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One More For The Road: Wednesday, March 29, 2023

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One More For The Road: Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Highly doubtful anything will go wrong here...

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One More For The Road: Monday, March 27, 2023

This zipline set-up is totally safe. I built it myself...

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One More For The Road: Sunday, March 26, 2023

Now for some Cowboy State Daily baking tips...

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One More For The Road: Friday, March 24, 2023

There should be two scores for this ride...

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One More For The Road: Thursday, March 23, 2023

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One More For The Road: Wednesday, March 22, 2023

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One More For The Road: Tuesday, March 21, 2023

And now for your enjoyment, pole dancing...

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One More For The Road: Monday, March 20, 2023

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One More For The Road: Sunday, March 19, 2023

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One More For The Road: Friday, March 17, 2023

Wait, which button activates the taser???

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One More For The Road: Thursday, March 16, 2023

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

Greg Johnson

Outdoors

Public Lands

Just as wildland firefighters seemed to be getting a good handle on a

burning just outside the southwest boundary of a closed Devils Tower National Monument, another fire has erupted to the southeast.

The Newton Fire burning just east of Wyoming Highway 24 southeast of Devils Tower was discovered at about 1:15 p.m. Saturday, and had grown to an estimated 200 acres in a couple of hours, the National Interagency Fire Center and Crook County Emergency Management report.

Asked for an update on the wildfire situation around Devils Tower — which has closed the monument for much of Saturday and all of Sunday — county Emergency Management Coordinator Ed Robinson was blunt.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It sucks,” he said."}]

“We get one fire almost contained, and then we’re fighting another one now, too,” he told Cowboy State Daily from the scene of the Newton Fire on Sunday.

Although the 282-acre Left Creek Fire burning to the west is “not as bad as it was,” Robinson said that having another wildfire so close to the monument’s boundary “certainly doesn’t help any.”

While state forestry and National Park Service officials told Cowboy State Daily earlier on Sunday that they would evaluate the potential of reopening Devils Tower later in the afternoon, the new fire takes that option off the table, Robinson said.

Highway 24 has been closed from the “Y,” or where it branches off Highway 14 north toward Devils Tower, and all residents in the vicinity have been placed on “set” status to be prepared to evacuate, according to Crook County Emergency Management.

The Newton Fire also will slow some of the progress at the Left Creek Fire as some personnel and resources are diverted to try to keep the new wildfire from getting out of control, Robinson said.

For state Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, whose family homestead contains part of the Left Creek Fire, another blaze sparking up so close to the tower is another gut-punch for local firefighters and residents.

“That’s out by the Tower Cemetery,” he said. “It’s a pretty tough deal, and that one’s probably going to burn up to the rimrock at the highway (24), and they’ll make a stand there at the highway, it sounds like.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"KOA Still Open"}]

A little farther north and next to the monument, Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground remains open, and is hosting the basecamp for firefighters working both fires.

“Yup, we’re open and full business ahead,” said worker at the KOA who identified himself as “just Chris.”

“We’re catching the breaks, because we are just north of the fires,” he said. “So, we’re open. Everything is good on our end here. That’s what I keep answering phone calls about all day.”

He said the KOA staff has also helped feed the wildland firefighting crews as they go in and out of the field to work the fires.

“Last night, we stayed up late and were the drop-off point for food, and (owner) Andrea Driskill opened up the kitchen,” Chris said. “We made sandwiches and the go-lunches, and had breakfast waiting for them.”

Not only is the KOA campground open, it’s continuing a long-running tradition of nightly screenings of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“Yup, ‘Close Encounters’ every night, 8 o’clock,” Chris said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"How We Got Here"}]

The Left Creek Fire was discovered at about 10:40 a.m. Saturday, and grew quickly in hot and dry conditions in northeast Wyoming, with temperatures hitting 99 degrees Saturday, the National Weather Service reports.

Believed to have been caused by lightning, Ogden Driskill said the wildfire was on the fence line of his land and another ranch owner — and he was struck with fear when he first saw the smoke.

“It was really scary, because that’s some of the grass we depend on in the fall and winter,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Sunday morning while meeting with state and National Park Service officials.

“In my opinion, it without a doubt could’ve been a 5,000-acre-plus fire — or more,” Driskill said, adding that quick and precise work from the more than 100 firefighters on the scene have kept the wildfire in check.

“We literally watched helicopters put out crown fires all day long,” he said. “They kept it in the original line all day long (Saturday), and the ground crews kept it from spreading on the ground.”

That work Saturday has kept the fire at an estimated 282 acres, said Dick Terry, said district forester for Wyoming State Forestry.

While he wouldn’t say the fire is contained, he said he’s confident it’s basically under control.

“We’ve got fire line around most of it, but it’s indirect,” he said. “It’s still small and not contained just because we’ve got the east side with a shaky line until we get a little bit of a handle on that.”

The fire has so far also stayed outside the boundary of the national monument, Terry said.

“I would assume it’s lightning,” he added about the suspected cause of the fire. “But, I haven’t seen the start of it yet. But it’s 99% sure it’s lightning.”

No structures are in the area and he put his confidence at “about 80%” that the monument could reopen sometime Sunday.

That was before the Newton Fire was discovered later.

National Park Service Powder River Group Superintendent Dustin Sene agrees, while also praising the work of local agencies and landowners for helping keep the fire small and relatively in check.

“They did a great job getting ahead and getting the park evacuated,’ he said. “It’s an incredible interagency effort, as well as the local community here.

“Everybody worked well together and we’re starting conversations about when the park will get opened again.”

He also thanked the local KOA campground, which is just outside the monument’s boundary and remains open, for feeding firefighters over the weekend.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Kink In The Plans"}]

The fire and Devils Tower closure have also put a kink into the vacation plans of weekend visitors and bikers starting to make their way to the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

“Some travel moments write themselves, and some are actively on fire,” posted John and Jenny of the “No Rules Just Roam” travel platform. “The whole scene looking like something out of a movie.”

“We are staying near Devils Tower National Monument and found out at the entrance that a Level 3 wildfire had closed he entire monument and evacuated everyone, including the staff, due to imminent danger,” the couple reported. “This is genuinely serious and we hope everyone got out safely.”

While reporting updates on the fire, they also posted a video of a camper walking through the campground with Devils Tower and smoke from the fire rising eerily in the background.

“Scrolling — Not the news. Not the fire updates,” John and Jenny posted, adding the woman was watching “reels” like nothing was happening.

“I looked at the fire. I looked at her. I looked at the fire again,” the report continues. “She did not look up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"150 Firefighters"}]

Meanwhile, wildfire resources were quickly marshalled to battle the fire, the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports.

While the fire grew to nearly 300 acres in about 12 hours, “progress has been made,” Crook County Emergency Management reported Saturday. So far, “150 firefighters are currently on this fire, along with four large air tankers, two SEATs (single-engine air tankers), and four helicopters.”

That number was adjusted to more than 100 on Sunday.

Local residents and agencies also have responded to assist.

“Everyone should stay away from the national park and don’t drive in, because they are watching and will ticket anyone violating the closure,” the agency said.

That closure will keep visitors like Bryan Abernathy away, who is part of a crew of bikers making a pilgrimage to the Sturgis rally.

“Whole crew rolled to Devils Tower today,” he posted Saturday to his Sturgis SD 2026 diary on Facebook. “The actual park was closed due to a forest fire. Got to see airplanes and helicopters dropping water.”

This isn’t the first time America’s first national monument has been closed because of a wildfire.

In May 2013, it was closed when what was supposed to be a 300-acre prescribed burn got out of control in high winds and ignited a spot fire in about the same area as the Left Creek Fire, according to the National Park Service.

That fire also burned some power lines that left a couple dozen homesteads in the area without electricity.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Meanwhile, Another Fire"}]

The Left Creek Fire isn’t the only serious wildfire being fought in northern Wyoming.

Two counties to the east, a Wyoming Type 3 incident management team was called in to help fight a fire in the Clearmont area of Sheridan County, which has ballooned to more than 7,200 acres since it was started by lightning on Friday, according to the Type 3 team.

“A lightning storm moved across the region starting multiple fires north of Clearmont, Wyoming, in Sheridan County,” according to a report from the Type 3 team and its commander, Jon Warder.

“Weather and fuel conditions led to the fire quickly growing in size,” the report says. “While structures were threatened, none have been lost so far.”

The NIFC reports the Lumin Fire is about 5% contained, and that terrain and fuels are making the wildfire difficult to fight. As of Sunday evening, that containment figure hadn’t been updated.

While he was at the Devils Tower site Sunday, Terry said he also had been checking in on the Lumin Fire.

Crews there have made considerable progress on getting more control and protecting buildings in the area, he said.

“It kind of sounded like they got some burnouts completed and, hopefully, they’ll be winding down on that,” he said.

Devils Tower Fire 761355127 1034776352639182 2376020774372480484 n 8 2 26

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

<title>Second Wildfire Breaks Out Near Devils Tower, Monument Still Closed | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Just as firefighters seemed to be getting a handle on a nearly 300-acre fire burning just outside the southwest boundary of a closed Devils Tower, another fire erupted to the southeast Sunday. “It sucks,” was the blunt assessment from a county official.

Second Wildfire Breaks Out Near Devils Tower, Monument Still Closed

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Randy Melton describes himself as a muleskinner, a teamster who drives mules. He explained that the term “muleskinner” came about because in the old days when someone was outsmarted they got skinned.

“I spend my whole day outsmarting mules so that’s why I’m a muleskinner,” Melton said. “They don't say cursing like a muleskinner for no reason because most of what we yell at our mules is not printable.”

Randy and his wife Alesha have been hauling their mules to parades and events in Wyoming, including reenacting a shootout in South Pass City this past month for Gold Rush Days.

Jesus even rode one of their mules in a scene in the movie “The Chosen.”

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

Melton said their mules’ film career started with a commercial for Coors, and it was almost by accident. The Meltons were hired to provide horses, but the actors couldn't ride at all.

“The director pointed at me and told me to go to wardrobe,” Randy Melton said. “So, I went to wardrobe and filled out a contract that I didn't even know what it was. When I got back, I was in the commercial.”

After that, the animal coordinator who hired the Meltons just kept hiring them for more movies. That was about 15 years ago, and you can still catch glimpses of Melton and his teams in various films.

“When you're watching a movie and you see a wagon go by in the background or something like that, that's what I do,” he said. “We do horse stunts, driving wagons on fire, wagon chases, and stunt doubling for the actors.”

Melton's latest movie was “Horizon” with Kevin Costner. He also worked on the "Killer of the Flower Moon," a couple horror movies and “The Last of Us,” an American post-apocalyptic drama television series. Parts of that series were filmed in Yellowstone National Park and the Tetons. 

“I just provided horses and did background riding and safety riding,” Melton said. “I really am not on camera that much.”

Alesha is a fifth-generation muleskinner and it was her grandfather who started the outfitting business nearly 50 years ago that the couple operate today.

“When my great grandpa first came to this country from Illinois as a young man in the late 1800s, he ended up in Brownsville,” Alesha said. “He was in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado and was there when Tom Horn was around.”

All the rustling and outlawry chased her ancestors into Utah, about 40 miles from the Wyoming border. The Meltons now live in Myton, Utah.

Alesha still has two of the mules her grandfather raised for packing: Poncho, 31,  and Kay, 36. They are her favorites. While Kay is retired, Poncho is still working.

“They were born when I was still in high school and we raised them,” Alesha said. “I grew up in the outfitting world and have been raising mules all my life.”

As with their movie roles, outfitting was not a family intention. Her grandpa was cowboying for a living and everybody kept asking him where the big mule deer and big elk were. It got so he started charging them for taking them out, and that morphed into an outfitting business.

Melton also grew up with mules, although his experience was a bit different from that of Alesha’s.

“My grandpa and his brothers were in east Tennessee, farming with mules,” Melton said. “We put up loose hay the old-fashioned way with teams of mules until I turned 15.”

The first time Melton remembers ever driving a mule, he said he was probably 3 or 4 years old.

“I was too little to throw hay in the trailer, so I got to drive the team,” Melton said.

Melton’s last job in the Army, before he transitioned into civilian life as an outfitter, even involved mules. He was the muleskinner for the first cavalry division, horse detachment, in Fort Hood, Texas.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Defending the Mule"}]

Melton said mules are becoming more popular because more folks are recognizing their abilities for packing in the backcountry and trail riding.

“When I was a kid, mules were not as popular with a lot of people because they're just not as sexy as a horse,” Melton said. “But now a lot of people are catching on that the mule is more sure-footed, stronger and smarter.

The mule is also selling for more, Melton said. He said that in a recent Cody horse sale, the highest selling horse sold for $50,000. The same day, in another sale in Utah, the highest selling mule sold for $100,000.

To get a mule, Melton said, you breed a jack (male donkey) with a mare. If you breed a jenny with a horse, you get a Henney, which resembles a horse more than the donkey and is less desirable.

“Mules have all the hybrid vigor of both the donkey and the horse,” Melton said. “They have higher intelligence, more endurance, and better bone structure."

He said they also don't get sick as easily, survive on less feed and are not as much maintenance as a horse. Melton also said vet bills aren't as high.

Mules also have a lot more personality than a horse because their brain is split like humans, Melton explained. A horse reacts to his environment and then forgets about it but a mule actually reasons and processes information.

“Mules are they're not really stubborn,” Melton said. “They're just independent thinkers.”

Melton says mules are all about good training. Every time you put your hands on your mule,  you either make it better or worse. That's because of their intelligence and that they are paying attention to everything, and learning.

His mules each have their own quirky personality, and he said it is hard to pick a favorite. For the stagecoach he brought to South Pass and the Trail Blazers Days in Thermopolis, Melton used Kit and Kat for the wheel team. Mandy and Myrtle were his leaders on the stagecoach.

For his freight wagon, he has a set of blond mules named Willie and Tina and pairs them with their Belgian drafts. They are not dainty mules; each weighs about two tons. They were bred from a Mammoth Jack and a Percheron mare.

Because mules can get expensive, the Meltons breed their own herd. They have “babies on the ground” born this year all the way up to their 36-year-olds.  

When not starring in movies or parading around in events, the Meltons are using their mules to pack into the backcountry. 

[{"type":"text","text":"They both agree they were born to be muleskinners."}]

Muleskinners 2 Alesha Nazryth leading string 8 2 26

<title>Life Of A Modern-Day Muleskinner: Starring In Movies & Beer Ads And Guiding Hunts | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As modern-day muleskinners, Randy and Alesha Melton said their mules’ film career started with a commercial for Coors. Their latest movie was “Horizon” with Kevin Costner. They also appeared on "Killer of the Flower Moon," and “The Last of Us."

Life Of A Modern-Day Muleskinner: Starring In Movies & Beer Ads And Guiding Hunts

Kevin Killough

Around Wyoming

 — You can spot Charles Randolph’s house near Chugwater while whizzing by it on Interstate 25. 

At a quick glance, you might think someone built an igloo out on the Wyoming range. 

The beige house is monolithic dome construction that’s used in all kinds of buildings, big and small, including stadiums and warehouses. 

Though it stands out on the Wyoming landscape, Randolph said his dome house is very comfortable and stays warm even in the coldest of Wyoming winters. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Place Like Dome"}]

Randolph and his wife, Susan, call it Hoth after the icy planet in the “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” The house looks a bit like the igloo structures portrayed in the movie. 

Randolph grew up in Cheyenne, and so when he retired in 2013 after 37 years working for Burlington Northern Railroad as a dispatcher, he returned to Wyoming. 

The type of construction the Randolphs used for their home is called a monolithic dome structure, known for its durability and energy efficiency. 

The area gets its share of hail. One May, a storm dumped 2 feet of hail on the ground, and Randolph spent hours helping people get their cars unstuck. 

One particularly nasty hailstorm did $40,000 worth of damage to a neighbor’s home. 

Randolph said the golf ball-sized hail left some dimples on his dome, which eventually popped out on their own when things warmed up. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Huff And Puff"}]

While the Randolphs were living in Texas, where Charles worked, he saw a monolithic dome apartment building going up. 

“They had about two dozen of these little apartment domes. They had a kitchen, one or two bedrooms and a living room. They rented them out and the people never moved. They loved it,” Randolph said. 

So, when the Randolphs were deciding what to build for their retirement home, they called up the contractor who’d built those apartments. 

The construction type was developed in the 1960s in Utah. The structures are earthquake proof, fire resistant and capable of surviving direct hits from hurricanes. 

While hurricanes aren’t likely in Chugwater, the structure, Charles says, is also tornado resistant. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Balloons And Concrete"}]

Charles and Susan were living in their garage when they began building Hoth in August 2017. 

The first step was to lay out a concrete foundation that outlined the footprint of the home. After that was done, a contractor laid out a giant balloon over the concrete. 

It takes only a few hours to pump all the air into it. After the balloon was all pumped up, the contractors sprayed the inside with 12 inches of insulation. 

Embedded in the insulation are connection points for rebar, which went on next.  

The rebar wound around the contours of the dome. Altogether the structure has 900 pieces of rebar to reinforce it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“So, it’s not going to fall apart,” Randolph said. "}]

With the rebar in place, the contractor sprayed the concrete on the inside of the dome. It’s 4-8 inches thick throughout the house. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The Randolphs began moving in nine months after construction began. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Winter Resistant "}]

The house is heated three ways. They have a floor heating system, a double-sided fireplace and a thermal mass wall. The materials around the mass wall absorb the heat of the sun. 

“During the winter, when the sun is low and coming up from the south, it will heat the wall up to 85 degrees,” Randolph said. 

He said that during last December’s cold snap that sent temperatures plunging to minus 40 degrees, the house managed to stay at 64 inside.

“You put on a sweater and an extra blanket on the bed. It’s not bad,” Randolph said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The structure also stays quite cool in the summer. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Shingles "}]

The Randolphs still have some work to do on their dome home, such as painting the exterior. 

It’s covered with a silicone material that eventually wears off. If Randolph paints it, it will just run off. So next year Randolph will give his dome on the range some color. 

He said he gets calls from roofers trying to sell him a new roof with super durable shingles. 

“So, I sent them a photo of my house and said, ‘What are you going to do? Build a roof over my house?’” he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"They still keep calling."}]

Monolithic dome Charles and Susan Randolph 8 6 23

<title>Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake Proof, Fire Resistant And Can Withstand Tornadoes, Owner Says | Cowboy State Daily</title>

That igloo-like structure near Chugwater is a monolithic dome house. It’s been pummeled by hailstorms without a scratch, can stay warm even in the harshest of winters and they claim it could stand-up to a tornado.

Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake Proof, Fire Resistant And Can Withstand Tornadoes, Owner Says

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

Andrew Rossi

One of the most extraordinary petroglyph sites in North America is hidden away in a secret spot near Newcastle, Wyoming. The petroglyphs of Whoopup Canyon depicted in 150 sandstone panels are between 3,000 and 10,500 years old. Access is extremely limited.