On the marge of Lake LaBarge

Pinedale to Labarge, Wyoming, Wednesday-Thursday June 26-27, 2024

Many of you are familiar with the classic poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert W. Service, about a Tennessee boy freezing to death while prospecting for gold in the Yukon. The story is both hilarious and ghoulish, the rhymes and meter so melodious that is often memorized and recited around campfires, especially in the winter. The boy’s dying request is that he be cremated, which the narrator does by stuffing his corpse into a burning boat on the marge (margin?) of Lake LeBarge. Nobody reads it better than the Man in Black. https://youtu.be/yJNZwuamwj0?si=K7EhwWzcgFQ0b1wL

Today I am pinned down in the tiny Wyoming town of LaBarge, population 493, because of wind, weather, and geography. My next destination is the trailhead for Kings Peak, the highpoint of Utah, which we climbed in 2004. It is due south of Pinedale, and the roads leading to it are circuitous, poorly shouldered, and subject to the intense winds that blow across southern Wyoming. Not sure why the winds are so strong, possibly because of a natural gap in the Rockies, the location of South Pass, the crossing of the Oregon Trail. I remember struggling to keep my car on the road when driving I 80 in the area, struck by the proliferation of snow fences to keep blowing snow off the highway in the winter.

It’s one thing to control your car in the wind, another when you’re on a bicycle with panniers that act like sails. I thought yesterday’s trip would be easy, more downhill than up, but the winds turned southerly for the last 25 miles, and I really struggled. I’ve now gotten used to prolonged periods on the aero bars, which help a lot, but it’s hard to steer the bike precisely, and the shoulders narrowed to 2 feet between rumble strip and gravel. I limped to LaBarge utterly exhausted.

I woke early to get a jumpstart on today’s winds, but saw that thunderstorms were predicted, and the winds would be gusting to 40 mph right from the direction I was going. After a series of taxing days, I decided it would be prudent to “take a zero” today. The motel here is cheap, tomorrow’s motel willing to push back my nonrefundable reservation, so I was happy to stay. The winds will be a little less intense tomorrow.

One of the challenges is that this is another accommodations and services desert, I have to pick my food and overnight stops carefully. Even the water here doesn’t know where to go. I am in the Great Divide Basin, where the sparse rainfall does not drain into the Atlantic or the Pacific, but just seeps into the ground. Weird.

This all gives me a chance to talk a little bit more about the remainder of my time in Pinedale. As I left the Gannett trailhead, there was a viewpoint of the Wind River Range, the prominent rounded peak is Fremont, Gannett was nowhere in view.

I had dinner at the local brewhouse, same place I had my bittersweet “victory dinner” back in 2016. It felt better this time. It was fun to hang out with the crowd at the Warmshowers house, full of family, friends, and other bicyclists. It’s chaos, but Clay and Kristi make it work. Their daughter Camille has just graduated from high school, among the celebrants was a mannequin named Archer.

The other guest were bicyclists on the dirt Continental Divide Trail. I’ve encountered many of these gravel bikers, but almost no road tourists. Maybe mine is a dying breed. Backpacking is the new thing, not with racks and panniers, but with frame bags and stuff lashed to handlebars, forks, and exaggerated seat packs. Minimalist, but lighter and more agile.

Simon was heading south, Chloe was heading north, they are typically camping in the wild and were very happy to stay in such a comfortable, welcoming home. I’m sorry I neglected to get their pictures.

The only other intriguing spot on yesterday’s voyage was an obscure one, the Green River Rendezvous. This was featured prominently in Michener’s novel Centennial, and it was cool to see the desolate location where it actually happened.

The 1830s version of the Burning Man festival?

On this “zero day” I took a brief walking tour of LaBarge.

The Sinclair Oil Corporation, you may remember, was at the heart of the Teapot Dome affair of the Harding administration—until Watergate, the biggest government scandal. The Teapot Dome oil fields were in Wyoming.