Wyoming’s Red Desert – Heart of the West

The Red Desert is the gem of Wyoming’s wild west heritage—a place where sweeping vistas, iconic landforms, big game, cultural sites and diverse wildlife abound. It is a place that tells our Wyoming story, and it is a story that defined our nation. This landscape contains nine wilderness study areas and is reportedly the largest unfenced area in the lower-48 states. These lands support a diversity of wildlife and habitats, including the largest living sand dunes system in North America, ephemeral pools,badlands, a rare desert elk herd, and the southern reach of the longest mule deer migration in the world. It is a landscape laced with nationally historic trails such as the Oregon and Pony Express and rich with Native American cultural sites like Boar’s Tusk and Indian Gap, as well as historic abandoned ranches, fossils and more. The Jack Morrow Hills – Core of the Red Desert The Red Desert is comprised at its core with the 622,000-acre Jack Morrow Hills priority conservation area, which includes seven wilderness study areas (WSAs), five areas of critical environmental concern, and some of the best remaining intact sections of the historic Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express pioneer and spur trails. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recognizes several other special management areas in the area, such as the Red Desert Watershed Management Area, where the objective is to “provide large areas of unobstructed views for enjoyment of scenic qualities” and the Steamboat Mountain Management Area designed to protect wildlife and Native American

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cultural resources. On the west side, the BLM has designated the West Sand Dunes Archeological District Management Area and to the east are many thousands of acres of BLM and citizen identified lands with wilderness qualities.

Lying to the north are the iconic landmarks for Oregon Trail emigrants – Continental Peak and the colorful Oregon Buttes. To the west are the Honeycomb Buttes - a vast banded badlands and hoodoos landscape that invites exploration. Further south is the legendary Boar’s Tusk formation and the Killpecker Sand Dunes—an active sand dune complex stretching for over 150 miles. The Steamboat Mountain area of critical environmental concern provides inviting forests in this otherwise dry

country and features a buffalo jump used by early Native Americans. The Hills are renowned for other historic sites such as the Tri-Territory Marker, Indian Gap Trail, and Crookston Ranch. There are innumerable paleontological features and Native American traditional cultural areas and sacred sites, such as the White Mountain Petroglyphs. This high elevation desert is rich in a diversity of habitats ranging from seasonal wetlands and springs, aspen covered buttes, volcanic features, sage steppe and colorful clay hillsides. Wildlife and plant species diversity is remarkably high, in part due to the ephemeral ponds associated with the dune system. The dunes act as a giant snow fence trapping snow which is covered up and insulated by the shifting sands in the winter. This moisture is then released through seeps and pools throughout the other seasons. Big game abounds, and the area serves as the southern anchor to the longest mule deer migration in the world – the Red Desert to Hoback corridor. Mule deer from as far as Island Park, ID traverse through forests and sage to overwinter here, and return north in the spring. In the summer, thousands of pronghorn use this landscape, which overlooks the vast, wide-open beauty of the Great Divide Basin. A large desert-dwelling elk herd that lives here is especially unique, and hunting elk in the Jack Morrow Hills is a prized opportunity. Large areas of greater sage-grouse core habitat are also found in the Jack Morrow Hills. Surrounding Areas The Northern Red Desert is set in a vast open landscape of mountains, desert and sagebrush plains. To the north, it shares history with the South Pass Historic Landscape and the story of the Oregon Trail. South Pass was the favored route over the continental divide for mountain men, pioneers and settlers of the West, and this wide-open landscape looks as

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nearly undeveloped and wild as it did over 150 years ago. The Continental Divide Trail traverses this area and the Sweetwater Canyon wilderness study area protects an important segment of the river route followed by emigrants. To the north of the Red Desert lies the southern reach of the Wind River Range. Its flanks are protected through BLM areas of critical environmental concern and the Wind River Front Management Area on the west. Dirt roads from the northern end of the Jack Morrow Hills lead to some of the most popular trailheads in the Winds, including the Big Sandy trail to the internationally renowned climbing destination Cirque of the Towers. This landscape is wide open and undeveloped with stunning views of these majestic granite mountains - again very similar to what the first mountain men would have experienced. East of the Jack Morrow Hills lies more wild lands, including 2 other WSAs and more lands with wilderness characteristics. Native Americans and Western Expansion The most recent Native American inhabitants in the Red Desert were the Shoshone and Ute peoples, although many other Great Basin and Plains tribes came through the area such as Arapaho, Lakota and Cheyenne. The Shoshone and the Ute tribes were among the first to develop horse-based commerce that stretched for miles across the Great Basin of Wyoming. The area is the ancestral hunting grounds for many Tribes and contains numerous cultural and holy sites. Scattered throughout the landscape are two thousand-year-old rock art sites, and stone circles with spiritual significant for the Shoshone people. Tipi rings, outlining ancient campsites are evident throughout the region. A dramatically scenic black volcanic plug known as the Boar’s Tusk is strongly associated with the origins of their culture and is at the center of the region. The Indian Gap Trail is another cultural area that has been identified by the BLM. This trail connected the Ute tribes further west in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming to the Shoshone in the Wind River Basin. The trail passes through a gap between Essex and Steamboat Mountains. Nearby on the sheer southern face of Steamboat Mountain, was a favored “Buffalo Jump” hunting area for Native Americans. Mountain men exploring the Rockies first set foot in the wide open land of the Red Desert in 1825. During one of the earliest surveying expeditions of the west, in 1871, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, passing through part of the Red Desert, noted the region’s aspen groves and clear flowing springs on Steamboat Mountain. Except for a few roads and the loss of bison herds roaming the Basin, the landscape looks very similar today as it did then. On the northern edge of the Red Desert the old mining towns of South Pass City and Atlantic City remain today. Just south of them lies the Sweetwater River valley that provided an easy route to South Pass and the crossing of the Continental Divide. The pass served as the primary mountain gateway from the east to the west for hundreds of thousands of emigrants. Even today in the Red Desert you can still see the imprints that their wagons left behind on their long journey along these pioneer trails.

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A Wild Experience The desert offers an unparalleled wilderness experience, with world-class wildlife viewing, outdoor recreation and hunting opportunities. The area includes the largest cluster of wilderness study areas in Wyoming. Only a few passable dirt roads traverse the area between these WSAs. In the fall, hunters and wildlife lovers descend on the region to track deer, antelope and elk through six foot stands of sage, limber pine and aspen. Rock hounds and paleontologists can find fossilized shark’s teeth, tortoise shells and petrified wood scattered on the ground. Hikers can explore the rainbow colored hoodoos of the Honeycombs or White Horse Canyon or scale Continental Peak or the Oregon Buttes. Primitive campsites are scattered in the north, with a popular BLM campground near the Sand Dunes in the south. A History of Safeguarding One of Our Last Best Places Citizens in Wyoming and around the country have attempted to permanently protect the Red Desert for over 100 years. Dr. Frank Durham launched the first effort in 1898 to designate the region as a “winter game preserve” noting the huge migrations of elk, antelope and deer that used this area for winter forage. His attempts were followed by Wyoming Governor Leslie Miller’s 1935 campaign to designate the “great Divide Basin National Park.” In 2000, the BLM initiated the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan (CAP) EIS process to develop special management prescriptions for the area. The CAP zoned areas within the Hills to phase out all oil and gas leasing over time and placed strong stipulations on leasing in other “zones.” Finalized in 2006, the Plan generated more public comment than any other BLM process to date. The area is now under review due to the revision of the BLM’s Rock Springs resource management plan, with a draft EIS expected this fall.

PreparedbytheWyomingOutdoorCouncil,2018