Daily Darwin

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Darwin: Friday, September 16, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

This is the Daily Darwin for Friday, September 16, 2022

Daily Darwin: Friday, September 16, 2022

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, May 27th.  I’m Mac Watson.

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Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming.

“Prometheus Hyper Scale, unlike a lot of the other data centers, you know, they have made that public commitment to community engagement, and so what this meeting was all about was answering the public's questions here in Evanston, it was at times an emotional meeting, a little unruly at times. There were some people in the audience, who just yelled out questions whenever, who would challenge answers and basically say ‘You're lying!’ There was one person who accused Trenton Fornock of being a sellout because he lives in Texas right now. For the most part, though, it was a pretty civil meeting.”

Thornock says he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second impr oving the economy of his home state. Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states. 

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A fire tore through an under-construction apartment building in north Cheyenne on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that one witness says the burning was so intense, the building was “a total loss” in minutes.

“He said within 10, 15 to 20 minutes it went from just seeing some flames to pretty much being a total loss, and it had been collapsing on itself. While it was burning, they could hear explosions coming from inside the building. Being under construction, there's all kinds of tanks and things with whether you're welding or paint or anything like that. So, whatever they had in there, he said they could hear it popping off.”

The under construction building is in the Ridgeview Apartments located at 2025 E. Carlson St. just off Converse Avenue between Sam’s Club to the south and Storey Boulevard to the north.

State Rep. Mike Yin argued against a proposal by Chuck Gray to ban political party changes after Jan. 1st in election years. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Yin wants to know why Gray is making it harder for people. Gray says it’s an election integrity issue.

“So, what the committee majority, not Mike Yin and not a few others, decided was they're going to ask staff to draft a bill that is going to ban party changes for like three quarters, nearly three quarters of an election year, and so they did that. So now staff is going to build that draft, and then at a later meeting of the committee, probably September, people can come and comment, and they'll decide at that point or later whether they want to adopt the bill, which would give it an edge going into the 2027 lawmaking session, if they do.”

The Legislature in 2023 passed a bill banning voters from switching parties between about mid-May and the primary election in mid-August of each election year. 

Two hikers on a multi-day excursion were helicoptered to safety by Teton County Search and Rescue after becoming ill on Monday. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that one rescuer says,  “It sounded like they weren't prepared to hit as much snow as they did in the high country.

“In this case, it wasn't a lack of experience or preparedness. The group knew that they were going to be encountering snow in high elevation on the Teton Crest Trail, and planned to be there for several days, but there was more snow than they anticipated, and they didn't find water to replenish their stores, because getting water off of smelting snow pack is not a bad way to work around carrying water on a trail like that, but in this case, there was a lot of snow, and not a lot of readily available water.

At one point, the hikers even tried to boil snow to get water, but the National Weather Service says that one inch of liquid water is equivalent to 12 inches of snow, and even though they tried, they just didn't have enough to hydrate all four of them.

I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

After losing both of her siblings to a male grizzly’s attack last spring and then splitting from her mother at an unusually tender age, the young grizzly named Miracle hadn’t been seen this spring. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that all changed when the bear showed up at Colter Bay on Sunday.

“That's almost the exact same spot she was seen almost in exactly a year earlier, and I talked to a bear biologist up in British Columbia, who, who said, yeah, that tracks, because, especially with female bears, they'll establish a range and they'll establish routes to get around, and the person who took the video said it really seemed like she was, she was coming from from one wooded area, trying to get to another wooded area, in other words, she wasn't interested in hanging out in Colter Bay. She was just making that her route through, and the biologist said, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’” 

Wildlife photographer Marcela Herdova tells Cowboy State Daily that the 2.5-year-old Miracle appears to be in good health.

A Casper man who admitted being a serial arsonist and starting numerous fires got 6-12 years in prison Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Dallas Smith sought probation instead of prison time, but the judge wasn’t having it.

“He apologized for his actions, said that he knew that he caused some people some financial pain, and he had said in an affidavit that he had started the fires to get rid of the pain. So he asked the judge, and his defense attorney asked the judge if he could get probation and serve time at a place in Sheridan, and the judge was not going to go along with that. She said, "First degree arson, we're not going to do any probation with that.”

Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson sentenced Smith to the six to 12 years, and he was sentenced to time served 270 days for three other counts of arson that were part of the plea deal.

Wyoming biologists say a wolverine that had a rare close-range encounter with a hiker in the Wind River Range mountains is the same animal they’ve been tracking for more than a year. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the animal has a huge range, being tracked over 200 square miles.

“That's typical for wolverine range, 200 or even more. They are wide-ranging animals. The running joke, or the way I put it is, even a lot of wolverines isn't a lot of wolverines, because they are very typical, very typically solitary animals that have gigantic ranges and just don't have much to do with each other, so they're, they're not, it's not like elk, they're very widely dispersed animals, so it makes sense.”

The wolverine that Zachary Shifrel photographed from 

 is a mature, 28-pound male, who was collared back in 2025, so say biologists Dean Clause and Rusty Kaiser.

Wyoming meteorologist Don Day is skeptical about a popular weather forecasting website’s prediction of a wetter-than-normal summer. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Day says Wyoming is a huge state for this kind of forecast.

“The website Open Snow published their summer 2026 forecast in terms of temperature and rainfall, and they have above average or above normal rainfall for the entirety of Wyoming and portions of 12 other states. So I spoke with Cowboy State meteorologist Don Day about that. First off, he was skeptical because it's open snow. He said that they can be very ambitious with long-range weather modeling.”

Day tells Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming isn't a one size fits all state, so even if some places do see above normal precipitation for summer, that doesn't mean it's a blanket statement that's going to cover every spot in the Cowboy State.

And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image play 5 27 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wednesday's headlines include:
* ‘Miracle’ Bear Is Alive And Well
* Tense Data Center Meeting In Evanston
* Cheyenne Apartment Fire Is ‘Total Loss’

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Government & Politics

EVANSTON — Prometheus Hyperscale laid out a vision for its massive 1.2 gigawatt data center campus on a ranch east of town owned by native Trenton Thornock. It’s a place where cattle still graze and the residents prize open country and sky.  

That includes Thornock, the fifth-generation ranching family member told a packed room of Uinta County residents, many of whom are wary of becoming the next front in Wyoming’s data center boom.  

“Our family ranches here, and my great-great-grandmother homesteaded here down Bear River back in 1869,” Thornock said. “I started the company because I saw two things that were wrong with the data center industry. 

"They’re using way too much power for the amount of compute that they’re getting out and they’re using way too much water for cooling.”

Thornock said he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second improving the economy of his home state.

Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states. 

It’s a dynamic Thornock, as an Evanston graduate, said he's all too familiar with. He knows plenty of his Wyoming classmates who wanted to stay in Wyoming, but couldn’t find high enough paying jobs to support a family.

His thought was that data centers could be part of a new story that changes that dynamic.

That’s one of the reasons he settled on a “bring-your-own-power” approach. Because of severance taxes paid on every molecule of natural gas used, that would be the best way, he figured, to support the state.

“Instead of exporting all of this economic value from the gas that’s produced here in Wyoming like we’ve always done, the point is to consume that here, do the compute here, have the property taxes from these facilities here to support our tax base, to support our schools, and all the other county services,” he said. “That’s my reason for doing this project.”

Thornock’s data center would be built on family-owned ranch land near the Silver Eagle refinery.

This, he added, is not a case where some billionaire from far away is coming to buy up Wyoming land. This is a born-and-raised Wyomingite, wanting to make a difference for his home town.

Prometheus Hyperscale has faced a rising tide of opposition against data centers amid broader concerns gripping the state, following a surge of as many as 70 data centers headed for Cheyenne. 

The meeting Tuesday was informational to answer questions from Uinta County residents about the company’s plans — and they had plenty.

It wasn’t just the usual gamut of water and power use issues. 

People wanted to know who the tenants were, who would be minding the man camps and policing any crimes, whether public officials have signed any non-disclosure agreements, and whether there are any federal, state, or local subsidies, tax abatements, or special utility deals. 

As far as tenants, Thornock said he’s not able to reveal the tenants just yet because they’re not yet ready to go public.

However, he would say that he’s signed a binding agreement with a tenant that restricts future owners of the facility.

“It will not be sold to certain types of entities,” Thornock said. “And there are at least five Chinese names on that list.”

Thornock revealed that he’d gone through a full-blown process early on to bring in a tenant, and ultimately had to reject the contract when he learned that the tenant would have been Chinese-owned ByteDance. 

“So we’ve waited two more years to get to someone we think is the right person to have in this county,” he said. 

 ties to the World Economic Forum, as well as his ties to Blackrock, his involvement in environmental, social, governance (ESG) measures during his tenure as CEO of BP.

Thornock had to say, more than once, that he hasn’t requested any abatements, nor is he accepting any government funding. Looney, he explained, made a better CEO than himself for the sake of name recognition.

“No one knows who Trenton Thornock is on Wall Street,” he said. “They don’t care who I am. The CEO of the company, Bernard Looney, everyone knows him. Jamie Dimon knows him. The head of Blackrock knows him. He’s the reason we had a CEO change, to go raise the money for private markets.”

All of the equity, all of the debt, will be raised from private investors using a bond offering that will be managed by Morgan Stanley.

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Uinta County Commissioner Mark Anderson told Thornock and his team that he’d been engaging with local residents for the past two weeks, and that he had a long list of questions from them. 

Chief among them was whether the 200 long-term jobs the data center projects it will have once operational will be actual jobs for people residing in Uinta County.

“Or will these be jobs created for somebody to sit and operate remotely?” Anderson asked.

The jobs will not be remote, Anderson was told, and the company is taking extra steps to try and hire as many people locally as possible.

“The way we’re going to do it here is that we’re first going to post all these jobs locally so that we can pull all the talent that’s here or people who are interested in getting a job there,” Thornock said. “And I can tell you what the wages are, because they’re kind of the same across the industry. 

"These 200 jobs range from $75,000 a year on the low end to about 150 on the high end. They’re good jobs … and these jobs will come with all the benefits. You’ll have bonus, you’ll have overtime, vacation, full healthcare, 401K — all the things that you want that I don’t have working for a startup.”

The data center will bring “a lot of advancement in the learning and the workforce,” Prometheus Head of Construction Ahmed Anwar said. 

“When you talk about direct construction, we’ll need electricians, we’ll need pipefitters, we’ll need ironworkers,” he said. “Pretty much any trade that supports an oil and gas field, any type of power plant project, those are the same types of trades that we’re looking for as we build data centers.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Minimizing Water Use"}]

In a state where ranching and water rights are existential issues, residents pressed hard on water use and power use. 

Thornock spent the most time addressing questions about those issues, explaining that his data center will use a closed-loop, liquid cooling system similar to the radiator of a car.

Unlike the radiator of car, the cooling loop for the data center will be filled with a propylene glycol water mixture referred to as PG25. 

Propylene glycol is an additive that’s been generally recognized as safe by the Food and Drug Administration for food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. 

It has a variety of uses including as an anti-caking agent, as well as an emulsifier or stabilizer. It’s also useful as a humectant — absorbing and retaining moisture — which helps keep baked goods fresh and soft.

PG25 is good for around six years, after which it requires recharging. That will be done off-site by a chemical supplier, which will manage trucking the fluids in and out of Wyoming. 

The spent fluid will not be released into local well water. It will be drained and sealed into 1,000-gallon drums or containers and shipped off either for recycling or disposal in a Class VI well.

The only well water the site will use is for domestic uses such as employees washing their hands when they use the restroom.

The company also promised it would report daily water extraction from its wells on a portal, so that residents can track usage.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Staying Off Grid"}]

As far as energy, Prometheus is proposing a fully off-grid power strategy that will be built around on-site natural gas generation through the Kern River pipeline, which already loops through that area.

“Because we’re not connecting to the grid, there’s zero impact on your rates, because we are not connecting to Rocky Mountain Power,” he said. “The rules in Wyoming are such that we can consume our own electricity on site, and we’ll have to abide by all regulations.”

The type of power generation will be natural gas reciprocating engines, which Thornock said will use very little water. 

“We’re talking about, on a per engine basis, a couple of Yeti cups per day,” he said. “So it’s not significant. And when we get to the larger turbine generation, those will be cooled with dry coolers, similar to the data center, so there’s no water consumption there either.”

Thornock further committed to paying for municipal fire protection, road maintenance, and emergency service responses required by the facility, and said the company will be working with Target Hospitality to provide workforce housing to avoid affecting the local housing market.

Wyoming’s abundant gas resources and existing gathering systems, meanwhile, mean that production can increase with demand without dramatically spiking prices for that resource, while simultaneously supporting the state through severance taxes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Data Centers Matter"}]

Swipe a credit card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere. Go to a gas station and use a preferred shopping card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere else.

“Our health care rules have been focused around the fact that all the records are in data centers,” Prometheus Hyperscale Head of Global Infrastructure James Faccone told the standing-room only crowd at Evanston’s Roundhouse on Tuesday. 

“So, as much as we think we might be trying to avoid data centers, they’re here to stay,” he said. "They are very much part of our life, and they bring us a lot of value.”

That frames the Evanston project as part of a broader shift in “critical infrastructure,” akin to things like hospitals, military installations, and other complex facilities that require operations, maintenance, and security personnel to run safely and reliably.

Inside these data centers, there are hundreds of computers sitting in rows on server racks, supported by intricate systems that require skilled jobs and long-term technical capabilities who both work and live in their host communities. 

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An economic analysis commissioned from the University of Wyoming projects a $3.1 billion economic impact in Uinta County through 2032, with hundreds of permanent jobs and hundreds more indirect positions once the campus is fully built out.

Statewide, the economic impact for Wyoming is $184 million through 2029, Thornock said, with a $40 million impact to Uinta County over the same period.

Once operational, it will be good for $53 million annually to the state, largely from severance taxes on natural gas consumed on site, and roughly $13 million per year in county and sub-county impact, which includes property taxes. 

These revenue streams would help stabilize a county whose tax collections have been buffeted by swings in oil, gas and coal, Thornock said.  

The biggest beneficiary will be school districts, he added, followed by fire districts, roads, infrastructure, public safety and county government. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Continued Engagement"}]

With opposition to data centers rising across the Cowboy State, residents have voiced concern that Prometheus’ data center campuses are large enough to still put pressure on local water supplies and the regional power grid even with these efficiency measures in place.

Along with the Uinta County project, the company also is moving forward with a data center in Natrona County.

They’ve had a long list of growing questions from residents, ranging from what the campus will look like on the ground to how it might affect everything from housing and traffic to emergency services. 

Prometheus has promised to engage with those concerns directly through community benefit agreements and local-hiring priorities through a broader “Build Wyoming” message that pitches data centers as a tool to fight the state’s brain drain and keep more young people working at home.

Company officials have said construction is expected to begin on the Evanston data center within six to nine months, with an eye to starting operation sometime in 2027.

Tuesday’s informational meeting was the latest opportunity for residents to weigh those assurances, ask detailed questions about water and power use, and help shape how this ambitious AI campus, if built, fits into Uinta County’s future.

Evanston town hall 5 26 26

<title>Prometheus Faces Skeptical Crowd In Evanston Over Huge 1.2GW Data Center | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. The project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming.

Prometheus Faces Skeptical Crowd In Evanston Over Huge 1.2GW Data Center

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Chance of afternoon rain, breezy in parts of Wyoming on Wednesday, otherwise partly sunny skies. Breezy overnight. Highs mainly in the 70s and 80s. Lows from the mid 30s to upper 50s.

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Chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 53 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

Slight chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

 Chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

 Sunny today with a high near 73 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 39.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 74 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 39 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 74 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 38 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

 Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 84 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 42.

  Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 33 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 37 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

 Chance of rain mainly after 5 p.m., gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 71 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 43 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

  Sunny today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 73 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 39.

Partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

:  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 29 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny and windy today with a high near 82 and wind gusts as high as 41 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after 2 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

:  Slight chance of rain after 2 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 85 and wind from 16-21 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 50 and wind from 16-21 mph.

Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 36 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 36 mph.

  Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 83 and wind gusts as high as 36 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 58 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

:  Mostly sunny today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 83 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 58 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

  Partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph.

  Chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny and breezy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Chance of rain after noon, mostly cloudy and breezy today with a high near 69 and wind from 10-20 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight and a low near 49.

  Chance of rain after noon, mostly cloudy and breezy today with a high near 65 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., mostly cloudy and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 53 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Chance of rain after noon, mostly cloudy today with a high near 72 and mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 46.

  Chance of rain after noon, mostly cloudy today with a high near 72 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 45.

  Partly sunny today with a high near 73 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 42.

Daycap small 5 27 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Two hikers on a multi-day excursion in Teton County were helicoptered out of the mountain range by Teton County Search and Rescue after becoming dangerously dehydrated in the snow-covered mountains.

Around 1 p.m. Monday, Teton County Search & Rescue (TCSAR) received an emergency alert for two backpackers in distress on the Death Canyon Shelf, a plateau on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park. Two men, ages 20 and 22, were suffering from intense gastrointestinal issues.

“Both had excessive vomiting and didn't feel like they were going to be able to get out,” Anthony Stevens, TCSAR’s chief advisor, told Cowboy State Daily. “They were unable to maintain hydration or food.”

The group of four hikers from Iowa told TCSAR volunteers via cellphone that they’d try to hike out of the mountains. After an hour, the two afflicted men were unable to continue.

TCSAR sent a helicopter to pick up the two men at Hurricane Pass, a mountain pass in the Alaska Basin within the Teton Range. They were flown to the TCSAR headquarters in Jackson but didn’t needed to be hospitalized.

“We gave them some Zofran to help control the vomiting,” Stevens said. “After they got to sit tight and recuperate a bit, we gave them some food and water, and they were able to get a ride back to their vehicle.”

The other two hikers in the group were able to hike out of the mountains and reunite with their peers.

“Last I heard from them, everybody was doing better, they’d gotten a meal in them, and they were starting to hydrate,” Stevens said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Not A Drop To Drink"}]

Death Canyon Shelf is a section of the 40-mile Teton Crest Trail. Stevens said the four-person group was on the second day of a multi-day excursion.

TCSAR routinely rescues people who’ve been seriously injured in Teton County’s backcountry. This incident was a little different.

“My guess is that they were dehydrated to the point that they couldn't hold down any fluids or food,” Stevens said. “It sounded like they weren't prepared to hit as much snow as they did in the high country when they were coming into Alaska Basin.”

According to Stevens, the group had expected to collect water on the trail. When they got up there, there was more snow than they anticipated, and the effort to get through exacerbated their dehydration.

The hikers seemed aware of their circumstances. Stevens said that at one point, they resorted to boiling snow to get drinking water.

“It sounded like they didn't have enough water between the four of them to maintain hydration,” he said. “They boiled what they could, but it wasn’t enough to maintain them for the amount of time they were traveling that day.”

If that seems unlikely, the National Weather Service says 1 inch of liquid water is equal to 12 inches of snow. You'd need a lot of boiled snow to sufficiently hydrated one person, let alone four hikers on a high-elevation hike.

That’s why the two rescued hikers didn’t need to be hospitalized once they reached Jackson. Once they stopped vomiting and started to rehydrate, they recovered.

Stevens asked whether their condition was related to high altitude, since Alaska Basin is above 10,000 feet. The hikers told him it wasn’t.

“They’re from Iowa, but they said they had all been at altitude before,” he said. “They just hit a lot of snow and did a lot of post-holing, and that’s exhausting. They definitely struggled up there.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Simple Swoop And Scoop"}]

Stevens said this incident wasn’t due to lack of experience or preparedness on the hikers’ behalf. They were prepared for an intense, high-altitude backcountry hike.

“I don’t know what they did for trip-planning or prep, but they definitely had had the gear to be out there for a couple of nights,” he said.

Despite the overall below-average snowpack across Wyoming, areas above 9,500 feet still have significant snow accumulation. Even in late May, TCSAR encourages hikers in the Tetons to bring ice axes and crampons in case they encounter impassable snowbanks.

In this case, the moral of the story is to bring enough water for a multi-day, high-energy excursion. Finding drinkable water in the mountains is a reliable workaround, but not always an option.

For TCSAR, the entire mission took four hours. It was what Stevens called a simple “swoop and scoop.”

“It was just a couple of kids unable to maintain hydration who didn’t think they were going to get out,” he said. “They didn’t expect to encounter as much snow as they did.”

Teton rescue 5 26 26

<title>Hikers Rescued From Death Canyon Shelf In Grand Teton National Park | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two hikers on a multi-day excursion were helicoptered to safety by Teton County Search and Rescue after becoming ill on Monday. “It sounded like they weren't prepared to hit as much snow as they did in the high country," one rescuer told Cowboy State Daily.

Hikers Rescued From Death Canyon Shelf In Grand Teton National Park

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Crime & Courts

Public Safety

CHEYENNE — The fire was so intense, Paul and Alexandra Trujillo said it felt like they were standing in front of a blazing campfire.

They were instead in Paul’s truck on Del Range Boulevard just behind Sam’s Club in north Cheyenne watching from the road as a huge apartment complex under construction burned Tuesday afternoon.

In the next 15-20 minutes, Paul and his daughter were mesmerized by the intensity and ferocity of a fire that consumed the building, a garage next to it and sparked a grass fire.

“We literally watched it from the beginning,” Paul told Cowboy State Daily. “It was 15-20 minutes from start to collapse. It spread to the garage in between the two buildings, and it also started a grass fire.

A fire tore through an under-construction apartment in north Cheyenne on Tuesday, burning so hot and intense it was “a total loss” in minutes, a witness said. “You could feel the heat like you were standing in front of a campfire,” he said.

Daily Darwin: Friday, September 16, 2022

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