We reach Devils Gate

Saturday May 28th From Willow Springs we plodded up Prospect Hill, the prospect westwards at the top being towards the Sweetwater River, a major tributary of the North Platte.  The emigrant and Pony Express trails now left the main North Platte river valley to follow the Sweetwater river valley westwards.   Riding along the Oregon Trail Road down the Fish Creek valley to join the Sweetwater river valley, and the horses stop to drink from a pond..

 

A sunbathing antelope, quite an unusual sight for these madcap racers...

 A grazing stop by Horse Creek...

..the site of Horse Creek Pony Express station was somewhere around here.

Since we were now travelling through wide open expanses of dry sage brush with ranches widely spaced, I had made an effort to identify places where I could guarantee water and grass for the horses. One of these was the Pathfinder Ranch which is crossed by the Pony Express trail.
By a Pony Express/Oregon/California/Mormon trail marker at the entrance to the Pathfinder Ranch...

The Pathfinder ranch is the largest of a number of local ranches purchased by the recently formed Pathfinder LLC, initially with the intention of setting up an enormous wind farm.  A change of plan involved relocating the wind farm to another part of Wyoming and the creation of an environmental mitigation bank on the ranch  partly as the area contains prime habitat for sage grouse.   The large cattle concern on the ranch is still operating, but will be scaled down.

Managing partner Jeff Meyer kindly agreed to accommodate the horses overnight, but on arrival I was also pleasantly surprised to find I was invited to stay at the splendid main ranch house. Unfortunately Jeff was not in residence, but son Forest and his lovely wife Shea who were visiting looked after me like royalty, and it was a treat to be shown to a luxurious bedroom with en suite bathroom.
 Drinks on the terrace with Forest, Shea and friends overlooking a superb view down to the Pathfinder reservoir, formed by damming back the North Platte..

Shea trained as a chef at the Cordon Bleu School in Paris, so it was hardly surprising that she produced a memorable evening meal.  Equally memorable was the fact that we ate off a table made out of wood from a tree which grew in Confederate general Robert E Lee's garden.  I was fascinated to learn that Jeff Meyer initially started out in business growing and supplying trees.  From this he developed a passion for historic trees, buying up the rights to trees of particular historic interest. Apart from growing and selling saplings from the seeds or grafts of these trees, he has used wood from those which have been felled for articles such as gunstocks, knife handles and pistol handles.

 

My first rattlesnake, fortuitously of the stuffed variety...

Forest and Shea see me off the following morning Sunday May 29th.(photo courtesy of Shea)

I was making for Devil's Gate, also the location of the Martin's Cove Mormon Handcart centre, where Les Bennington had arranged a place for the horses.  Unfortunately this meant following Highway 220 for about sixteen miles, and negotiating some nasty bridges....

This may not look that daunting in the photo, but the issue is the guard rail squeezing you onto the narrow verge of the highway where the semis (tractor-trailers, lorries, juggernauts, whatever you want to call them) hurtle past at crazy speeds encouraged by the straight monotony of the road.

A welcome grazing break in the pet exercise area at Independence Rock...

This dome-like glacier-smoothed rock was the next major landmark on the Oregon, Mormon and Pony Express trails before Devil's Gate about seven miles further on. Some people claim that it got its name as emigrants on their way west needed to reach this point by Independence Day, but it is more probable that it was named by early pioneers who happened to be there on Independence Day.  The Pony Express Trail made its first crossing of the Sweetwater River near here at Sweetwater Bridge Station.

Devil's Gate is a steep canyon formed where the Sweetwater river has cut through a ridge of the Rattlesnake Hills, and it can clearly be seen in the photo below.  The trails passed through a gap in the ridge to the right of the photo....

The horses are tied up at the adjacent Martin's Cove Mormon Handcart visitors' centre where I was soon welcomed by Elder and Sister Hoskins who were expecting me. In the background are the corrals where the horses stayed and I camped. 
Express mail at the centre...