Feeling Lucky?
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Feeling Lucky?
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture
Description
How about taking the family's off road machine up this trail? Don't think your oxen will make it? Come on, no guts, no glory. They are in Wyoming, above the North Platte River Valley about one half mile south Guernsey. This is where preserved Oregon Trail ruts are more than four feet deep!
At this point the Oregon trail started winding up towards South Pass while wagon wheels, draft animals, and people wore down the intentionally cut trail into a sandstone ridge during its heavy usage from 1841 through 1869. This half-mile stretch is "unsurpassed" and is the best-preserved set of Oregon Trail ruts anywhere along its former length and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The site is maintained as a State Historic Site within Guernsey State Park, which separately was declared a National Historic Landmark for its Civilian Conservation Corps structures, unrelated to the Oregon Trail Ruts.
The 2,000 mile long Oregon Trail is a tribute to the human spirit. People from all walks of life sold most of their possessions, piled what was left in a wagon and journeyed west in search of a better life heading to Oregon first for fur, then as missionaries, and finally for farmland.
A short drive from these deep ruts takes one back to the "Register Cliffs." On these rocks, rising one-hundred feet above the North Platte River Valley Wyoming emigrants, following a day's journey from Fort Laramie, spent the night and inscribed their names into the rocks. The earliest signatures date to the late 1820's when trappers and fur traders passed through the area, but most of the names visible today were carved during the 1840's and 1850's when the Oregon Trail was at its height.
Image copyright 2015 Jon Burch Photography
Uploaded
June 30th, 2015
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