Snowy Range, Wyoming

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(Jack) Part of the Medicine Bow Range in southern Wyoming, the Snowies are a great little mountain range, because you can drive right up to the high country. My dad first took us to these mountains in June, 1962. What I remember from that time is driving up a curvy road out of Centennial, Wyoming into a landscape of icy lakes, rock, and clouds.

Yesterday, Nancy and I parked by the road near a snowbank at 11,000 feet and hiked up through the snowfields and meadows.

The plains below 8000 feet are already brown because of the severe drought, but the mountains received 130% of their normal winter moisture, so there are plenty of green, flowery meadows.

The alpine lakes still have plenty of ice and snow, but the anglers are already out, catching brookies, rainbow, and the occasional cutthroat trout. Makes me want to take up fly fishing again, but, considering the cost of equipment and licenses, perhaps I would be better off just taking pictures of 'em!



We hike a trail between the peaks: Medicine Bow Peak, at over 12,000 feet, is the highest in this range. the trail is still flooded in several places from runoff, snow-covered in others. Fortunately I am wearing hiking sandals, so I just go squishing through. The snow is a bit chilly, however.



These mountains are built of hard, competent rock. Not the young granite of the Sierra, nor the ancient, iron-tinted sedimentary rock of Glacier, these mountains are mainly a metamorphosed form of sandstone called precambrian quartzite, and it is even older than the rocks of the other two ranges. (Over 2 billion yrs.)


The colors of the rock run from pink, to white, and shades of green. One entire mountain looks as though it is built of a light, apple green rock of a shade similar to jade. Most of the mountain tops are composed of the whiter quartzite, hence the name, "Snowy".





Nancy has completely fallen in love with these mountains. She stops every few hundred yards to sit and marvel at the scenery. I realize that she is helping me to slow down; my habit is to hike to the top- of-wherever to see what is there. I miss a lot along the way.
In the past, when alone, I might drive up to the Snowies to check out the rocks, then on up to the Bighorns to see if the fields of lupines are blooming, then over to the Winds for a hike..you get the idea. Nancy's task in slowing me down is formidable; perhaps she needs to clock me upside the head with a chunk of precambrian quartzite!