photos/22/1006-08_MedBowVedauwoo/:

By Alan Silverstein, ajs@frii.com (page updated Tue Nov 22 20:22:17 MST 2022)

Parent directory/folder = photos/22/

Late-season solo hike in the Snowy Range of Wyoming! Slow (6:08 for 5.0 mi and ~1600' gain) because I went off-trail in rough country for more than half of it; lots of rockhopping and bushwhacking, including willows over my head twice. It was a gorgeous fall day.

I love this area, roughly 10x10 mi across and 9-12K' elevation, about 30 mi west of Laramie, Wyoming. The Snowy Range perches on top of, and is the highest part of, the much larger Medicine Bow Range.

Despite two previous trips and many hikes in the Snowies this summer, I wanted to get back this fall if possible for one more specific route that caught my interest. I went alone and camped in the van for two cold nights (29 deg lows both), first at Libby Creek Willow ~8600', then on the way home by way of Cheyenne at Vedauwoo about 400' lower.

An early part of my loop was finding aircraft wreck debris from the DC-4 that hit the ridgeline west of Medicine Bow Peak, 67y1d earlier on Oct 6, 1955, killing all 66 aboard. Some people like "wreck chasing" as a hobby, but I've never been into that. However, noticing the memorial plaque (see photo) numerous times at the overlook point off the highway, including earlier this summer, got me curious again, so I did some web hunting, thus an excuse for the longer dayhike. You can eventually find a lot of stories and photos on the web in various archives. One source gave the crash location: 41.34504,-106.32906, and some photos confirmed it.

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