Lakeshore Drive Looking Good

Work is going well in the park. Lakeshore Drive was open today and I drove to Black Canyon Cove and back. Looks like two major areas of concern, the crumbling road on a very dangerous curve

Great looking fix on this crumbling curve

and a bad culvert.

Nicely rebuilt complete with rock work the men of the CCC would love this fix

I stayed until just before dark waiting for the sunset, it wasn’t spectacular but was pretty nice.

When the moon started peeking through the trees I knew it was time to head for home.

 My newest novel, Commitment, is now available as a book or eBook

Take a look here

http://www.amazon.com/Commitment-Holmes-Western-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00ZJ6VKLS/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Commitment is a historical mystery/western, set in and around Fort Laramie and south to Laramie City and Cheyenne. Good old fashioned story, with a bit of mystery, romance, bad guys and one very special good guy – great fun.

And of course, my book on the Building of Guernsey State Park can be found almost anywhere on line and at many local sellers.

Get it here from Barnes and Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-civilian-conservation-corps-the-building-of-guernsey-state-park-neil-a-waring/1122073800?ean=9780692394885

Or get it here from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Civilian-Conservation-Corps-Building-Guernsey/dp/0692394885/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Hey, talk about the perfect Christmas gift for everyone that loves the park.

Red Cliff Trail

Fall has reached Wyoming and Guernsey State Park. We had a great hike today, the air was cool and the wind was blowing, but it felt good to pull on the hoodie and some light gloves and spend an hour and a half in the park.

A splash of fall through the forest

Today we chose Red Cliff Trail, one of our favorites in the park, and coincidently, the only trail now reachable on the east side after crossing the dam. Lakeshore Drive is getting some updates and will be under construction until December. (Find work updates here soon)

Red Cliff Trail starts here

We parked in the small area west of the spillway and headed up the trail. We took the Museum loop first and then the Red Cliff loop past the site of Camp BR-9 of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The trail was in great shape and the fall colors were striking.

Civilian Conservarion Corps remains are all around

Every time we hike this area I marvel at the step work on the trail. This trail, like others on the east side, was built by the men of Camp BR-9. But the interesting thing about this trail is that it was likely the first established and experimental, also a trail that the men went back to when they had finished other projects. This trail alone may have as many of the huge stone steps as the rest of the trails in the park combined.

Huge steps and my favorite walking/hiking partner

Three sets of stairs along the trail

If you have not experienced this trail, give it a try, you will enjoy the exercise, the terrific views and like me, look in wonder at the work done by the CCC more than 80 years ago. And don't forget your camera.

These guys are always watching me, this time I was watching him 

Moon Over the Park

Spent a bit over an hour trying to get a few good shots of the super blood moon and the eclipse this evening.

A few minutes before the start of the eclipse as the early clouds lifted

Clouds made it tough at times as the moon appeared and disappeared a few times.

Just coming up over the horizon near the Castle

But what a nice evening in the park, great weather and nothing but he sounds of the park.

Nice start to the eclipse 

Nearly full

Town of Guernsey

Almost complete eclipse and a little of the Blood Moon look

We did see three other cars out and about in the park, hope they were enjoying it as much as we did.

Moon over the Gatehouse

Black Canyon

Saturday we spent some time in and around Black Canyon Cove and the Black Canyon Trail which is across Lakeshore Drive just east of the cove. I never fail to find something new, even after being in some of these areas dozens of times. The sun was warm and it was a beautiful morning. We didn't walk too much, my wife's step counter said a bit over 3,000 steps.

This is a great time of the year to experience the park, not too hot, not a lot of people and a good chance to get out and do something.

Hollow rock

View from the cove

Taken from up on top east of Black Canyon Cove - I like this one

Red twine on the shoreline

The trail less taken - the start of Black Canyon Trail

With much of the smoke cleared away the Peak once again looks spectacular

Forested area on the trail

Died of old age?

Cottonwoods are starting to show fall colors

Still some nice color in the park

Playing fetch - Yellow Lab with a giant stick

The Cove at Black Canyon - Relaxing
This is also the area I am using for my blog photo at the top of this page

Civilian Conservation Corps at Guernsey State Park

The time of the Civilian Conservation Corps CCC seems to be lost, or almost so, in history, Want to find out more? Take a look at my new book - The CCC and the Building of Guernsey State Park. The book contains nearly 200 photos, both new and historical from the 1930s. It is also full of information about the Corps with many stories about the park, some in print for the first time.

Click this link to take a look, and thanks.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a file cabinet full of programs with one common goal; pull America out of the Great Depression. The programs were designed to produce economic growth through job creation, relief through government jobs, and reform with new regulations for transportation, banking, and Wall Street.  Unquestionably, the centerpiece of all the New Deal programs was Social Security and its long reaching benefits to the nation’s retired citizens.

What follows is a brief excerpt from the book, chapter 1, page 3. 

The North Bluff Castle built by the CCC

But the Civilian Conservation Corps and the jobs it would create was, indisputably, FDR’s favorite of the programs created within the framework of the New Deal. He was excited to have a program fitting the two things he held most dear, tremendous environmental benefits with the preservation of many of our nation's natural resources. It also helped put together a jobs program, the human resource element, so needed in a depression locked America.

Walking up to the CCC Museum from the north steps in the lower lot.

Hot Days and a Cool Park

What a great time to visit the park - hot days and cool water make a great combination.

We don't do much with the water, other than walking (no I don't walk on water) along the edge. But it is cooling, we also love to visit the spillway, set on the bench and get hit by the mist - very nice.

Goodnight - Sunset in the park

Black Canyon Trail

Great morning hike on one of the Civilian Conservation Corps trails in the park.

Along the trail

We hiked Black Canyon Trail which is one of my favorites. Mountain vistas with pines, cedars and huge boulders along the way.

Davis Bay and Laramie Peak view from the trail

This trial doesn’t get much use anymore but is still well defined and fairly easy to follow.  

The trail winds through these trees

Today we were joined by friends that love the park as much as we do, making the hike extra nice.

Large boulders along the way

The park trails on the east side range from easy, Evergreen Glade, to very difficult, Knight Mountain, but there is a hike for everyone in the park.

Want to try a trail? Send me a message, here or on twitter and we will try to point you toward a trail of the skill level you want. Who knows, if we are free, which is most of the time, we might go along. Some trails, especially on the west side are very nice bike trails also. We always enjoy seeing people out hiking or biking on the Guernsey State Park trails. 

The Civilian Conservation Corps at Guernsey State Park

Franklin D. Roosevelt included the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of his New Deal. And the Civilian Conservation Corps built Guernsey State Park. No other state park in Wyoming had any CCC work. That makes Guernsey a one of a kind park.

CCC built Castle on the North Bluff

Want to learn more, you can order my new book here, or you can purchase a copy at the Museum.

If you haven't visited for a while a trip up to the CCC built Museum is in order.

Here is a snippet from the book. This particular story is from one of  the, folklore in the park, sections.

The Story of the Body in the Gulch 

A man, known only as Black, nobody really knew if Black was his last name or a nickname. He had been in and around the Cheyenne to Black Hills stage route for several weeks, sometimes riding shotgun on one of the dangerous runs. More often, if he had money, he hung around the Cheyenne Club or one of the many gambling concerns in Deadwood.

Once when a stage traveler admired his fancy spurs he said he’d won them in a poker game. Another time he mentioned buying them in Mexico.

Curious people questioned how someone who apparently did not work on a regular basis could afford such an expensive pair of spurs. But why not, he was also described as wearing handmade boots he’d special ordered to fit his feet. Some of the new style, individually made from a place in Kansas.

Privately Black had told a table of his poker playing pals that he found the spurs on a body, “a way’s up a gulch,” near the North Platte River. Since he was more often broke than not most believed this to be true. So how does all of this tie into a story?

The real story might be the finding of the body, one man found it, no one else ever saw it. The man, Black, who proudly owned a new set of spurs appeared only briefly in the area and never was heard from again. A few years’ later locals commonly believed that no one simply walked upon a decaying body with the spurs. Instead believing someone was killed in the gulch, most stories named Black as the killer, with the spurs being part, or all of the take from the crime.

Maybe the body in the Gulch looked like me - no, probably not that old.

Some modern tales make the dead man out as a park haunting ghost who today frequents the Red Cloud shelter area. But who was he really? The man might have been a murderer lawman with the body later dumped in the gulch or a drummer (traveling peddler), or a women. Today when the wind blows out of the south-south-west an eerie, haunting howl, can be heard in and around Dead Man’s Gulch. The entirety of the story sounds much more like a tall-tale than history, and perhaps it is, but the story of the Dead Man’s Gulch still makes for lively conversation more than a century later.

Want to read more?

 Go here and read the first few pages. 

I still like the hard copy better than the ebook because depending on the e-reader some of the photos and captions do not stay together, but the text is fine and so are the photos, just seems like more white space than needed - still a good read.

Far off the beaten path and if you know where to look - The CCC didn't always get everything cleaned up. Today this makes for great photos for a historian. It also allows me to wonder about a day in the life of a CCC worker.