This is the third installment in the series "Max Tracks," where anchor Max Roth randomly selects a quadrant on a map of FOX 13's broadcast area (which includes some portions of Utah's bordering states). He then takes a road trip there to meet the locals and see the sights. To read and watch the previous installment, click HERE.
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. — Rock Springs, Wyoming occupies a landscape formed by ancient waterways and ever-present wind. It sits at the edge of the Red Desert, which occupies a 9,300 square mile swath of south-central Wyoming stretching north and south of Interstate 80.
It's beautiful, but it's not an easy beauty. The majestic Wind River range to the north beckons campers, anglers and backpackers. Flaming Gorge to the south is a boater's paradise and offers up trophies to hang on a bait shop wall.
From my campsite at the end of a two-track road, I never saw another human being. Instead, I saw wild horses and a golden eagle, and I felt a lot of wind.
The wind has become part of the energy economy that sustains the city of more than 22,000 residents. In the nation's least populated state, Rock Springs is the fifth biggest city, and it has a downtown with historic churches, busy restaurants, and parks with mature trees.
That charm is evident when you reach out to the people of Rock Springs. Sweetwater County has an active tourism office. They lent me the Sand Board you'll see in the broadcast story (video above). All the pictures make Sandboarding on the Killpecker Dunes fun, and I'll bet it is for people with a modicum of grace and a lower center of gravity.
The locals are so hospitable that they've become one of the regular hosts of a rodeo that holds more competitions than any other in the world. The National High School Rodeo Association Finals bring thousands of human and equine visitors to the small city.
I talked with James Higginbotham, the executive director of the NHSRA, about the event.
"We have 15,000 athletes nationwide," Higginbotham said.
The national finals are actually international, with athletes from Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.
I sat in the stands with Cristina Garcia, whose daughter, Triana, won a scholarship. They're from Laredo, Texas, but Triana competes for Team Mexico.
"Generations are changing," Cristina said, "We need to find ways to keep our children grounded."
I ran into a rider from Hawaii at the event. Nanea Bonacorsi lives on Maui, and went out of her way to say how helpful the locals are to people from far away. Bonacorsi could not bring a horse from Hawaii, so they supplied her with a good mount.
"We have 28 riders from Hawaii here," Nanea said. "Everybody helps everybody out."
After the hubub of a giant rodeo, the solitude of the Red Desert called to me.
I met with Lauren Hazzard at the parking area near the White Mountain Petroglyphs. Hazzard is a Recreation Planner for the Bureau of Land Management who moved west after graduating from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and never looked back.
In fact on the week we met, Hazzard was celebrating. She had just closed on the purchase of a house in Rock Springs.
As we hiked to the dunes, we inadvertently flushed a family of sage grouse. I've reported on the birds as a keystone species for years, but it was the first time I'd seen them in person. I was thrilled!"
"The members of different tribes will have different interpretations of the meaning ascribed to these petroglyphs. But all of them agree that it's a powerful link to their heritage and history," Hazzard said.
Petroglyphs reflect the culture and the individual inspiration of the people who carve them, and the White Mountain wall is a museum displaying about 400 years of work by people influenced by the climate, wildlife, and landscape they inhabited.
There are themes on the wall. The clearest is a reverence for motherhood. Depictions of elk, deer, bison and other animals with a child inside.
And other symbols show native inhabitants honored a symbol before it became cliche in the modern world...the mama bear."
"Black bears or any kind of bear are a symbol of power for indigenous people, and a strong symbol of motherhood as well," Hazzard said.
Bear paws etched in the sandstone all along the wall also provide evidence the area was once home to animals that have been driven away.
From White Mountain, Hazzard led me to the Killpecker Sand Dunes. Those ancient waterways I mentioned at the beginning of all this? These dunes owe much of their existence to them. The Red Desert was once covered by Lake Gosiute. The lakebed sediment, carried by ancient rivers and the still existing Big Sandy and Little Sandy rivers, supplied mountains of sand for the wind to mold into ever-changing dunes.
While I am more the type to admire a sand dune and hike it's periphery while pondering my smallness in a big wonderful world, I'm also the type to try something I know is a bad idea because it looks fun.
Hence, sandboarding.
My failure was predictable, and I wasn't dumb enough to start down a giant steep dune. I hope it's as fun and funny to watch as it felt to try. I really did bruise my tailbone. I've been sitting and sleeping in strange positions for a while while it gets better.
By the way...the tourism office offered a sand sled. That's what I'll try next time.
