn’t like what was happening and bombarded both state and federal governments with pleas for help. The National Elk Refuge was established in 1912 to provide 1,760 acres of protected wintering ground for elk in Jackson Hole. Today the refuge is 25,000 acres and nearly 10,000 elk migrate down from the mountains to feed here each winter.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many elk to be found on the Elk Refuge outside of winter. And the few that do hang around certainly aren’t hanging out within easy view of the highway like they do in the winter. Which means you can’t take a horse-drawn sleigh ride into the middle of the herd like you can in the winter. But if you just can’t make it to the refuge when there’s snow on the ground, summer hiking trails abound. We can’t guarantee you’ll spot an elk, but, surrounded by 25,000 acres of designated wildlands, you’ll still get a pretty good idea of what the undiscovered, unsettled West looked like.
Day Three: Grand Teton National Park
Staring at the Tetons from anywhere in Jackson Hole, it’s not difficult to tell they are young mountains (notice how sharp and jagged they still are?) or that they erupted out of the ground in a cataclysmic event rather than some long-acting process (notice how there aren’t any foothills?).
Seeing the smaller geologic forces that helped form, and are still forming, them requires getting up close though. Head for Bradley, Taggart, Leigh, Phelps, or Jenny Lakes, all near the park’s southern entrance, and marvel that each was formed by a moving, long-ago-melted glacier. Those who want to see a glacier in action can hike seven miles up the south fork of Cascade Canyon to School-room Glacier, so named for its textbook characteristics. Another active glacier in the park, Teton Glacier, can be seen from numerous turnouts along the road in the southern part of the park.
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