I didn’t say yesterday where I travelled to, but it was Pinedale, Wyoming. Pinedale is the county seat for Sublette County—a county home to 5920 people.
Site of Project Wagon Wheel
Honestly it’s another stop on the Adam’s wacko-tour of Wyoming. This stop was all about going to see the site of Project Wagon Wheel, which was the focus of my Master’s Thesis. Project Wagon Wheel was a proposal by the Atomic Energy Commission to use 5 nuclear devices under the county to shatter rocks thus allowing previously trapped natural gas to be extracted.
After stopping by the BLM office to get directions to the well site, I headed out. It is located in a somewhat rural part of the county—oddly the area is now teeming with natural gas wells—the very same spots where the El Paso Natural Gas Company once declared that it would need nuclear bombs to get the gas out of the ground, gas now flows without nuclear assistance and without extra radioactivity.
I won’t rehash the entire story because on my archives site you can read an outline of Project Wagon Wheel as well as a brief outline of the technical theory behind what was called nuclear stimulation.
Target Practice.
From there I did some driving, visiting rural parts of the county—seeing Boulder Lake, Fremont Lake, and the Museum of the Mountain Man. After that I was pretty much exhausted and tired of driving. So I returned to my motel, and set out to walk around Pinedale.
One impressive thing about Pinedale, as well as Cody, is the streets. Pine Street, Pinedale’s main drag, is enormously wide—two lanes of traffic each direction, plus parking lanes on either side, all of which are generously wide. Strange for a town that has a population of only 1,412. I can’t think of a street in Weimar that is even half as wide as Pine Street.
Thursday I’m outta here.
Boulder Lake Dam
Fall Colors at Fremont Lake
Excellent Creativity!
One of my early friends at UW (before I met you) was from Pinedale. He only lasted a single semester.
Thank you, Adamo, for these gorgeous pics of Wyoming. It (almost) makes me want to visit it again. I was there in 1986 on my way from Central PA (yuck!) to Eastern OR, and I stayed three or four nights with friends in Laramie. Unfortunately, I had a bad case of altitude sickness and the heavy smoking of my U-WY friends did not exactly “help” my asthma.
Your pictures are wonderful!!! Another part of the country that I still have to visit. Greetings from Bloomington 🙂
Cynical Queer – Did you keep in touch with him at all? It’s a beautiful place.
Reko – You’re welcome. It’s a great place to vacation–as long as you don’t mind driving. Driving a lot. and some of the se places you really have to work to get to the best parts.
Anja – Thanks! I’m looking forward to seeing your take on Bloomington once you’re back in J-Stadt.