Wyoming's Red Desert

In the heart of the Wyoming Rockies, there is a gap in the mountains the wind whistles through. Here, the Continental Divide splits to form a broad desert basin, and a vast sea of sagebrush washes up against a coastline of isolated buttes, craggy rims, and spectacular badlands.

Covering over five million acres of open country, this high-altitude desert contains some of the last unspoiled tracts of public land in a state once known for its wide-open spaces. But times are changing. The oil and gas industry has been nibbling away at the Red Desert for more than half a century. And with the emergence of the Bush Energy Policy, and its mandate to “Drill America First,” the industry is poised to destroy the last of the Red Desert’s pristine landscapes.

An American Serengeti

One of the last intact high-desert ecosystems in America, the Red Desert is home to a rich diversity of wildlife. Pronghorn antelope roam at will across the steppes, a herd 12,000 strong. Some of these antelope winter here and migrate northward for hundreds of miles to spend the summer in Grand Teton National Park, the longest mammal migration in the continental United States. Elk are year-round residents of the northwest corner of the Red Desert, representing one of few desert elk herds left in the nation. This region is also one of the last strongholds for rare and disappearing birds such as the ferruginous hawk, mountain plover, sage grouse, and burrowing owl. Although much of the landscape is above 7,000 feet in elevation, with long, cold winters, there are also several interesting reptiles that call the Red Desert home. The eastern short-horned lizard, or “horned frog” for short, can be found throughout the region. The southwestern corner of the Red Desert is home to the midget faded rattlesnake, a tiny relative of the prairie rattler that lives colonially near rock outcrops. Even the small mammals show remarkable diversity: the region features unusual species such as the pocket mouse, pygmy rabbit, Wyoming pocket gopher, and kangaroo rat.

A land rich in western heritage

Curious visitors can still find traces of the Red Desert’s colorful past. The wind has hollowed out the ruins of failed ranches scattered across the empty miles, ghosts of an era when fortunes could be made on wool and beef. The site of Butch Cassidy’s famous Tipton train robbery lies in the heart of the Red Desert. Cassidy and his gang stashed fresh horses within the rugged natural fortress of The Haystacks, an advantage that allowed them to outrun the law on their way south into the Powder Wash country of northern Colorado. With a practiced eye, you might find wagon ruts carved into the sagebrush steppes by the passage of pioneering emigrants over a century ago. The Overland Trail traversed the arid country south of modern Interstate 80, and at one time was lined with military forts and stagecoach stations that have long since crumbled into rubble. The Cherokee Trail ran along the uplands near the Colorado border, following a string of reliable springs. Traces of the old Point of Rocks–South Pass Stage Road can still be found near Freighter Gap, a reminder of a brief but rambunctious mining boom in the South Pass area during the 1860s. And most famous of all are the Oregon and Mormon pioneer trails, which follow the well-watered valleys just across the divide.

And, of course, beneath the shallow veneer of recent history lies a rich tradition of Native American occupation that stretches back for thousands of years. Most recently, this was the homeland of the Ute and Shoshone peoples, who pursued a nomadic life following the migrations of bison herds and other game animals across the face of the desert. Many were the landmarks that are sacred to these original Wyoming emigrants. These folk left behind few traces beyond the pictographs that still adorn a few isolated rock outcrops. The wild horses that roam the Red Desert are perhaps a legacy of these wandering tribes, renegade escapees that founded the great herds that still thunder across the flats near Adobe Town and the Joe Hay Rim.

Desert landscapes at risk

In the northwestern corner of the Red Desert, the tabletop buttes and multicolored badlands of the Jack Morrow Hills are up for grabs. Marching across the heart of this area is an active dunefield, where the shifting sands mount up into hundred-foot dunes. Hidden within the dunes are buried snowdrifts that melt in summertime, creating lush pockets of wetland in the midst of an otherwise parched landscape. The Jack Morrow Hills area is studded with spectacular landmarks such as the Pinnacles, Oregon Buttes, and the Boars Tusk, and the colorful maze of the Honeycomb Buttes sprawls across its northern margin. In addition, seven Wilderness Study Areas have been established here, given interim protection until Congress makes a final ruling on their fates. Unprotected tracts of wilderness-quality land also exist but have yet to be officially recognized. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had originally prioritized the Jack Morrow Hills as an important core habitat for the Steamboat Mountain elk herd, setting the area aside for the purposes of conservation.

The Pinnacles

Sadly, however, the agency recently changed its course and approved a long-term land-use plan that would open much of the Jack Morrow Hills to oil and gas drilling, including many of the key elk habitats. Conservation groups, backed by the comments of over 13,000 concerned citizens, successfully challenged the proposed plan and put forward their own alternative focused on protecting the region’s unique natural values. In response to overwhelming public pressure and a reprimand from then-Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, the BLM reopened its planning process to evaluate this conservation alternative. This land-use planning process is currently underway.

Far to the south, near the Colorado border, stand the jagged rims of Adobe Town. Here wind, rain, and time have sculpted a wonderland of spires, canyons, and badlands from a vast scarp that towers above the Sand Creek basin. This is Wyoming’s largest tract of desert wilderness, encompassing almost 200,000 acres of wild country. But looking out across the flats to the east, the oil wells advance year by year, closing in on this bastion of untamed desert. And a recent surge in oil and gas exploration has overrun Adobe Town, boding ill for the long-term battle to keep the bulldozers and drilling rigs from carving up this spectacular landscape. But despite these threats, the BLM recently acknowledged the presence of over 40,000 acres of wilderness-quality lands in response to a comprehensive inventory of Adobe Town conducted by Biodiversity Associates, a Laramie-based conservation group.

The eastern edge of the desert is bounded by the Atlantic Rim, a long swell of high country rising from the alkali flats. Here the uplands are robed in desert grasslands and shrubfields and dissected by shallow draws and deep canyons. In winter, the Atlantic Rim becomes a haven for wintering elk and deer, which descend from the lush meadows of the Sierra Madre each year to feed on the wind-cured grasses exposed here by incessant winds. These are crucial winter ranges, used by the animals during eight of every ten winters, and the survival of the herds depends on their integrity. For years a little-known backwater far from civilization, the Atlantic Rim country has recently become a battleground for coalbed methane development. The BLM has unveiled a proposal to drill 3,880 coalbed methane wells and bulldoze countless miles of roads, reaching even the most remote corners of the Atlantic Rim. In addition to the usual impacts associated with industrializing the landscape, coalbed methane development comes with the added problem of how to dispose of poisonous alkaline waters that are a byproduct of coalbed methane extraction. And the road sprawl and increased vehicle traffic of a major well field will threaten the survival of the wintering herds.

An endangered legacy

There have always been empty quarters of the Red Desert where wildlife can thrive and visitors can find refuge from the frenetic pace of modern civilization. This high-desert landscape has now reached a crossroads in its history. Its last wild places are fast disappearing before an onslaught of bulldozers and drilling rigs. Oil and gas development has been proceeding full speed ahead for the last three decades; the Bush Energy Policy now threatens to strip away even the meager and inadequate protections that stand between the oil industry and the last remaining strongholds of wild desert in southern Wyoming. This unregulated drilling bonanza would destroy fragile desert ecosystems and forever erase the wild and scenic character of its National Park-quality landscapes. Conservation groups have proposed wilderness protection for a modest fifteen percent of the Red Desert. But the Bush Administration and the oil and gas special interests are not content to confine the drilling to the lands that already bear the marks of man. The time has come for the American public to speak out against the wasteful destruction of this high desert wonderland, to demand that some parts of the Red Desert be set aside from commercial exploitation and allowed to remain for the benefit of the public, native wildlife, and future generations of both. Never before has the Red Desert been more in need of friends who will speak out on behalf of its wild creatures and endangered landscapes. The eyes of the future are looking back on us and will be judging the wisdom of our choices.

Erik Molvar is the author of Wild Wyoming and eleven other wilderness guidebooks. He is a biologist for Biodiversity Associates in Laramie, Wyoming. A Red Desert Photo Gallery is available online at www.voiceforthewild.org.