Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Who needs metal shelving when you can buy plastic toy bins…"}]

Darwin 11 23 24

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 23, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Who needs metal shelving when you can buy plastic toy bins…

Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 23, 2024

 Who needs metal shelving when you can buy plastic toy bins…

Kerry Drake

Crime & Courts

A Cheyenne woman who was added to Laramie County’s “10 Most Wanted” list last year was arrested earlier this month and waived her preliminary hearing Monday on a February 2023 charge of child endangerment for smoking methamphetamine and using fentanyl around her two children.

Ashley Nicole Bennett was also charged with two counts of forgery in 2023. Bennett, 40, skipped town after posting a $5,000 cash bond and was not arrested until Aug. 2 of this year. She is being held at the Laramie County Detention Center.

Bennett’s daughter, who is listed as “NB” in court documents, called the Cheyenne Police Department in February 2023, when she was 15 years old. 

According to an affidavit filed by police, who asked her if Bennett had smoked with her or provided her drugs, NB stated she overdosed in 2022 by taking her mother’s Suboxone and had intended to take her own life.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Taken To Hospital"}]

“Although Ashley did not provide the fentanyl or Suboxone on this occasion, Ashley did nothing to prevent the accessibility of these drugs to NB,” the affidavit states. The teen said her mother used Narcan on her but did not call emergency medical services or take her to the hospital.

Bennett was one of five fugitives added to the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office “most wanted” list in December.

NB’s 9-year-old brother, called “MM” in court documents, was allegedly also exposed to the two controlled substances. If convicted of this felony, Bennett faces up to five years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Try Fentanyl"}]

NB told police her mother let her use fentanyl after she said she wanted to try it, and her mother said it tasted like “burnt popcorn.” 

The daughter said Bennett took her to a convenience store and had her act as a “lookout” while her mother smoked drugs, and another time smoked drugs in a bathroom stall at a gas station while NB also served as a lookout.

NB told police Adam Schmidt, then 39, and James Dykema, then 50, also lived in the family’s trailer house and smoked methamphetamine there, according to the police affidavit.

When police attempted to do a welfare check on the children on Jan. 24, 2023, Dykema allegedly answered the door and said they needed Schmidt’s permission to enter, and he was not home. 

Police called Schmidt, who said he was at work and did not want them at the trailer while he wasn’t there.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Scared Of Arrest"}]

The next day NB contacted police and told them the two men were scared they would arrest Dykema because he had an outstanding warrant, and affidavit says. NB told police Schmidt hid the drugs in the yard but did not know exactly where.

She also said her mother had a lock box where she kept some drugs, pipes and Narcan.

The affidavit said Bennett allowed police to do a welfare check at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 25, 2023, and they asked if they could search for drugs. An officer said he could not complete a thorough search at that time.

The next day, the officer said he spoke with NB, who told him she took a photograph of her mother’s drugs. “I observed a small, partially melted blue pill on a piece of tin foil, with burnt residue around it,” he wrote. Through his training, he noted, he knew people often consume fentanyl pills by placing them on aluminum foil, heating the underside and inhaling the fumes.

The officer said that process was consistent with what he observed in NB’s photo.

On Jan. 26, 2023, police obtained a search warrant and said they found used drug paraphernalia commonly used to smoke methamphetamine and fentanyl, used plastic bags with methamphetamine residue, and burnt foil. The bags tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, the officer wrote.

Bennett’s two children were then placed in protective custody.

On the two forgery charges, Bennett is accused of cashing two fraudulent checks made out to Otis Burchett, who died in November 2022. Bennett was identified by an employee at First Education Federal Credit Union as the person who cashed the two fraudulent checks. The account was drawn from WyHy Federal Credit Union.

The two checks cashed totaled $1,345. The forgery count are felonies and punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

Kerry Drake can be reached at: Kerry@CowboyStateDaily.com

Ashley bennett with cops 8 10 26

<title>Cheyenne Woman Who Allegedly Let Teenage Daughter Use Fentanyl Captured | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Cheyenne woman who has been wanted by the police since 2023 for child endangerment after allegedly letting her teenage daughter use fentanyl and acted as her mom's "lookout" was captured earlier this month and waived a preliminary hearing on Monday.

Cheyenne Woman Who Allegedly Let Teenage Daughter Use Fentanyl Captured

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

 on Saturday. Its prognosis for Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region is “cold, snowy at times, and breezy.”

Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day is aware of this and other long-range forecasts coming out for the upcoming winter. He's not buying what anyone's selling.

“I'm not going to follow the herd into slaughter this time,” Day said. “The Farmer’s Almanac does what the Farmer’s Almanac does. The National Weather Service will do what they do, and people on social media can post every computer model that they want, but I’m not going there yet.”

With a Super El Niño on the horizon after several consecutive historically dry months, Day was willing to discuss the broad trends that could impact Wyoming this winter. As for the specifics, there’s such a thing as being too early.

Day's message: trust these at your peril, especially when it’s still summer.

“Last year was a good example of getting too far ahead of your scheme, but it's so easy,” he said. “I’ve learned the hard way, so I’m not seeing expectations when we’re still in August.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Super, But How Super?"}]

The “biggest player” this winter, according to Day, will be 

the much-anticipated “Super” El Niño

. Weather patterns and water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which have been 

, are manifesting as one of the most intense El Niños in recent years.

“We're definitely going to have this very strong El Niño,” Day said. “It's going to be the dominant factor this winter, but it's not the only one.”

Many long-range forecasts circulating are relying on historical data from past El Niños to provide an outlook for how it will impact global weather.

Day is a huge proponent of using historical data, but there might not be a historical precedent for what’s coming. A strong El Niño can be great for Wyoming or miss it entirely.

“The El Niño can be so strong it shifts the storm track to our south,” he said. “The enhanced rain and snow you can get in the winter can bypass Wyoming. It can just miss.”

In other years, a strong El Niño has tracked farther north, inundating parts of Wyoming with precipitation.

A strong El Niño is a given this winter. At this point, its trajectory could take it either way, which is why Day isn’t giving into the pressure to release a long-range forecast.

“The north-south extent of the El Niño signal is a real concern I have,” Day said. “It's really too early to glob onto and go all-in on either a model-driven forecast or what we would call an analog forecast of looking at El Niños from the past.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Hangover"}]

The top reason to be skeptical of any long-range winter forecasts for this winter is the lessons still to be learned 

Day acknowledged how his long-range forecast for the 2025-2026 winter season, released in August 2025, was radically different from the winter Wyoming got. That stung, but his misery had good company.

“That’s the cautionary tale,” he said. “We had 90 blocking patterns this winter. Nobody anticipated that, and no models predicted it. Simply put, our models fail.”

Those “blocking patterns” were stubborn ridges of high pressure that essentially 

 from reaching Wyoming and siphoned it elsewhere. That’s why it was historically dry in the western U.S. and historically cold and snowy in the eastern U.S.

By November 2025, it was clear that the colder, snowier winter forecasted wasn’t going to plan. Nearly every month since then has been 

“This summer was a hangover from last winter, especially through July,” Day said. “Last winter, all our weather went north. A really strong El Niño can direct all the storms south. That is a concern.”

El Niño isn’t known for having frequent blocking patterns. Instead, it tends to have one blocking pattern that can last for several months without let-up.

According to Day, very persistent, stubborn blocking patterns are “a concern” with the incoming El Niño. Where those patterns could set up, and how it would impact the winter, remain to be seen.

That’s one area where Day had a sliver of confidence when looking ahead. Historically, the enduring block patterns have favored Wyoming.

“You can have a semi-permanent high-pressure system over central Canada that migrates back and forth,” he said. “El Niño patterns can lock in between December and February, which is a concern, but it's not in the Pacific, which was our problem last year.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who’s On The Bench?"}]

For Day, putting out a long-range forecast for the 2026-2027 winter season would be like betting on the winner of a barely started chess game. The game’s afoot, and there’s no way to confidently say what the winning move will be.

However, Day can look at the board and see which pieces are and aren’t in play. Many of the factors that came together to make last winter so warm and dry aren’t a factor now.

“What we can say about the upcoming winter is that it does not look like we have all of the big players that we had last winter,” he said.

The 2025-2026 winter season started with a weak La Niña. Since the Super El Niño is already manifesting, La Niña won’t be a factor going forward.

The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a cyclical pattern of wind directions in the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. It has enormous impacts on global weather.

According to Day, the QBO was in “an easterly phase” last year. This year, winter will begin when the QBO is in its opposite, westerly phase.

Then there are the North and South Poles, which are already colder than they were at this point last year.

Several elements that affect long-range weather and seasonal forecasting are different this year. How it all plays out with a strong El Niño remains uncertain.

“El Nino is going to be the quarterback and head coach this winter, bar none,” Day said. “There are other players involved, but that's why we've got to understand these players and those that aren't going to come off the bench until a little bit later on.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Given"}]

Historically, El Niño has been favorable for Wyoming’s winter, bringing colder temperatures and precipitation. That’s a possible scenario for this winter, but there are no guarantees.

That’s another reason Day doesn’t want to make people more optimistic or pessimistic than they need to, especially in August. Many people who are seeking salvation from a strong El Niño might not get it.

“If you take a critical look at El Niños in Wyoming, it’s extremely rare that the entire state benefits from it,” he said. “If we do get into stubborn holding patterns, El Niños can be feast or famine, and Wyoming is a big state.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Voodoo That You Do So Well"}]

As Day was discussing his concerns about long-range winter forecasts in August, he didn’t even consider what the Farmer’s Almanac was forecasting.

“I'm not going to include the Farmer’s Almanac,” he said. “They're either taking models verbatim, or they're taking El Niños that have occurred in the past. These approaches aren't necessarily wrong, but I don't think that's the right way to approach the winter forecast when we're still on the backside of summer.”

Day’s hoping to have his winter forecast ready by mid-September, when the impacts of the Super El Niño are starting to roll in. It’s going to be so critical that its impact shouldn’t be anticipated so soon.

“A lot of things that are going to drive this winter, in addition to El Niño, aren't going to really start showing themselves until we get deeper into fall,” he said. “I am not going to go there yet. I’m not setting expectations. We need to be patient.”

Day’s word of caution to Wyomingites was to be extremely skeptical of any long-range winter forecast they might see for the next month or so. Any person or agency that’s confident in their forecast, in his opinion, doesn’t have enough critical information to be credible.

“The problem with doing long-range weather forecasts is that weather is so dynamic,” he said. “If you make a graphic that's good for three or four months, and subtle things change, then you have to throw it out the window. That’s why we have to be careful.”

That goes double for the Farmer’s Almanac. While it still has its uses in the 21st Century, long-range weather forecasts aren’t one of them.

“I don't know what voodoo magic they use to get their forecasts,” he said. “I don't think we should be talking about any detailed winter forecast till maybe mid to late September. Until then, it’s not helpful for anybody.”

Don day winter 8 11 26

<title>Meteorologist Don Day Calls New Farmer's Almanac Winter Forecast 'Voodoo Magic' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Farmer’s Almanac has released its winter forecast, and Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day calls it "voodoo magic." However, he does believe a very strong El Niño is on the way but he's "not going to follow the herd into slaughter this time."

Meteorologist Don Day Calls New Farmer's Almanac Winter Forecast 'Voodoo Magic'

A Colorado woman has been charged with a felony for allegedly injuring a Wyoming Highway Patrol officer by kicking him during a traffic stop on U.S. Highway 85 in Laramie County last week.

Hannah Nicole Roudani, 45, of Castle Rock, Colorado, was also charged Friday with five misdemeanors, including simple battery to her mother, Barbara Ingles, who was driving, and resisting arrest.

Roudani appeared in the First Judicial Circuit Court of Laramie County on Friday. She was released on a $3,000 cash bond.

[{"type":"text","text":"The incidents occurred at about 4:30 p.m. this past Wednesday. "}]

WHP Trooper Nick Haller wrote in his affidavit that Ingles, also of Castle Rock, called 911 at the urging of her toddler grandson, who was in the back seat and allegedly witnessed his mother hitting her in the arm while she was driving, at about mile marker 45.

Haller caught up with the black Dodge Ram pickup at mile marker 29 and stopped it two miles later for having expired registration and not maintaining a single lane. He noted that Roudani was slumped over in the passenger seat, apparently asleep.

The trooper said Roudani appeared heavily under the influence of alcohol and became agitated when he questioned her about the altercation with her mother, so he asked her to exit the truck. 

“She became erratic and kicked me when I attempted to remove her from the vehicle,” Haller wrote. 

After she swung her fists at him and another trooper, he took her to the ground and placed her in handcuffs, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Kick To Trooper’s Face"}]

Three troopers tried to lift her into the back of the WHP vehicle while Roudani flailed her legs, Haller's affidavit said. He also recounted that “she kicked me in the face with her heel as we attempted to close the transport door.” 

The suspect continued to yell and scream while kicking the cage window, and was reportedly uncooperative when several deputies carried her into a cell at the county jail.

Haller said Ingles told him her daughter had been distraught and was having issues with anxiety and “acting out” before their car was stopped.

Ingles gave the officer permission to search Roudani’s luggage, where he allegedly found several bags of THC edibles. Haller noted Ingles said her daughter used medical marijuana.

Roudani was also charged with possessing open containers with alcohol in two water bottles. 

The felony charge of interference with a peace officer-injury is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine upon conviction.

Roudani was also charged with two separate counts of interference with Trooper Austin Barker and Trooper Rebecca Monnett, both misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Barker and Monnett backed up Haller at the scene.

Roudani also could see a year in jail for the THC possession and six months for battery against her mother. 

Hannah roudani 8 10 26

<title>Colorado Woman Charged With Kicking Wyoming Highway Patrol Officer In Face | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Colorado woman faces up to 13 1/2 years in jail for allegedly kicking a Wyoming Highway Patrol officer in the face after a traffic stop in Laramie County last week. The woman was pulled over after reportedly punching her mother while driving.

Colorado Woman Charged With Kicking Wyoming Highway Patrol Officer In Face

Business & Tourism

The addition of Cheyenne to a proposed Colorado passenger rail project has longtime boosters in both states more confident than ever the service will happen.

The reasons for such optimism over bringing passenger rail service to Wyoming are two-fold. 

First, the Front Range Passenger Rail district is hopeful it can build an effective infrastructure, unlike inherent problems that doomed previous efforts.

Meanwhile, the economic case for Cheyenne officials and residents to go all in on the proposed Colorado rail system is stronger because the benefits to the capital city taking advantage of increasing Front Range population appear clear.

Still, while signs for FRPR success in Colorado are encouraging for starting in 2029, supporters say, both the district and Cheyenne officials agree expansion to the north won’t happen unless Wyoming develops a funding system to support it.

Wyoming and South Dakota are the only two contiguous states with no passenger rail service. Wyoming hasn’t had service since the Pioneer route was discontinued in 1997, though Amtrak serves Laramie, Rock Springs and Evanston with buses. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Never Say Never"}]

Never Say Never, a Cheyenne group determined to make it happen, has been meeting with FRPR officials for the past three years. It also is trying to solicit interest from state lawmakers, the Wyoming Department of Transportation and the City of Cheyenne.

One member of the group, Michael Rudolph of Cheyenne, was a NASA engineer who worked on the 2020 Mars rover project. His job was finding bugs in the software that directs the precise movements of the camera that serves as the eyes of the vehicle.

“If we can go 140 million miles to Mars, we ought to be able to go 45 miles from Cheyenne to Fort Collins,” quipped Steve Borin, a regional business developer and the founder of Never Say Never.

“Cheyenne is listed as a potential future extension, but Colorado has no political incentive to push north,” added Borin, a regional business developer. “Their taxpayers are not paying for Wyoming’s benefit.” 

Once the initial phase is up and running between Denver and Fort Collins, he said, Cheyenne must use its resources to join the FRPR district. 

“If we don’t, all we’re going to get is a bus ticket to the border,” Borin said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Colorado Project Optimism"}]

James Flattum of the FRPR district is clearly hopeful. 

“I think there’s a strong consensus that a future connection to Cheyenne is full of potential,” he said. “When you look at the distance between Fort Collins to Cheyenne, it’s really reachable.”

Another positive aspect, he added, is that north of the Denver suburb of Westminster all of the existing track to be utilized is owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

“We have such a strong working relationship with them,” Flattum said. 

Oddly, the downturn of Wyoming’s coal production and moving it by train is working in Cheyenne’s favor.

“What has changed in the world over the last 20 years is there are significantly fewer coal trains running on this alignment,” Flattum explained. “BNSF’s strategy is to send those trains on a different alignment to Nebraska from Denver.”

A major milestone was reached in the FRPR’s plans, he added, when the group recently released its delivery plan, a document intended to show the full picture of its short- and long-term vision.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got a ‘spine’ in Colorado that really connects our core centers and this kind of first act that we’re contemplating,” Flattum said. “And the more successful we are in securing a reliable and frequent service here in Colorado, the easier and quicker it’s going to be for us to expand to Wyoming, and south to Trinidad, Colorado, and perhaps Albuquerque, New Mexico.”  

Flattum said FRPR is taking an incremental approach to keep costs low, starting with three trains a day between Fort Collins and Denver over the next three years using revenues voters approved in 2024.

The FRPR Board will make a decision by the end of August whether to pursue a sales-tax initiative for Colorado’s general election in November.

“We’d be able to fund up to 10 trains a day between Fort Collins and Denver, and then eight trains a day to Pueblo with a 0.333% sales tax,” Flattum said. 

That is expected to generate about $295 million annually.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bedroom Community?"}]

The Front Range continues to grow and housing costs also are rising fast. Fort Collins is considerably more expensive than Cheyenne.

“As Denver's metro expands northward, Cheyenne becomes an increasingly attractive bedroom community — if the commute is solved,” Borin said. “Without rail, it stays out of reach for anyone working in Fort Collins.”

According to a Never Say Never fact sheet, the cross-border commuter market already exists at a meaningful scale:

• Approximately 7,100 Colorado residents commute into Wyoming for work — nearly three times the number going the other way.

• About 1,600 workers from Larimer and Weld counties (Fort Collins/Greeley) commute specifically to Laramie County each day by car.

• Roughly 20% of Cheyenne's workforce commutes from outside the city, including northern Colorado.

Borin said a University of Wyoming economist has noted that Wyoming's economy would be stronger if those Colorado commuters lived in Wyoming.

“They’d spend their paychecks on Wyoming mortgages and groceries instead of Colorado ones,” Borin said.

Never Say Never claims that by spending between $300 million to $400 million on infrastructure, Wyoming would get about $1.4 billion back over the next three decades in tax revenue and economic activity.

“The mechanism is not a subsidy,” Borin said. “It's removing the coordination barrier — cross-state planning, zoning authority — that only the government can remove, then letting market forces do the rest.”

Borin maintained that “the window to act cheaply is now.” He estimated land near a future Cheyenne station can be acquired today for $10,000 to $20,000 per acre. After a rail announcement, he predicted, it will cost five to 10 times more. 

“A $2 million to $4 million land acquisition today is the most asymmetric public investment Wyoming could make — small downside, very large upside, and it keeps all of its options,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Loving The Depot"}]

Flattum said the FRPR is impressed with Cheyenne’s preservation of its historic Union Pacific Depot. He said it’s an example of how forward-thinking Cheyenne is.

“Whenever we come up and visit, the depot gives us a huge amount of inspiration,” the FRPR official said. “How cool would it be if we can work together to bring trains back to this station?

“Really, all you’re going to have to do is build a connector track to get to the station facility,” Flattum added. “If Cheyenne specifically wants in, whatever is going to be possible under Wyoming law and Wyoming politics, if they pass funding as well, we do have a very realistic path in terms of engineering and project execution.”

He described expansion to Wyoming as "very doable, but it’s really going to have to come down to voters in the Cheyenne metro area — do they fundamentally want it?”

Passenger Rail Colorado Amtrak 5 5 24

<title>Colorado-Wyoming Passenger Rail Can Happen If Cheyenne Provides Funding Support | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Leaders of a project to provide passenger rail service between Colorado and Wyoming say it can happen if Cheyenne does its part with funding support approved by voters. “If we can go to Mars, we can go 45 miles from Cheyenne to Fort Collins,” said one supporter.

Colorado-Wyoming Passenger Rail Can Happen If Cheyenne Provides Funding Support

Around Wyoming

A GMC Yukon is smashed against giant boulders in a ravine off U.S. Highway 14-16-20 between Cody and Greybull. It’s been there for two years and could be there for many years longer.

, Suzanne Marie Cole drove the 7,000-pound SUV off the highway in what she claimed was a carjacking. She was arrested on two misdemeanor charges of probation violation, as it was determined she was intoxicated at the time of the accident.

Cole’s case has long since been resolved, but her Yukon is 

. Its windows and windshield are gone, anything of value inside is long gone, and it's riddled with bullet holes.

Pere Davison saw the Yukon while hiking in the Oregon Basin this past week.

“I hike up along that ridge all the time, but I have to go down and look over an edge to see the car,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It is hard to believe it got down to where it stopped. It had to go over some pretty big boulders.”

The Yukon is likely to become one of dozens, possibly hundreds, of vehicles left abandoned in remote, hard-to-reach areas in Wyoming. It’s just not worth the effort to recover it.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Fruitless Effort"}]

Zac Beardall of Zac's Towing and Recovery in Cody knows exactly where the Yukon is. After Cole’s accident, the Park County Sheriff’s Office contacted him about recovering it.

Beardall isn’t one to be intimidated by a challenging recovery. He knows he could recover the Yukon, but as a business owner practicality takes precedence.

“There's no reason for it other than it's basically a fruitless effort,” he said. “Trying to devote an entire day and an entire fleet of equipment to a non-paying job is not exactly the best business decision.”

In these incidents, the owner is usually responsible for recovery costs. According to Beardall, that wasn’t an option for Cole.

“The owner didn't really make that choice,” he said. “It's more that they had no other option because they didn’t have the money or insurance to cover the operation as it stands. It’s not like breaking down on 1000 Wyoming Street and getting towed for $100.”

Because the State of Wyoming doesn’t cover recovery expenses, Beardall would have to cover it himself. It wasn’t worth it then, and it’s even less so now.

“That Yukon will never be roadworthy again,” he said. “It launched off a cliff and bounced up three boulders. The very second it lost momentum at the bottom of that cliff, it was never going to be roadworthy again.”

Two years later, the Yukon is in ever worse condition. It’s full of holes, created by rust and dozens of bullets, indicating it’s been used for target practice more than once.

When Beardall’s on the hook for a difficult recovery, he can recoup some of the cost by scrapping the vehicle. Even then, recovering the Yukon wouldn’t be worth it.

“The recovery’s not worth the scrap value,” he said. “Even the best scrap value on it wasn't ever going to be worth the recovery effort.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Live And Let Live"}]

Given the Yukon’s location, it’s under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The agency might decide that recovering the vehicle is worth the expense.

But will it? Beardall thinks it’s unlikely, especially because it’s not doing any harm where it is.

“For the BLM, it falls under the same purview as trash and litter,” he said. “It's not hurting anything where it's at. It's not obstructing a roadway or hiking path, and it’s not causing some huge environmental friction. Nobody’s going to pay a huge amount of money to get a vehicle out when it’s not doing anything.”

That’s what Beardall described as something that’s “been the establishment” since the invention of motorized vehicles. Sometimes, they end up where they shouldn’t be and remain there.

“They're big chunks of steel that take a lot of effort to move,” he said. “Sometimes, they’re in an area where it’s not really worth trying to move them, so we leave them.”

That’s nothing new. Beardall knows of “about 50 different vehicles in the area” that ended up in similar predicaments and haven’t moved or been recovered since. Many of those are older than one might expect.

“I can take you out to places where there's Model A’s in canals,” he said. “They’ve been there since they went there, and nobody's moved them in the last 100 years.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Like, Share, Subscribe?"}]

Unless the BLM decides to pay Zac’s Towing and Recovery or some other company to get the Yukon out of the ravine, Beardall expects that it’ll stay where it is. It’s so far away from U.S. Highway 14-16-20 that it can’t even be seen from the road.

There was only one scenario where Beardall might find the Yukon worth the time, effort, and expense. That would require more social media savvy.

Two years ago, a GMC Yukon flew off a highway in Park County and bounced off giant boulders in Wyoming's Oregon Basin. It's still there and likely there to stay because recovering it would be a fruitless effort, said the owner of a local tow company.

Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 23, 2024

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