Wyoming Sunrise

Don Day Weather

Daily Darwin

Same Guys Dancing

Daily Cartoon

Daily Smile

One More For The Road

You Still Here

Daily Features

Live footage of Mark Heinz and Bill Sniffin arriving to the Cowboy State Daily news meeting at the same time.....

One more for 4 23 26

One More For The Road: Thursday, April 23, 2026

One more for 4 22 26

One More For The Road: Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Clair McFarland had an unexpected visitor on Tuesday morning......

One more for 4 21 26

One More For The Road: Tuesday, April 21, 2026

This is why Glenda was fired from the circus as a tight rope walker...

One more for 4 20 26

One More For The Road: Monday, April 20, 2026

DIY car repair saves money and creates lifelong memories.....

One more for 4 19 26

One More For The Road: Sunday, April 19, 2026

One more for 4 18 26

One More For The Road: Saturday, April 18, 2026

Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi gets a prime parking space outside of Cowboy State Daily's newsroom.....

One more for 4 17 26

One More For The Road: Friday, April 17, 2026

Live footage of Bill Sniffin parallel parking his new RV in front of the Cowboy State Daily newsroom.....

One more for 4 16 26

One More For The Road: Thursday, April 16, 2026

Live unfortunate footage of Andrew Rossi on his new motorcycle arriving to Wednesday's Cowboy State Daily news meeting....

One more for 4 15 26

One More For The Road: Wednesday, April 15, 2026

New Cowboy State Daily reporter Kolby Fedore moving to our office......

One more for 4 14 26

One More For The Road: Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Live footage of Andrew Rossi making his way to the Cowboy State Daily Monday news meeting.....

One more for 4 13 26

One More For The Road: Monday, April 13, 2026

If you have to get hit by a car, this really is the way to do it.....

One more for 5 9 24

One More For The Road: Sunday, April 12, 2026

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Sports

Somewhere around mile 80, strange things start happening in the mountains. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Trees become people."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Shadows turn into horses."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Voices seem to drift through the darkness."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One runner spent miles convinced mice were scurrying across her feet."}]

Another knows that if he's awake long enough, he'll start hearing conversations that aren't really there.

That's before the stomach problems, swollen feet and the little voice that starts begging runners to quit.

This weekend, hundreds of runners descended on Sheridan for the annual Bighorn Trail Run, one of the West's most respected ultramarathons. 

Some tackle 18 miles. Others run 32 or 52. A smaller group attempts the full 100-mile course — a physical and mental journey that keeps many of them moving through Wyoming's backcountry for more than 24 hours.

For people who have never run farther than a half or even full marathon — or perhaps never wanted to — the obvious question for these ultrarunners remains: 

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

[{"type":"text","text":"Ask 40-year-old Daniel Orr and he'll tell you every runner has one."}]

The Wyoming native grew up in Cody and Powell before eventually settling in Maine, where he now works as a freelance photojournalist for The Wall Street Journal.

This year, he returned to the West to take on the Bighorn 100, an ultrarunning event that starts near Dayton in northern Wyoming and travels over the Bighorn mountains. It’s considered one of the most challenging ultramarathons in the United States.

Orr's answer to why anyone would want to run extreme distances in extreme conditions isn't about competition.

[{"type":"text","text":"It's about grief."}]

"A lot of it is dealing with childhood stuff," Orr said. "I lost my mom in 2023, and that was a huge jump start to me seeking out endurance sports."

The races, he said, provided something unexpected for such an individual sport: community. Spending a day and a night suffering alongside strangers has a way of creating connections.

"This isn't my story, but there's a lot of people who come from addiction recovery and stuff," Orr said. "The community aspect is a really unexpected but very tangible thing you find in these races."

[{"type":"text","text":"For Anne Hinman, the answer is different."}]

A former University of Wyoming soccer player who now works as a marketing director and recently moved from Wyoming to Montana, Hinman ran her first ultramarathon at Bighorn in 2021. She's now completed the race five times.

[{"type":"text","text":"Her motivation is overcoming fear."}]

Hinman describes herself as naturally cautious and anxious. Moving to Wyoming forced her outside her comfort zone.

"There are moose and bear in Wyoming," she said with a laugh. "I was so afraid. So, the only reason I'm able to do what I do is because I push past my fear."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Digestive Mutiny"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Running 100 miles requires a shocking amount of fuel."}]

Forget energy bars. Ultrarunners often survive on all the things that would raise a mother's eyebrows.

Hinman's race menu includes Nerds Gummy Clusters, Rice Krispies Treats, potato chips and liquid sugar.

"Pretty much any junk food that you can think of is something that someone would eat during ultramarathons," she said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Orr has his own nutritional strategy."}]

The goal is consuming at least 80 grams of carbohydrates every hour while taking in fluids consistently throughout the race.

[{"type":"text","text":"At aid stations, however, dignity often disappears."}]

"You'll mix quesadilla with some Sour Patch Kids or something," Orr said. "Just kind of muscle through it."

The digestive system doesn't always cooperate. Both runners described stomach issues as one of the most common challenges in ultrarunning.

Another offered perhaps the most concise summary of the sport ever recorded: "Never trust a fart."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hallucinations"}]

The strangest part of ultrarunning often arrives after dark. By then, runners have been awake for nearly a full day.

They're exhausted, alone and deep in the mountains. Sleep deprivation begins to distort reality.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Orr, the hallucinations are subtle."}]

"You'll think you're seeing a human figure, or hearing voices," he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Hinman, they're harder to ignore."}]

During one nighttime section of a race, she became convinced mice were running across the trail and over her feet for nearly two miles.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"All of the trees became people,\" she said. \"Or horses.\""}]

Orr says the experience of how your mind deals with those ultimate challenges can be unsettling at first.

When he completed an overnight crossing of California's Joshua Tree National Park, he said the isolation became overwhelming.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's truly terrifying when you realize how alone you are,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, however, something changes."}]

"The mind just kind of accepts it after a while," Orr said. "And it's really quite peaceful after that acceptance."

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

[{"type":"text","text":"At some point, every ultrarunner hears a voice that says “stop.\""}]

It’s the voice that says you've gone far enough and starts pointing out the absurdity of voluntarily running 100 miles through the mountains.

[{"type":"text","text":"Hinman hears it every race."}]

"Please stop," she remembers the voice telling her. "This is dumb. You shouldn't be out here."

Her solution is simple — make it to the next aid station, then reassess.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nine times out of 10, she keeps going."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The physical pain, though, is impossible to avoid."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Every step hurts,\" she said."}]

Orr broke a toe during a 47-mile Grand Canyon effort and severely damaged a hamstring tendon during his first 100-mile race. He finished anyway.

[{"type":"text","text":"That's part of the bargain, he said."}]

"It's not a matter of if," Orr said of injuries. "It's a matter of when."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finish Line"}]

Despite the image of solitary runners disappearing into the wilderness, ultrarunning is rarely a solo effort.

Orr's girlfriend flew from Maine to crew for him while studying for her nurse practitioner certification exam. His brother drove from Powell to help at later aid stations. A pacer he'd never met before joined him for the final 32 miles.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a good way to get to know somebody,\" Orr joked."}]

For many runners, the support crew becomes just as important as the training. They hand over fresh shoes, refill water bottles, offer encouragement and, when things get dark, help convince exhausted runners to keep moving.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, a 100-mile race stops being about running."}]

It becomes a test of what a person can endure through a sleepless night in remote terrain — through aching muscles, stomach troubles, phantom voices and trees that suddenly look like people.

[{"type":"text","text":"For reasons even many runners struggle to explain, they keep coming back."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One painful step at a time."}]

Bighorn 100 rsw 2560 9 6 21 26

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

<title>When Trees Become People: The Strange Reality Of Running 100 Miles In Wyoming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

This weekend, runners descended on Sheridan for one of the West's most respected ultramarathons. They'll tell you the 100-mile race is a test of what a person can endure: aching muscles, phantom voices and trees that suddenly look like people.

When Trees Become People: The Strange Reality Of Running 100 Miles In Wyoming

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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park’s “first” petroglyph remains one of its most controversial. Even calling it a petroglyph could raise the ire of some archaeologists.

While Yellowstone was a significant site for many indigenous cultures that left behind plenty of artifacts, rock art was — and remains — rare in the park. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful petroglyphs in 1977."}]

To this day, archaeologists are divided over how to interpret these petroglyphs and the stories they tell. It’s a debate that’s only become more interesting in recent years.

“Not everyone agrees that it's a petroglyph,” said retired archaeologist Mavis Greer. “For me, there’s no question that it is, but who made it and when are still very controversial.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Old Faithful Petroglyphs"}]

Greer is one of the few archaeologists who has seen and studied the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

In 2011, she wrote a short paper on the site with fellow archaeologists John Greer and Elaine Skinner Hale, who was on Yellowstone’s Cultural Resource staff at the time, and even that was subject to controversy.

“I was very excited to see the site, but I don’t think (the National Park Service) was all that happy about what we wrote,” she said. “They don’t want any publications anywhere showing that this and other rock art sites have been found in Yellowstone.”

Greer didn’t discover the Old Faithful petroglyphs. A Yellowstone visitor, Nicole Cromwell, wrote a letter to park staff informing them that she’d found two petroglyphs carved into the rock near an extinct geyser in 1977.

Today, the petroglyphs are in an area that isn’t accessible to the public. Greer is one of the few who’s been able to see them.

“The petroglyphs were made when the pool was dry, and the rocks are ideal height for sitting, so this would have been a good camping area in the past,” she said.

Both petroglyphs are circular shapes with spokes and other shapes emanating from the center, resembling wheels. What the design was meant to depict has been debated for the last 49 years. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The prevailing interpretation is that these petroglyphs are wheels. "}]

Specifically, they depict the wheels of wagons or, potentially, stagecoaches carrying white Europeans into northwest Wyoming.

That was the assumption when the petroglyphs were first studied in the 1970s. 

Paul Sanders with the office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist reached the same conclusion during a 2008 survey of the site.

Many archaeologists don’t even believe it’s Aboriginal rock art. They think the “wheels” were carved by white Europeans rather than any of the tribes associated with Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer doesn’t agree."}]

“There are lots of wagon wheels in rock art across the northern plains, and none of them are similar to what's at Old Faithful,” she said. “I believe they were made by Native Americans before first contact with Europeans.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shields And Status"}]

Greer believes the petroglyphs depict the shields of indigenous warriors, a common image on rock art panels throughout North America.

Most petroglyphs are believed to have had spiritual or ceremonial significance to the tribes and individuals that created them. According to Greer, shields fall under the umbrella of ceremonial art.

“The design of the petroglyph was whatever was on the actual shield,” she said. “There had to have powerful symbols on their shields, and they would often make petroglyphs of their shields where others could see that they had that power.”

Shields would have been unique to each individual, and covered with images, designs, and colors representing their personal power and position. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s why shield petroglyphs are so common, but none are the same."}]

“It’s a geometric-type design that was used by a lot of different tribes,” Greer said. “They were very ornate and colorful, and depicted powerful animals, spiritual helpers, and other things that helped them not get shot.”

Greer believes shield petroglyphs need to be interpreted through the lens of intertribal warfare. Shields were important status symbols for men in indigenous tribes.

“They had a lot of conflict between tribes because that was a way that men got status in their tribe,” she said. “In order to gain any status, you had to have engaged in something that showed you were brave and an outstanding warrior.”

In that sense, a shield petroglyph was like a self-portrait. It was a one-to-one depiction of the shield its artist used in battle, down to the same designs and colors.

While most of the color has vanished in the hundreds or thousands of years since they were carved, the intricate and unique designs and symbols remain.

“The design of the petroglyph is whatever design was on the actual shield that they were using when they were out in a battle,” Greer said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Which Wheel Or No Wheel?"}]

There are legitimate petroglyphs depicting the wagons of European settlers. 

, one of Wyoming’s most renowned petroglyph sites.

The confirmed wagon petroglyph at Castle Gardens is one of the reasons Greer cited for why she doesn’t believe the Old Faithful petroglyphs depict wagon wheels.

For one thing, the circular designs at Old Faithful are very intricate and asymmetrical. The wheels on wagon petroglyphs are much simpler, emulating the spoked design of an actual wagon wheel.

Also, Greer isn’t aware of any petroglyphs of wheels without wagons. It’s something she researched for her 2011 paper.

“Wheels, by themselves, are even less common in rock art than complete wagons or vehicles,” she said. “The only possible single wheel we found is at Newspaper Rock in eastern Utah, and its identification is based only on its circular form with rays, not any historical association with a wagon or other items, (so) there is no evidence that it’s a wheel.”

For Greer, it’d be highly unlikely to find a petroglyph depicting a wagon wheel without also depicting a wagon. Meanwhile, it’s quite common to find isolated shield petroglyphs.

“When these wheels are compared with the Old Faithful figures, they both are round with spokes or rays,” she said. “The similarities end there.”

There is another type of wheel that had great spiritual and ceremonial significance to indigenous tribes: medicine wheels. 

Medicine wheels, like the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains, were usually constructed in sacred areas.

While the Old Faithful geyser basin could easily have been a sacred area deserving of a medicine wheel, Greer doesn’t think that’s a likely explanation for the petroglyphs.

“When viewed from a stylistic perspective of cultures in the northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains, a shield design is a better explanation.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who, When, Why"}]

So, if the Old Faithful petroglyphs weren’t depicting wagon wheels, and they weren’t made by a European, who made them? When were they made?

[{"type":"text","text":"Those questions, according to Greer, are much harder to answer.  "}]

“There are just too many tribes that were traveling through Yellowstone in the last thousand years,” she said. “Even with a lot of investigation, I don’t think anyone would be comfortable saying its Shoshone as opposed to the Crow, Blackfeet, or Kiowa. 

"The Cheyenne and Arapahoe were there, too. Any one of them could have made those petroglyphs.”

Determining the age of the petroglyphs would also be difficult, but that’s another reason why Greer believes they aren’t depicting wagon wheels. They look too old.

“The petroglyphs are in a geologic situation where if a European had made it, it would look a lot fresher than it does,” she said. “It looks like it's been there for some time.”

Greer didn’t have enough data to give an approximate age range for the Old Faithful petroglyphs, but she’s confident that they’re too old to be wagon wheels. 

She believes the petroglyphs are older than the first wagon wheels in western North America.

“My only thought is that they were created pre-contact,” she said. “That's not saying much, because the contact period for this area starts in 1800, but it’s something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not So Open Secrets"}]

The Old Faithful petroglyphs remain the best-known petroglyphs in Yellowstone National Park, but even they aren’t common knowledge to the typical tourist. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who wants to see them can’t."}]

“It's in an area of the park where you cannot go without a ranger,” Greer said. That makes it easier to keep the location secluded.”

While there’s plenty of accessible information on Yellowstone’s archaeology, petroglyphs, and other indigenous rock art are rarely mentioned. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer believes that’s simultaneously deliberate and accidental."}]

Greer is aware of other Yellowstone petroglyphs and rock art panels discovered within the last two decades, but information about them is scarce. 

That’s partly because they’re inaccessible to most tourists and scientists.

“I think most archeologists thought there was rock art in Yellowstone, but nobody had gone out there and really searched for it before,” she said. “Doing a rock art survey in the park is not a simple thing. You’d need money, horses, and a camping crew to find those places.”

Greer also believes the National Park Service has a vested interest in restricting what gets published about these sites, at least until they’re better understood. 

From what she’s heard, the newly discovered sites are more fragile than the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

“The new sites have been paintings rather than petroglyphs,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the rock that they're dealing with. 

"On limestone and even types of granite, they're more likely to have paintings than petroglyphs.”

Greer’s 2011 paper on the Old Faithful petroglyphs is still the most recent scholarly work on any rock art in Yellowstone, and it’s “still controversial,” according to Greer.

“That one’s been known for a long time, and I wouldn't say there are a lot of people who think it's a confirmed petroglyph yet,” she said.

The ultimate takeaway is that there’s much more to learn about the history of indigenous tribes in Yellowstone, and the known and yet-to-be-discovered rock art will deepen our understanding of the park’s place in human history.

“There's been a lot of work on indigenous use of Yellowstone prior to and even after the coming of Europeans,” she said. “The history of the park goes back thousands of years, and these rock art panels show us there’s still so much to discover and learn.”

Yellowstone Petroglyph 2 6 21 26

<title>50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yellowstone's “first” petroglyph remains controversial. Some archaeologists don't buy it. While Yellowstone was a significant site for indigenous cultures rock art was rare. That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful "petroglyphs" in 1977.

50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph'

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

A former Casper oil worker and bus driver in the 1920s careened into a life of crime with the infamous Karpis-Barker gang that included murders, kidnappings, and robberies. He was the FBI's No. 2 most-wanted before being caught and sent to Alcatraz.