One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"I swore I heard you say “pudding is dark!”"}]

One more for 10 27 24

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

<title>One More For The Road: Sunday, October 27, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

I swore I heard you say “pudding is dark!”

One More For The Road: Sunday, October 27, 2024

 I swore I heard you say “pudding is dark!”

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Special education students at Cody Middle School turned a school project into a unique community resource now available at the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.

The students spent two months using a variety of academic subjects to create a Cody playground guide. The one-page handout breaks down every playground in the community by what they have for kids to enjoy.

Theresa Fitti, the life skills special education teacher at Cody Middle School, said the student-led project was intended to give kids an outside-the-box experience to enhance their personal and academic skills.  

The unexpected opportunity to get their playground guide to the Cody chamber gave her students a chance to “learn without realizing they were learning.”

“They were doing a lot of skills that they don't enjoy doing and having fun with it,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “This was something they wanted to do, and seeing them learn and take ownership of their work was the most rewarding part for me.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What And Where"}]

Fitti’s special education class consisted of three students who were “trialing” a new way of teaching a resource class. 

The idea for a playground guide came from Fitti’s own experience as a parent in Cody.

“I met up with my friends and their kids at a playground one day, and realized there were no swings there,” she said. “So we started asking ourselves, ‘Which parks in town have swings? How many parks do we have?’ We realized this was an issue, and I brought it to my students.”

Fitti had already finished a similar Cody-based project with her students that focused on reading, math, English, and functional community skills. When she presented this playground problem to her students, they embraced the idea of pursuing it as their next project.

“They were ready to jump right into it, because they had really a fun time with the first unit,” she said. “It was a very student-led process while bouncing ideas off of teachers and the other staff in the room to come up with solutions.”

Their solution would require a lot of thought and effort, which would, unknowingly, encourage students to push against their own boundaries and limitations and have fun in the process.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"All Work For Play"}]

First, the class made a list of important playground features that kids and families would care about. They soon assembled a list of nearly 50 playground features, which they realized was too many to focus on.

“The students decided they wanted to focus on what they thought was important to kids,” Fitti said. “We talked about the difference between opinion and fact, they determined this was an opinion, and discussed how we can get a lot of opinions.”

The class then developed surveys that were distributed to Cody’s kindergarteners, second graders, and fifth graders. 

The surveys had the different-aged students rank their favorite playground features while Fitti’s students compiled the data.

“We made bar graphs from that information, touching on some math skills along the way,” Fitti said. “From that, we were able to determine the top six features that kids in our area want to see in playgrounds.”

After surveying and interviewing over 200 students, Fitti’s class had a list of six core playground features: playground systems, zipline and track riders, swings, baby swings, rock walls, and monkey bars.

Three additional features – bathrooms, basketball hoops, and open fields - were also added.

To verify which playground has which features, Fitti’s class visited Cody’s 13 parks. According to Fitti, it was important that her students use their own observations to complete checklists based on their surveys.

“We found an online resource on the different parks, but when we looked at each park, not every feature was listed, and some of the information was outdated,” she said. “That’s why they decided that they needed to do their own observations.”

Finally, the class decided to create an informational checklist listing every park in Cody and the nine core playground features. Each park got a checkmark for the features it had, based on the feedback Fitti’s class received from Cody’s kids.

“We made a list of action verbs of everything these kids did,” she said. “They drafted emails. They designed spreadsheets. 

"They did a lot of different things that tied into our state standards and the power standards the school’s working on across all grade levels. They did really well.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Play More, Worry Less"}]

While the goal of the student-led class project was always to produce something useful, Fitti didn’t contemplate how useful it was until the last week of the school year.  

“We were thinking about what we could do with it,” she said. “At first, we were thinking of posting it on community bulletin boards and asking restaurant and business owners if we could hang it there. One of the classroom staff members suggested we get our guide to the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.”

Fitti met with Jennifer Thona, executive director of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce. Thoma “loved their project so much” that she asked Fitti for copies to give out to chamber visitors.

When Fitti presented the idea to her class, they were “impressed and super excited.” They immediately agreed to get their playground guide to the chamber.

But it wasn’t going to be that easy. Fitti decided to turn the new partnership into another opportunity to put her students “on the spot” for their benefit.

“I got them in the school vehicle and told them we’re going to the chamber,” she said. “It was a last-minute opportunity for them to work on their public speaking.”

Most people panic when it comes to public speaking, let alone when it’s extemporaneous and on the spot. Nevertheless, Fitti believed they could and should, and her students proved her faith was well-founded.

“We talked about communication and presentation skills, eye contact, standing up, and sharing your ideas clearly, and they rose to the occasion,” she said. “It was a last-minute thing, and I was proud of my students for that. They did really well.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Their Product"}]

The Cody playground guide is now available to locals and tourists at the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce. Thoma plans to include the handout in the stack of maps and other resources they hand out to tour groups.

“The kids are super excited that other people are going to see their work and find it useful,” Fitti said.

For Fitti, the playground guide was a vindication of the project-based learning unit she’s been trialing at Cody Middle School. 

She hopes it will serve as a model that other schools and programs can adopt to improve the educational experience for special-ed students.

“We're still working on academics and on functional skills, but putting them into a fun, student-led format,” she said. “I spent this year seeing if I could do a full class period of it for the full school year. I'm still playing around with what other projects we can do to keep expanding this and what other students we can reach.”

Fitti admits that her still-developing model works best for smaller classes. The educational implementation of the playground guide was designed to meet the individual needs of each student, allowing each student to take ownership of different aspects that addressed skills they needed to work on.

Still, the end goal was to create something useful. Now, Fitti and the entire Cody community can benefit from her students' hard work.

“I’m a parent who had these questions about parks and playgrounds,” she said. “I imagine a lot of other parents, in town and just visiting, have similar questions. Now, they have this resource available to them.”

That resource was created through the initiative, enthusiasm, and hard work of her special-ed students, and she couldn’t be prouder of them.

“I had an idea of where I wanted this project to go, and sometimes it went a slightly different way because that's what they wanted,” she said. “This is their product, and seeing them take ownership of that has been amazing.”

Cody special ed Mix Collage 14 Jun 2026 07 55 AM 3625 6 14 26

<title>Special Education Students in Cody Create Guide To Every Playground In Community | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Special education students at Cody Middle School turned a school project into a unique community resource now available at the Cody Chamber of Commerce. The students spent two months using a variety of academic subjects to create a Cody playground guide.

Special Education Students in Cody Create Guide To Every Playground In Community

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Forget about e-bikes, ATVs and other wheeled vehicles. 

The latest powered outdoor trend is people strapping on devices called powered exoskeletons and becoming faster, stronger cyborg versions of themselves.

Battery-powered knee and hip-assistance devices have been around for a while. 

But some reviewers say products like one called the Vastnaut One 4x4 have taken things to a new level by supplying additional support and power to the hips and knees simultaneously.

The company claims that its contraption can boost the wearer’s climbing power by 30%.

Its rechargeable batteries last 4.5 hours, enough to cover about 12.5 miles, according to Vastnaut.

Prices for the devices run from about $1,000 to $2,000.

Seasoned hiker John Housel told Cowboy State Daily that at age 73, he’s had to slow down somewhat, but he’s not sure he’s ready to strap on a set of robot leg boosters.

“I’m a great believer in self-locomotion,” he said. "I would be hesitant about exploring that (using an exoskeleton) much further.

“I can see if I got to the point where I was wearing out before I got to the top of one of my favorite local mountains, I might look into that,” he added.

Even so, he can see drawbacks, such as the batteries wearing out or the contraption getting damaged.

“What if I fell on my descent? The falling might bend a joint on that apparatus, and I’d have to get back down on my own,” he said.

Housel added that it could be better to accept the natural limitations that come with age.

“If I get to the point where I just can’t go somewhere, maybe I’ll just not go to that place anymore,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shrinking The Land"}]

Housel said that exoskeletons could add to a trend that outdoor enthusiasts call “shrinking the land.”

In other words, the more means there are available to traverse territory more quickly, the “smaller” the land gets and the fewer places there will be where one can go to find utter solitude.

Housel said that over the years, he’s seen some of that happen as technology has improved ATVs and e-bikes.

 over whether they blur the lines between human-powered and motorized backcountry transportation.  

However, he’s skeptical that exoskeletons will have that much of an impact, at least not anytime soon.

The prices could be a barrier for many people, Housel said.

“I don’t think they’re going to be that popular. I think the pricing will be a factor,” he said.

He added that people might be hesitant to spend $1,000 to $2,000 on products that might be found primarily online, and not yet in retail stores.

“I think anybody who would be interested in that would want a demonstration” before spending the money, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Mr. Gadget’"}]

The makers of Vastnaut and similar devices claim that they can increase users’ weight-carrying capacity.

That could be a selling point for people like northeast Wyoming resident Owen Miller. 

He frequently hunts deep in the backcountry, in places where killing an elk means facing a long trek out with heavy packs full of meat.

“This looks like a product for ‘Mr. Gadget,’” he told Cowboy State Daily.

“I can definitely see that there’s people that would use this, and it could be compared to the e-bike where you’re biking, but you’re not really biking,” he said. "(This is) like assisted biking, but this is assisted hiking/walking."

Miller said he favors simplicity in the backcountry. So, he’s skeptical about the possible complications of exoskeletons, such as limitations on battery life.

He noted that it might be good for “somebody with a leg injury, or even a back injury.”

Miller said he doesn’t think he’ll buy an exoskeleton anytime soon.

“In my opinion, everything can have its place and be useful for the right person. But as long as I’m healthy, I personally wouldn’t use it just to use it,” he said.

 Avid backcountry elk hunter Bruce Cooper of Bondurant also said he can see the usefulness of exoskeletons for those with injuries or mobility challenges.

He noted that his wife has had two knee surgeries.

“This would help her maybe keep pace with me and have less fatigue,” Cooper said.

“I personally would not have a use for it when hunting. I tend to go distances that would burn the battery, and through heavy timber. I would then have to carry it back when the battery is dead,” he said 

Where exoskeletons might shine in Wyoming is among people hiking for fun in the front country, Cooper said.

“I think it could be beneficial for those who are walking more on (established) paths and trails, and who may benefit from the knee support and need for assistance in walking or hiking,” he said.

Exoskeleton 2 6 14 26

<title>Powered Exoskeletons Could Turn Wyoming Hikers, Hunters Into Backcountry Cyborgs | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Forget about e-bikes, ATVs and other wheeled vehicles. The latest powered outdoor trend is people strapping on powered exoskeletons and becoming faster, stronger cyborg versions of themselves. One company says it can boost climbing power by 30%.

Powered Exoskeletons Could Turn Wyoming Hikers, Hunters Into Backcountry Cyborgs

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily State Government and Politics reporter, Leo Wolfson.

Leo Wolfson For Cowboy State Daily

Sports

Beartooth Basin, located at nearly 11,000 feet of elevation in northern Wyoming, is North America’s only ski area open exclusively during the summer months.

Situated just 5 miles from the Montana border in the Beartooth Mountains outside Red Lodge, the basin symbolizes everything that bucks the direction of the nation’s mainstream ski industry.

The low-frills mountain describes itself as “backcountry skiing with a lift.” There is no base lodge, ski school, rental shop, or slopeside lodging. 

The ski area runs on a single generator. An old repurposed service truck with “Little League” emblazoned across the front serves as a combination lift-ticket office, snack shack, and lost-and-found department.

The dirt parking lot is small and full of potholes, people lounging in camping chairs, and plenty of smiles in the best spirit of ski-bummery.

“It’s just a really small, unique operation,” co-owner Justin Modroo told Cowboy State Daily. “When we’re rolling, it can really be quite smooth and fun and enjoyable.”

In an increasingly transactional society, where metrics and profit margins often seem to drive every business decision, skiers say Beartooth is heartwarming and surprising as an operation that looks beyond those concerns simply for the love of their sport.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"How It Works"}]

Operating for only a handful of weeks each summer and catering to a diehard niche of skiers and snowboarders, everything about Beartooth Basin 

What little profit the mountain generates, if any, is reinvested into operations, which unsurprisingly are not cheap.

As long as there is enough snow, the basin opens around Memorial Day each year, relying on the high-alpine Beartooth Highway to be cleared before operations can begin. 

Once open, the ski area remains operational as long as conditions allow. In 2019, it stayed open until July 4. This year, the goal is June 21, the summer solstice.

Two aging Poma surface lifts serve the ski area, making the ride uphill sometimes as nerve-racking as the trip down. Riding a Poma lift involves placing a small plastic disc beneath your hips and hoping your legs can hold on long enough as you’re towed to the top.

“It’s just simple, basic uphill travel to get people up the hill so they can go back down and have fun,” Modroo said.

The basin’s twin Poma lifts are relics dating back to the 1980s, and breakdowns are not uncommon. Located atop a mountain pass with no maintenance facility on-site, the ski area faces significant challenges when equipment fails.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"This year was no exception. "}]

The main drive on the upper lift failed earlier this month, forcing the mountain to close for roughly two weeks. 

Modroo described the situation as “pretty rough,” requiring the lift to be transported more than 90 minutes to Billings, Montana, for repairs. 

Now fixed and with the Beartooth Highway cleared of a late-season snow, Beartooth opened at 9 a.m. Sunday.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Modest Amenities, Five-Star Skiing"}]

As minimal as the amenities may be, the basin offers some of the most remarkable skiing in North America.

The runs are short but steep, reaching grades of nearly 50 degrees in some sections. According to Modroo, there’s always an opportunity “to get puckered,” ski slang for experiencing fear on the slopes.

Despite competing professionally on the World Freeskiing Tour and skiing some of the most challenging terrain on the planet, Modroo still describes the basin’s terrain as “mind-boggling.” 

Professional ski legends such as Tanner Hall, Karl Fostvedt, and Sander Hadley have also skied its slopes.

“People that go up there for the first time are always blown away — just absolutely blown away,” Modroo said. “Even if they’re pro skiers, even if they’re not skiers. It doesn’t get close to boring.”

Many of the runs resemble narrow snow corridors bordered by massive boulder walls. The snow is almost always slushy, creating a forgiving surface to navigate moguls that can grow as large as a small car.

From the top cornice, skiers are treated to sweeping views of the Beartooth Mountains. It is easy to become lost in the beauty of the landscape without ever feeling the need to make a turn.

Whether you’re an expert skier or simply trying to survive your way down the mountain, it is hard not to feel like a rock star as soft, mashed-potato snow sprays from beneath your skis and glitters in the high-elevation sunlight.

And despite it being summer skiing, conditions at 11,000 feet can quickly shift back to winter. Fresh June powder is not uncommon.

The ski area is staffed by professional ski patrollers and lift operators, but this crew is a special breed. They sacrifice a month of their summers to work long, unpredictable hours in an extremely rugged environment.

Aside from operating snowcats, the staff are true jacks-of-all-trades, doing whatever is necessary to keep the mountain running.

Cody native Dean Madley drives snowcats at the basin and has been skiing the mountain since childhood.

“The Beartooth Pass skiing community is filled with some of the most committed skiers and snowboarders anywhere, extending their seasons into the summer months,” Madley said. “The lift-access operation at Beartooth Basin is never easy and always unpredictable, but it is run by some of skiing’s most passionate people.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Basin’s History"}]

The Basin began its operations in 1962 when Austrians Pepi Gramshammer, Eric Sailer, and Anderl Molterer founded it as a summer training ground for alpine ski racers.

Over time, it became known as the Red Lodge International Ski and Snowboard Camp. When new owners took over, the ski area opened to the public for the first time in 1986. 

Since, the basin has earned a reputation for providing a raw, untamed skiing experience rooted in a passion for high-alpine summer skiing and snowboarding.

One of Modroo’s favorite Beartooth memories came in 2006, when he 

timed an avalanche-control blast to coincide with a drop from the top cornice

 to a landing roughly 15 feet below. As chunks of snow cascaded down the mountain behind him, Modroo linked perfect turns through the terrain.

The basin regularly uses avalanche-control explosives to reduce risk, and videos of the resulting slides frequently 

 because of the massive amounts of snow tumbling down the mountain.

Even those pale in comparison to some of the larger airs 

riders have been sending at the Basin this summer

The summer of 2020 was particularly memorable because Beartooth Basin became the first ski area in North America to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Modroo remembers that summer fondly, describing the mountain at the time as “the happiest place on Earth."

A few years ago, Modroo and the other owners announced they were putting the ski area up for sale. They have yet to receive a serious offer, and Modroo said they are only interested in selling to someone who shares their vision.

He admits he does not really want to part with the mountain he has frequented since his days as a young ski racer, and hopes to retain a minority ownership stake if a buyer eventually emerges.

“For me, it’s just a labor of love, and I enjoy it,” he said.

Although Modroo dreams of someday building a tram from the base of the Beartooth Highway to the ski area, allowing access throughout the winter, such a project is unlikely anytime soon.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"And that’s probably OK."}]

The basin is already a diamond in the rough — rugged, beautiful, and fleeting.

Berartooth Basin6 6 14 26

<title>Inside North America's Only Summer-Only Ski Area: Wyoming's Beartooth Basin | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Beartooth Basin, located at nearly 11,000 feet of elevation in northern Wyoming, is North America’s only ski area open exclusively during the summer months. “People who go up there for the first time are always blown away," co-owner Justin Modroo said.

Inside North America's Only Summer-Only Ski Area: Wyoming's Beartooth Basin

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Public Lands

Finding treasure and beauty underwater does not require a trip to one of the nation’s coasts.

Divers in the Mountain West may not get to see sharks, colorful fish and coral reefs, but they pull out antique six-shooters or older Coors cans with no pop tops out of the Colorado River.

They also get views of the rock layers below the surface at Flaming Gorge Reservoir that few every see.

For Las Vegas’ Ken Wige, diving a stretch of the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam has become an ongoing treasure hunt involving recovering lost cellphones for people, wallets, a wedding ring, and even a couple of weapons.

One of those weapons he pulled from the river he can’t talk about except to say that it belonged to someone involved in “national defense,” but the other found about three years ago appeared to be a Western-style six-shooter in a holster that was covered in rust.

“If I were to guess, it probably was down there a good 10-plus years to be able to be stuck in the holster,” Wige said. “It was just an old Western revolver, it looked like. I was dying to get it out of there, but it would not come out.”

Fellow diver Tony “Gunner” Pierce of Provo, Utah — aka Tony “Nitrox” on social media dive pages — plans to join Wige this weekend on the river. 

Like Wige, he is an advocate for diving in the West and enjoys rallying people to different spots from Wyoming to Utah and Idaho year-round to explore what is going on underneath the surface of reservoirs, rivers, and lakes.

Both men have enjoyed more traditional diving hotspots such as Florida or the Mexico coast, but they have stories to tell about the adventures much closer to home and cheaper for those who have the gear and want to enjoy a weekend under the water.

Pierce, a dive instructor, said he became interested in scuba nine years ago after taking his daughter Carly to a dive shop just to do a “discover” dive in a pool to see if they liked the sport. 

That led to certifications and a trip to Florida for an open water dive.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Hooked'"}]

“We’ve been hooked ever since,” he said. 

Pierce went on to get advanced certifications and not only become a dive instructor, but an advocate for dives that don’t cost a lot of money and bring divers together.

He said he wants to counter the criticism that in Utah and the West, there are no good places to dive and that new divers have trouble finding a dive buddy.

“A long time ago, I pretty much said if anybody wants to go dive with me for free ( they can go),” he said. “It’s just the love of diving and being able to connect with new families, new friends.”

He started posting on social media and now he schedules a year’s worth of dive events in advance, gets the permissions or whatever else is needed, and invites other divers to meet him on location.

A dive in May had him and others at Sulphur Creek and Woodruff Narrows reservoirs in the Evanston, Wyoming, area looking to see if any snowmobiles, four-wheelers or other craft were on the bottom left by ice fishermen. 

He was recruited by the city of Evanston to do the dive.

Pierce said he talked with Wyoming Game and Fish and local law enforcement agencies, which told him they had no open cases related to missing equipment, but they were interested in him taking a look at what was below.

“We got there with other divers and except for the fishing pole, shoe, or hat or sunglasses — some trivial things — the bottom of both reservoirs were spotless,” he said. “There’s no leaking gas, no leaking oil, there’s no rubber in there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Flaming Gorge"}]

Pierce said his favorite place to dive is Flaming Gorge Reservoir south of Green River.

“When you dive off Flaming Gorge by the visitor dam it’s a sheer cliff,” he said. “The original timbers cut down to help build Flaming Gorge are still there, the ropes are there, the cables are there. It’s just absolutely mind-blowing.”

A long-haul trucker during the week, Pierce said a typical weekend dive for him involves maybe five or six divers. 

They typically meet on a Friday and do a day dive, night dive, and another day excursion on Saturday. 

Dives are kept to 100 feet and above, and the deeper dives will require some decompression stops before surfacing.

In Nevada, Wige, also a trucker, said he started diving seven years ago and is now a master diver. 

A few years ago, he discovered the 2-mile stretch between Willow Beach and Emerald Cove downstream from the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

He immediately came across cellphones, fishing lures, and other treasures to return to people. Wige said the current as water is released from the dam constantly uncovers items that he and other divers find along the bottom.

Divers who plunge the depths of the Colorado River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir find all kinds of treasure, from antique six-shooters to cellphones. One woman burst into tears when given her phone back that had her grandchild’s birth video on it.

One More For The Road: Sunday, October 27, 2024

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