Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Dogs break into the pool....."}]

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

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, July 20, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dogs break into the pool.....

Daily Smile: Tuesday, July 20, 2026

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

Renée Jean

Tourism

Will Grant still has the two horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, that he rode across Wyoming in the summer of 2019 when he retraced all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail. 

Chicken Fry was born in New Mexico, and no one knows for sure how old he is.

“He’s had some hard miles on him,” Grant said. “Not a hard life, but plenty of work. So we rope off them a little bit, but not too much, and they’re like trail horses.”

Some of those hard trail miles happened in a landscape that deeply respects its roots. Wyoming, Grant told Cowboy State Daily,  has cared for its Pony Express Trail better than other states.

“You can see it there,” Grant said. “It’s very well marked in Wyoming. Very well marked.”

Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are particularly bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

That’s left Grant wondering how Pony Express riders kept their feet and their hands warm, given that they were riding through South Pass in January of 1861.

“The winds through there are no joke,” he added.

These are just a few of the gritty details Grant learned about Wyoming as he rode through it on the back of a horse, surrounded by a vast, windswept sea of sagebrush. 

He had known from the outset that he would face the same brutal elements the pioneers did — shifting mud, relentless wind, desert conditions, mosquitoes, and the like.

But, as he wrote in his book, “The Last Ride of the Pony Express,” thinking about the hardships ahead of time and experiencing them firsthand are two very different things. 

That point became starkly clear under the flash of a sudden Wyoming summer storm. Grant and his two horses, he realized immediately, were the highest point on the landscape. They were walking targets clad in iron horseshoes. And there was nowhere for them to take cover. It was just miles of open sagebrush in every direction, as far as his eyes could see.

The crack of thunder overhead filled him with dread as he rode across the land in that gathering storm. He also gained a new appreciation for the 1860s couriers who wrote of learning to read the landscape in between blinding pulses of lightning strikes.

“I learned that the Pony Express as a mail service was a really impressive display of American entrepreneurship,” he said. “There’s no other country in the world that could have done the same thing given the same environmental parameters. There were no horses out there. There was no infrastructure on which to set up a fast horse mail relay over 2,000 miles to deliver a letter in 10 days.”

There were wild horses, and they were a huge danger to a lone rider managing two horses. Grant writes about that in his book, how careful he was to avoid either inciting an attack or losing his horses to that stallion’s wild harem.

The Mongols and the Romans and the Persians did have ancient horse relays to quickly traverse their kingdoms. But these were created in already civilized areas that their empires controlled, and those relays were fed and maintained by the full resources and might of those empires. 

America’s Pony Express was a business venture started completely from scratch, with no empire behind it at all, traversing a vast and empty land that was openly hostile. There were no resources from a surrounding empire to help them through all the places that lacked food, water and shelter. 

Pony Express riders didn’t wait for perfect conditions, though. They rode in all kinds of weather, making a 2,000-mile trip in a just 10 days. 

Grant took his time, compared to them. His journey lasted 142 nights.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Modern-Day Station Masters"}]

He also had something else the original 1860s riders didn’t. Wyoming ranchers — many of them descended from original homesteaders — who helped him all along the way, as did members of the modern-day Pony Express riders. The ranchers, in particular, were an informal network of modern-day station masters, ready and willing to help him all along the way.

Time and again, just as weather threatened to overwhelm him and his small string of horses, Grant would ride up on a private gate to find it already opened to him. The rancher before had let the next farm know he was on the way and to watch out for him.

These ranchers didn’t just grant him passage through their land. They would actively pull him out of a storm, offering secure pasture space and protection from the elements. There were often hot meals and a dry bunkhouse were included, as well as their stories.

“The traveling horseman still finds a lot of hospitality in Wyoming, I’ll tell you that,” Grant said. “People were good to me. Opening pasture gates, no worries. Really good people all along the way.”

There was the time a well-meaning rancher tried to talk him into taking an ornery mule with him … 

But warm hospitality and cheerful dinners and storytelling were more common. It was a powerful reminder that while the physical shelters of the 1860s may have crumbled, the human infrastructure of mutual aid remains intact across the Wyoming plains. It’s been actively kept alive behind the closed gates of modern cattle ranchers, many of whom are still living by the unwritten code of the West, handed down from one generation to the next.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Write What You Know"}]

Grant’s Pony Express ride wasn’t just a history fascination for him. He found in the ride a perfect intersection for the two halves of his life.

“I’m a journalist, and I mostly have been writing for magazines,” he said. “What I really wanted to do is write a book. The Pony Express emerged as a topic that I thought I could shed some light on because I worked as a horse trainer and a cowboy.”

Grant, born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, spent his summers cowboying on a ranch between Chugwater and LaGrange in Wyoming, studying under a foreman named Tim Sussex.

“Those were good years for me because Tim really showed me how to handle horses in a lot of different ways, but really how to be quiet with a horse,” he said. “That is the best thing you can do, get a ranch hand job on the wide open prairies of Wyoming.”

His first degree program was forestry and geology in Tennessee, after which he went back to horses, breaking colts in Larkspur, Colorado, then working for a ranch in Texas. 

In 2008, he went back to school to study journalism at University of Montana School of Journalism.

“I needed it,” he said. “I’d been training horses and doing ranch work for like eight years. I had to use a different part of my brain.”

When he went hunting for a book idea, the old writer’s advice — write what you know — stuck.

“I saw the Pony Express as a way to overlap my expertise with horses and write what you know,” he said. “I decided to dive into the Pony Express and I thought, ‘Well, obviously, I’m gonna have to just ride it. Travel it by horseback.’”

That, he added, was the “best summer of my life.” 

Even if it was the summer of 2019 — not the summer of ’69.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trail Logic And Life"}]

Spending five months on the back of a horse gave him new perspectives on hardships and life. 

“When things are bad, you can expect they are going to get better,” he said. “If you have a bad camp, then the next night is almost certainly going to be better. And if you have two bad nights in a row, then your odds are even better that you’re headed for greener pastures.”

That simple trail logic helped him keep his morale intact through the inevitable stretches of cold and wet, hot and thirsty, tired and hungry all along the way.

He also learned more about his horses than he expected.

“I’ve been around horses my entire life,” he said. “But I learned a lot about their nonverbal communication. I learned you can tell a lot about a horse by listening to the way they walk.”

Any discomfort comes out in the sound of the hooves striking the ground.

He also noticed things about humans as well, including that they seem to care more about someone who is riding on the back of a horse than they do about someone who is on foot.

“They’re more likely to offer support because of the horses,” he said. “People cared about the wellbeing of the horses more than they cared about the wellbeing of me for sure. Having the animals with you opens up a lot of doors.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Next Book"}]

These days Grant lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Chicken Fry and Badger have the run of the place, and Grant spends more time “wrangling sentences” than he does cattle.

He’s already knee-deep in his next book, which is about the ancestry of the American cowboy.

The research has already taken him to Mexico, Spain, and soon Morocco. Next summer he’ll tackle history that’s “closer to home.”

Whether that brings him back to Wyoming remains to be seen. But Wyoming will have its thread in the book regardless.

“I’ve got a lot of good Wyoming material built up over the years,” he said. “Horsebacking it across Wyoming for the Pony Express gave me a pretty good look at the country.”

And being a wrangler near Chugwater was a whole other dimension of the state and its cowboys.

After riding the Pony Express across Wyoming and sleeping under its stars, Grant may have left tracks that already blew away. But the stories Wyoming whispered to him in the night still live on, indelible memories that explain the code of the West in ways words never could.

Will Grant 7 N8 A8831 8 9 26

<title>Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Cowboy and journalist Will Grant rode all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail on horseback. He said the trip gave him a newfound respect for Wyoming weather. Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Agriculture

Four generations of one family farmed the land beneath the western face of the Tetons before Darren Rude ever laid eyes on it.

The 432-acre ranch outside Alta came with weathered barns, irrigated fields and a century of Wyoming agricultural history.

Rude, founder of the nutritional supplement company Youtheory, said it was exactly what he and his wife spent years looking for — a place where their children and 13 grandchildren could someday gather, surrounded by cattle, hay fields and Wyoming's wide-open spaces.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now that dream sits at the center of a Teton County land-use battle."}]

The Teton County Board of County Commissioners voted 2-1 last week to deny Rude permission to build a 6,438-square-foot agricultural barn on the property, siding with neighbors who argued the building was never intended to serve agriculture at all.

[{"type":"text","text":"Within minutes of the vote, Rude announced he intends to sue."}]

"This case is illuminating a defining question and a fork in the road for Teton County," neighboring landowner Ken Fritschel told commissioners.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than A Barn"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Both sides insist they support agriculture."}]

That much became clear during nearly four hours of testimony before the county commissioners.

Neighbor Sharon Shopper opened public comment by telling commissioners Alta has always been an agricultural community.

"This petition was not circulated because these folks oppose agriculture," she said. "Alta is an agricultural community. We live beside working farms and ranches." 

Kristen Fritschel told commissioners she had no issue with the bar at first, but after a conversation with Rude's ranch hand, Malin Strong, she became concerned. 

Rude told Cowboy State Daily the ranch hand was placing stakes to mark the proposed barn site when neighboring property owners asked what was planned.

"He said, 'We're building a barn here, and I'm going to live here, and we're going to almost have an amusement park. It's going to be so fun for kids," Rude recalled.

Rude said Strong described his own vision for the property with a zip line from the property's historic grain barn, a pond and other family activities.

Those comments, he says, reflected Strong's personal ideas, not the project's actual purpose.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wildlife Versus Working Land"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Other opponents focused on wildlife."}]

, who identified himself as a wildlife ecologist with more than four decades of experience, described South Leigh Creek as a critical wildlife corridor connecting habitat used by moose, elk, mule deer and other species.

"A large permanent structure," he argued, "can affect that wildlife movement through that South Leigh corridor." 

Another ecologist said historical aerial photographs showed little evidence of sustained agricultural activity at the proposed building site during the two decades before Rude applied for his permit.

[{"type":"text","text":"He argued the creek bottom had largely returned to natural habitat. "}]

One opponent questioned whether the seven-acre area surrounding the proposed barn could naturally support cattle, and another argued the application changed repeatedly during the approval process, creating ambiguity over what was actually being proposed. 

Neighbor Charles Baldwin pointed to electrical systems, plumbing and other features he believed looked more consistent with recreation than livestock.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'That's All BS' "}]

The loudest defense of the project came from Jim Beard, who has worked the property for decades.

Standing before commissioners, Beard said the ranch continues to produce potatoes, grain and hay while supporting cattle.

"We're going to continue farming there," Beard said. "We could use the barn there to store hay."

He said generations of ranchers traditionally placed barns in the creek bottom because they were protected from Wyoming's fierce winter winds.

Beard also said he couldn't "believe all the hoopla going on," adding, "Everybody gets a little piece of paradise, and then they want to shut it down for other people."

What about claims the site would become a racetrack or recreational playground?

[{"type":"text","text":"\"That's all BS,\" Beard told commissioners. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lawyers Clash, Commissioners Divide "}]

Rude's attorney, Nicole Fleck, argued the county should evaluate the application based on what was actually submitted — a non-habitable agricultural structure — rather than speculation about future recreational uses.

The neighbors' attorney, Christine Kosydar, countered that the Planning Commission committed fundamental legal errors by recommending approval.

She argued the proposed building site itself was not actively farmed when the application was filed and said later revisions to the application could not cure those deficiencies. 

Her presentation also argued the proposed barn sat too far from the property's primary agricultural activity and was too large relative to the existing operation.

When deliberations began, commissioners found themselves wrestling with a question neither side fully answered.

"I feel like we have a legitimate dispute about the primary purpose of this structure," said Commissioner Luther Propst.

After questioning county staff, Vice Chair Wes Gardner said he believed the county's land development regulations gave priority to agricultural exemptions over Natural Resource Overlay restrictions.

"I have no reason to distrust Mr. Rude's affidavit whatsoever," Gardner said before casting the lone vote to approve the permit. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Chair Mark Newcomb and Propst voted no."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Commissioners Len Carlman and Natalia Macker were absent. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Headed To Court"}]

Rude has said he plans to challenge the decision in court, arguing the county improperly denied an application that complied with its land development regulations.

For neighbors, the case has always been about protecting one of Alta's most sensitive wildlife corridors.

For Rude, it has become a fight over whether a working ranch can still build the agricultural infrastructure he says it needs.

The lawsuit will ultimately decide whether county commissioners correctly interpreted Teton County's land-use regulations.

[{"type":"text","text":"Rude says he believes the stakes are much larger."}]

"The law that was supposed to protect a man's property decided a line on a map mattered more than the man who worked it for years," he wrote.

Alta Entrance One 7 4 26

<title>Alta Rancher Will Sue After Teton County Says He Can’t Build Huge Barn On His Land | Cowboy State Daily</title>

An Alta-area ranch owner says he plans to sue after Teton County rejected his plan to build a huge 6,500-square-foot barn on his land. Some neighbors also don’t want it, calling it more of “an amusement park” than a working barn.

Alta Rancher Will Sue After Teton County Says He Can’t Build Huge Barn On His Land

Wyoming Life

Food

Four decades ago, Chugwater was just one more dot on the map about to be swallowed by the modern economics of ranches consolidating and farms disappearing from “the flats.” 

It didn’t help when Interstate 25 came along in 1959 and whisked travelers past Main Street. By 1970, the population had dwindled to 188 residents.

The town didn’t take the trend lying down. They banded together to fight back and some of them did something a little audacious. 

Five ranching families decided to bottle up their town’s identity — grit, wind and all — and plaster it on a jar of Chugwater Chili spices.

“We were just trying to think of any kind of a business just to keep Chugwater alive,” Terry Baker recalled. “We were all farmers and ranchers who had been trying to think of ways we could help our Chugwater community survive. We just wanted to do our part, basically.”

The business those families started turns 40 this year. From its humble beginnings in a tiny, single-wide trailer, it’s now a large warehouse with a separate office/retail store that ships out hundreds of thousands of Chugwater Chili spice mixes and other products to 600 grocery stores across America.

Baker, a member of one of the five original ranching families, recalls a big brainstorming session that broke into groups at the school gymnasium to wrestle with ideas to help the town avoid vanishing.

Some of the ideas included a historical group, an economic development group and a beautification committee.

“So, like out of that, there’s little 'Welcome to Chugwater' signs that have planters around them now,” Baker said with a chuckle. “And the History Club is the best group and going still. It’s called Chugwater Historical Unity Group, or CHUG.”

Baker’s idea was for a mill that would turn the area’s hard red winter wheat into flour. But she and the other five ranchers were swayed by a completely different pitch, one that came not from Chugwater but from Cheyenne. An agricultural agent told them about a man named Dave Cameron who was a chili wizard, winning award after award at cook-offs.

For reasons known only to Cameron, he had branded his prizewinning recipe “Chugwater Chili” even though he lived in Cheyenne and had no formal tie to Chugwater. 

“I don’t remember all the ideas we took down,” Baker said. “But that particular one was not our idea at all.”

It was a compelling idea, though, and the ranchers embraced it — not least because Cameron had named his chili “Chugwater Chili.”

Baker doesn’t remember whether Cameron ever made them a pot of his award-winning chili to sell them on the idea of buying his recipe, but she does remember the very first championship cook-off. 

“We had thousands of people come out there to the Diamond Guest Ranch,” she said. “It was amazing.”

The festival was all part of an overall strategy to promote Chugwater’s newest business, and build a brand that would one day have national recognition.

Forty years later, the competition continues to be a magnet for the chili world. Many of the best chili cooks in the world call it a “bucket list” competition and make pilgrimages from as far away as Texas and Florida, just so they can say they have been there. 

After the Diamond Guest Ranch kids were grown, the event continued to grow but was moved into town, where it was placed at Staats City Park. 

Proceeds from the town’s signature event are donated each year to nonprofit organizations in town, from its volunteer fire department and community center to its FFA and FBLA youths. This year’s competition raised $17,000. 

The business, meanwhile, managed to ink several deals with restaurants that would exclusively serve Chugwater Chili.

“We made them sign an agreement that they wouldn’t add anything except our spices,” Baker said. “Because people so wanted to add I don’t know chili beans instead of pinto beans, which changes the flavor. You need to do just exactly what it says on the side of the container.”

That was another key piece in the strategy to build a business brand with longevity.

The company, formed by Jim and Marcelyn Brown, Lewis and Viola Voight, Dennis and Terry Baker, Jan and Carl Wilkerson, and Jim and Marc Kaufmann, was about as homegrown as it gets.

“They started packaging in bunkhouses on a ranch and also in basements,” Chugwater Chili’s present owner Karen Guidice told Cowboy State Daily. 

Eventually, they could afford a used mobile home for an office on Main Street.

The ranching families took turns staffing their new office and pitching in to help package bags and jars of chili spice for sale. Eventually, roughly 20 years ago, the business outgrew its single-wide and a modular home was purchased.

Guidice purchased the company 12 years ago after falling in love with the product.

She had been going to trade shows for the business to help promote the product. The word she heard most often was “Wow,” followed by “This is the best chili I’ve ever tasted.”

The product practically sold itself with a single sample. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Smell Of Christmas"}]

When she learned the owners were thinking about selling the company, she decided she wanted to be its new steward. That would be the best way to ensure the town’s namesake would go on helping Chugwater.

Under Guidice’s leadership, the company has grown an average of 25% each year, she told Cowboy State Daily, and it continues to add employees to handle the increased volume. 

In 2026, Guidice built a new warehouse and dedicated manufacturing area beside the original building, creating a footprint about six times the original mobile-home office.

Each jar of spice is still packed in Chugwater and the business now has at least four full-time positions and several part-time as well as seasonal Christmas positions.

The smell of Christmas for Guidice and her employees is chili, because that’s their busiest time. Orders pour in from all over the country for gifts of Chugwater Chili and other products, like its salsa or its dip and dressing mix. 

The store, meanwhile, has a fresh pot of chili going every day. That way any customers can taste-test on the spot.

Chugwater Chili has had many national shoutouts. Perhaps the best-known of these is in New York times bestselling author Craig Johnson’s first “Longmire” novel, “Cold Dish,” where it’s spotlighted as a favorite of a certain sheriff named Walt Longmire. Johnson has told Chugwater Chili that Walt would “definitely” be a Chugwater Chili fan in one of the company’s blogs, and that he’d eat it with a “healthy dollop of sour cream, cheese and green onions.”

But that’s not the only time Chugwater Chili has been recognized nationally. The Food Network spotlighted it in a feature showcasing the 50 States of Nachos, where it praised the ground beef nachos served at the Chugwater Soda Fountain, which are infused with the company’s award-winning secret seasoning recipe.

The Scovie Awards has also recognized the brand numerous times, most recently giving it second place in the stews/chili con carne category and third place for all-purpose dry rub/seasoning.

Several national grocers also carry the brand, including Safeway, Albertsons, King Soopers, and Smith’s Food and Drug.

And then there’s all the status brought by the nationally recognized Chugwater Chili Cookoff qualifier through the Chili Appreciation Society’s International. From there, winners can leapfrog straight into the national championship in Terlingua, Texas.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Recipe For The Future"}]

Chugwater Chili is one of a handful of businesses in Chugwater that have helped keep the town from disappearing.

A small local economy has even been taking shape of late. There’s a food-hospitality cluster that includes the Chugwater Soda Fountain, which is Wyoming’s oldest working soda fountain with old-fashioned malts and ranch burgers, The Stampede Eatery with live music every Friday and Saturday night, and the Buffalo Lodge near the interstate.

There are also core services now, including the state’s first authorized charter school, a Wyoming Department of Transportation facility with a sizable staff, Chugwater Fuels, the Tri-County Mercantile with community essentials, and a fashion store called B & B Vintage that recently opened.

Some businesses, such as Tri-County Mercantile and the restored Soda Fountain, came about from much the same sentiment as Chugwater Chili. They’re owned by people who were newer to town, but loved the community and wanted to give back and see it grow stronger.

Their efforts at revival seem to be working, slowly but surely. The 2020 census estimated a population of 175, but more recent estimates put the number at 228. That compares to a peak of 287 in the 1960 Census.

Looking out at the next 40 years for Chugwater Chili, Guidice is pragmatic — apropos for a business that sells a practical and easy recipe for a quick and tasty meal.

“We’re going to continue growing, and offering a great product to a lot of people in the United States,” she said. “The more we grow, the more we can offer.”

That’s a recipe for the future that is still continuing to serve in a tiny, windswept town along I-25 that refuses to quietly disappear.

Chugwater Chili unnamed 2 8 9 26

<title>Chugwater Chili at 40: How Five Families Came Together And Saved Chugwater | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When agriculture took a nosedive in the 1980s, five ranching families in tiny Chugwater, Wyoming, decided to do something about it. They formed a company called Chugwater Chili, and 40 years later the chili — and the town — are still going strong.

Chugwater Chili at 40: How Five Families Came Together And Saved Chugwater

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

Andrew Rossi

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 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 Smile: Tuesday, July 20, 2026

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