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From TikTok to ShiTok, as narrated by MMA announcer Steve Inman.....

Inman 8 5 25

Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Today in golf 8 5 25

Today In Golf: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

How to know when guys are sorry -- or not sorry.....

Bonus vid 1 8 5 25

Bonus Video 1: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

This guy couldn't have tried any harder to get a DUI.....

Idiots 8 5 25

Today In Idiots: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Jerry Seinfeld explains how talk shows work (this is awesome).....

Bonus vid 2 8 5 25

Bonus Video 2: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Now let's all enjoy more misspelled signs.....

You still here 8 5 25

You Still Here? Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Sorry, but this one made us laugh out loud....

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Bonus Video 1: Monday, August 4, 2025

All that effort and he's still standing, as narrated by MMA announcer Steve Inman.....

Inman 8 4 25

Steve Inman: Monday, August 4, 2025

Another case of "sure they're cute but still a wild animal....."

Bonus vid 2 8 4 25

Bonus Video 2: Monday, August 4, 2025

"Today we're showing you how to make deep fried brats...."

You still here 8 4 25

You Still Here? Monday, August 4, 2025

This is real wrestling not fake and scripted.....

Wrestling 8 4 25

Today In Wrestling: Monday, August 4, 2025

Karma 8 4 25

Today In Karma: Monday, August 4, 2025

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

Leo Wolfson For Cowboy State Daily

Outdoors

Looking up at Colorado's Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort, you'll see large, white tarps covering a mysterious mass two to three stories high. No, the circus isn't in town — it's a matter of snow security.

As unusually warm, long fall seasons become more frequent — like 

 — ski areas across the West and around the world are seeking new ways to guarantee they can open on time. 

One solution is pushing together snow left over from the previous winter, storing it in enormous piles, and reusing it the following season.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Harvesting the Snow"}]

Known as "snow harvesting" or "snow farming," the practice is now catching on at resorts across Idaho, Montana, Utah and Colorado. 

By securing snow piles under thermal mats, blankets, tarps or even hay bales, resorts keep their snow in a giant cooler of sorts, shielded from the heat, sun and rain. 

That means they no longer have to anxiously watch the thermometer for temperatures cold enough to make snow, or wait on natural flakes from the sky.

Antti Lauslahti, CEO of the snow-storage company Snow Secure, believes these efforts will follow the same path as snowmaking equipment did in the 1970s. Most mountains were impressed by the technology at the time, he said, but skeptical that anyone actually needed to make snow.

"Then they started to do it for just the early season, and little by little it just took off," he said.

Lauslahti said Big Sky Resort in Montana — a favorite of many northern Wyoming residents — is running a small-scale test of Snow Secure technology to use on its slopes next season. 

Snow Secure makes white polystyrene thermal mats that fold out like an accordion and can stretch as long as a football field while keeping snow insulated, much like the insulation in a house, at near freezing temperatures.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The New Snowmaking"}]

In recent years, warm weather has repeatedly kept ski areas from meeting their traditional opening dates, sometimes pushing openings past Christmas or forcing seasons to be canceled altogether. 

Early season skiing is one of the industry's most profitable stretches, when public enthusiasm runs highest — especially among casual skiers. The Christmas holidays alone can account for 20% of a mountain's annual revenue, Lauslahti said.

"The beginning of the season is becoming more unpredictable," he said. "A bad start means you lose season-pass sales. If there's at least a minimum amount open in the early season, people accept it better."

Bogus Basin in Idaho and Aspen Snowmass have both recently invested in Snow Secure's mats to guarantee a solid snow base for next season. 

In Aspen, the mats now cover piles on Buttermilk and Snowmass mountains — the equivalent of 3.5 million gallons of water, mostly man-made snow left over from the previous season. 

Beyond saving the snow itself, the practice preserves the money already spent making it and can cut the cost of snowmaking for the season ahead.

Having snow ready to go also gives mountains flexibility to time their snowmaking for the most efficient conditions. 

Snowmaking machines work better the colder it gets, so instead of blowing snow in marginal early-season conditions out of desperation, resorts can draw on their stored supply for a usable base. 

Others are preemptively making a deep base of snow during winter's coldest stretches, either to extend their seasons into May or to save it for the next one.

"It's economically really, really viable," Lauslahti said. "It's really fast, really cost efficient. You need snowmaking, you need groomers, but the point is, you have a new tool."

Lauslahti noted that Levi, a Finnish mountain that traditionally hosts the season's first FIS World Cup race each November, relied entirely on snow stored inside the Snow Secure mats to host the event this past season. 

The mountain itself opened a few years back on Oct. 6 thanks to their snow-storage efforts.

Chris Miller, senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen Snowmass, told the Aspen Times saving snow expands the resort's climate-resilient toolbox for navigating volatile weather.

Snowmass Mountain's relatively low base elevation of 7,870 feet leaves it especially vulnerable to warm, dry early-season spells. 

As host of the Winter X Games, Snowmass produces enormous amounts of snow each fall to build the massive terrain-park features the globally televised event requires. By piling up and covering the leftover snow for the following year, the mountain saves significant money.

Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Utah has joined the trend too, preserving a 15,000-square-foot mound under the Snow Secure mats. 

At just 5,600 feet of elevation, the venue is slated to host cross-country events for the 2034 Winter Olympics, though that may not happen naturally if Utah sees another winter as poor as this past one.

Luke Bodensteiner, Soldier Hollow's general manager, told NBC News he views the effort as a contingency plan, and hopes that snow farming plus new snowmakers could make Soldier Hollow the first Nordic venue in the country to open this coming fall.

"If we get the results that we think … in the summer of 2033, we'll probably have three to four of these piles going around the venue," he told NBC.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Resilient"}]

Back in Aspen when interviewed last month, Miller said temperatures beneath the Snow Secure blankets were registering at 32.6 degrees. 

Even when outdoor temperatures top 100 degrees, the insulated barriers keep the snow between 35 and 37, Lauslahti said, and can limit melting to about 20% of the original mass over an entire summer.

The mats were put to the test last summer at Bogus Basin, a mid-sized ski area outside Boise, where temperatures outside the piles hit 119 degrees. The snow held up fine, and despite recording its warmest November on record, the resort still managed to open that month.

Snow Secure isn't just for the biggest resorts with the biggest budgets. Lauslahti argues the tarps offer even more value at smaller areas with shorter runs, where every saved inch counts — pointing to a small Wisconsin resort that’s invested in the product. "The first chairlift isn't so long, so you don't need so much material," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Other Snow-Storage Efforts"}]

Copper Mountain in Colorado stores snow for its summertime private Woodward camps and public hike park. At each season's end, the mountain pushes 

thousands of cubic yards of leftover snow

 from its runs, terrain parks and superpipe into huge piles; months later, it spreads the snow back out into a short run with a roughly 25-foot base, letting the public ski all summer.

Trollhaugen in Wisconsin insulates its snow with 

hay bales and a large tarp weighed down by car tires

 for a terrain-park event it hosts each fall.

Snow farming Ruka 15 Snow Secure 7 5 26

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

<title>Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As temperatures soar in the summer, ski resorts in the Rocky Mountain West are "farming" snow, storing it under giant thermal mats as insurance for the upcoming season. Snow stays close to freezing in the summer even in triple-digit temperatures.

Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 6th.  I’m Mac Watson

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

Instead of selling the century-old 140-acre Flat Creek Ranch for millions, a Jackson couple gave the property to its longtime managers. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports owners Joe Albright and Marcia Kunstel say they didn't want it to fall in the hands of someone “who would destroy the land, the wildlife or the buildings.”

“Ray Sharp told me that they are going to keep up with the infrastructure, and that there's always maintenance that needs to be done. This is 100-plus-year-old property, and keeping the cabins in good shape, while still having that sort of historic feel, is kind of a nonstop job. So that's really their focus now, and just continuing to offer bespoke experiences for their visitors, so whatever their visitors want to do when they come and visit, the owners will do their best to curate that experience for them.”

For Albright and Kunstel, both retired foreign correspondents, the decision was about conservation as much as succession. The couple spent 27 years restoring and preserving the ranch after buying it back from the Jackson Hole Land Trust in 1998. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–"}]

Military tanks spent an hour crushing cars Friday as an enthusiastic crowd cheered to celebrate America’s 250th at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that owner Dan Starks says, “What’s more American than machine guns and tanks crushing cars?”

“It's a huge museum, world-class museum, world's largest private collection of military vehicles in DuBois, of all places. And then, after lunch, right after lunch, when everybody's there at the canteen, anyway, they had some little lectures, told us some, you know, history stories and things like that too. I would say applause, people were applauding, so you know they're happily listening to these lectures after they've watched some tanks crush some cars. It was a great day.”

Starks didn’t get any disagreement from the huge crowds turning out for the daylong event devoted to America. More than 500 people showed up in the first hour, which offered two chances to see the tanks in action. 

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

With no veterinary clinics or animal shelters, roaming dogs are a problem on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Cowboy State Daily’s Kerry Drake reports that a Cheyenne clinic 300 miles away has rescued thousands of stray pets from the reservation since 2017.

“The reservation had a huge problem with feral and prairie dogs, so she kind of switched the focus of the foundation, or the program that she runs, and just working, beginning with the reservation, she's kind   of expanded to spay and neuter clinics. Basically, she has captured 3,000 dogs and cats from the reservation since 2017 largely through donations, it's all volunteer.”

JM Marschner, who opened the clinic in 2017, tells Cowboy State Daily she and her volunteers have worked with other rescue groups to find more than 3,000 dogs and cats on the reservation.

The Haitian truck driver who killed one Rawlins EMT and severely injured another in a catastrophic I-80 crash more than three years ago is asking the Wyoming Supreme Court to overturn his convictions. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that the driver claims prosecutors never proved he was “reckless.”

“Savoie St. Jean's attorney contends that there wasn't enough evidence to convict him of aggravated homicide and aggravated assault and battery. The crash occurred on December 1 of 2022 when Saint Jean's semi truck slammed into an EMT and killed the driver on Interstate-80 near Green River. Last fall. He was sentenced to 12-to-14 years in prison. He's now asking the Wyoming Supreme Court to erase the convictions.”

For the Wyoming Supreme Court, the question is whether the evidence presented to jurors was legally sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Saint Jean acted recklessly. 

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

It’s been 44 years since a young Casper woman was found dead in the North Platte River with a rock tied around her neck. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports the murder has never stopped haunting her older sister Rebecca. 

“She had been 20 years old, and she was found two to six days later dead in the North Platte River, with a rock tied around her neck, and she had been strangled. It has never been solved to date. In fact, there has been no news coverage of it since 1982 that I could find. So it was a case that got kind of lost in the decades, but not for law enforcement. Law enforcement and the investigators are taking it seriously. They said they really want somebody to come forward.”

Belynda May Grantham was a 20-year-old single mother when her partially clothed body was recovered from the bottom of the North Platte River outside of Glenrock, in August 1982. It would take nearly a month and a newspaper sketch before anyone could identify her. Her murder has never been solved.

A Montana rancher who lives more than 100 miles from grizzly territory says a bear mauled her quarter horse. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that grizzlies aren't deliberately being reintroduced to prairie country. Instead, they’re moving back into those areas on their own.

“She surmises that it probably got attacked by a grizzly bear, and she says that because this is an area where they've been seeing an increasing amount of bears, and also to her knowledge, one of her, I think it's she said one of her neighbors spotted a bear crossing the road toward her ranch just a couple of days prior, so she went ahead and called out, she called out an inspector from the USDA Wildlife Services. He said, ‘There's no bite up on the withers or right on the top of the back of the horse,’ and typically when bears do attack a larger animal, they do try to get up on the back and bite it, and then the bear will use its just its weight and its, overwhelming strength to just pull the animal down that it's trying to kill for prey.”

Danny Kinka, senior wildlife restoration manager for American Prairie, tells Cowboy State Daily there are ways to balance ranchers’ concerns with bear conservation. One effective way is to “put a human presence on the landscape.”

The Wyoming Board of Equalization was set for a July 6 hearing to fight against having to enforce a 4% cap on annual property tax increases, which it calls unconstitutional. But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the board has  agreed to honor the cap during its lawsuit challenging it.

“They were set for a July 6 hearing to determine whether the board would have to enforce that cap pretty much against its will and wishes throughout the lawsuit, and while that hearing was on track to unfold, and the judge on track to consider that argument. The board went ahead and agreed. Okay, we'll follow the law until there's a further order of this court, or until the case is over.”

Gov. Mark Gordon, through the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, 

 June 16 in Laramie County District Court, urging the court to make the board follow the law and to declare the law constitutional.

The only way to get to the rest of Wyoming (outside of riding a horse or hiking over the mountain) is a 20-mile drive through Idaho and over Teton Pass. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that residents of remote Alta, Wyoming, say they don't feel disconnected.

“It's a farm country, they grow alfalfa and hay and things like that, there, but all kinds of other people live there. I talked to a man that works in Jackson, and so there's commuters for Jackson that actually drive from there into Jackson. It's about 40 miles to do that, or maybe a little more, but over the past in the winter, they told me that that gentleman told me that doing it in the wintertime now is not as bad as it used to be when he was a kid. It's got all the great beauty without all the people that are on the national park side of things, of the mountains, and they just say, hey, this is all we've ever known. But you get up in the morning, and there's the Grand Tetons.”

The 429-resident community sits in the Teton Valley along the road to Grand Targhee Resort ski area. There are no bumper-to-bumper traffic lines that back up as tourists vie for views of a bison in Grand Teton National Park or the mountain scenes around Jackson Hole.

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image v2 7 6 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Monday's headlines include:
* Rampant Feral Dogs
* Prairie Grizzlies On The Move
* Jackson Couple Gives Away Ranch

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 6, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 overnight in the Wyoming Territory with canvas tents, sectional housing and buildings on wheels. It was July 1868 and the town “bred by the devil” was ready for business.

“There are perhaps, three thousand people in and around Benton,” brothers Legh and Fred Freeman wrote in the Aug. 11, 1868, Frontier Index newspaper. “To give an idea of the on-wheels movement we will mention that the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., torn down at Laramie three days before, had its sectioned shingle roof on, and stage business resumed in it that night.”

The Frontier Index, known as the “Press on Wheels,” was also a 

 business that published its paper in these overnight towns.

“Business was so lively that we telegraphed the Laramie editor of our paper, to wheel on at once to Benton,” the Freeman brothers wrote. “We since learn that our new power press is threshing out the work there.”

Benton was an end-of-track town on the construction front of the Union Pacific Railroad, about 12 miles east of present-day Rawlins and just west of present-day Fort Fred Steele.

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

 the worst of these Hell’s Tent Towns, with claims that 100 men had been murdered there in its short lifetime. Their reputation as a home to “bawdy women and swindlers” was earned when visitors passed through and were shocked by what they saw.

According to historians Mary Lou Pence and Lola M. Homsher, co-authors of “The Ghost Towns of Wyoming,” one 

 that portrayed Benton’s devilishness had been a misunderstanding.

Water for this new town was one of its most valuable commodities. It had to be carted by team and tank from the North Platte River two miles away. The water hauler charged an exorbitant 

Seeing a new way to advertise, a whiskey distiller paid the hauler to paste large billboards on each side of his tank that read "Tanglefoot Whisky."

A Mormon woman soon arrived by train and was waiting for a stagecoach for the next leg of her trip to Brigham's Temple. When she saw the poster-plastered wagon and women rushing from their doors with pails in hands, Pence and Homsher said she became  indignant.

 woman said. “They're buying whisky by the bucketsful!"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Grant & Buffalo Bill Campaign"}]

To add to Benton’s reputation, even future presidents visited the tent town. Ulyssis S. Grant arrived with Buffalo Bill Cody. The Republican candidate was said to have given a stump speech at Benton to an eclectic group of people, ranging from gentlemen to railroad laborers. 

The Freeman brothers were heavily Democratic and former Confederate soldiers so the story they ran in the Aug.11, 1868, Frontier Index was a satirical attack on Grant and Buffalo Bill.

“When Useless Slaughter Grant was at Benton the other night, Buffalo Bill mounted a dry goods box at a street corner and returned thanks to the people for the splendid ovation (that was not) given the military commander in chief,” they wrote.

The editors claimed Buffalo Bill then auctioned off an old watch to pay for Grant's expenses on his campaign in Wyoming. Otherwise, Grant would be forced to “bum” his way back to Washington, D.C.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mundane Shootings"}]

In the same paper, when the Freeman brothers shared the local gossip, usually reserved for such tidbits as who had arrived in town or who was engaging in business, the story was about the latest shootings. This time Brownsville, a construction camp not far from Benton, was the scene of several murders.   

— a criminal offense involving at least two people —

 occurred on the streets between two men employed in Creighton's telegraph outfit, the Freeman brothers reported. 

[{"type":"text","text":"As the story goes:"}]

“They had been throwing dice for a pistol, when they became dissatisfied, and the person who owned the pistol — James Williams — refused to give up the money received, which led to a difficulty in which he was shot and supposed mortally wounded. The murderer has escaped.

"A man, named John Wood, accidentally shot himself on Sunday morning while drawing his pistol to shoot a man in a gambling house. He is now in the hospital and is doing well.

"Mike Meehan was shot by a ranchman near Reynolds & Dowling's grading camp, about eight miles from Brownsville. 

"The cause of the affair was, the graders were on a strike, and passed an order amongst themselves that any ranchman who would interfere with their strike or sell liquor to drunken men, they would clean out, and after giving them warning, they still sold liquor to the men, when the graders turned out and demolished some fourteen saloons. 

"During the row, Michael Meehan was shot and instantly killed. The ranchman delivered himself up to the military authorities at Fort Steele."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rise and Fall of Benton"}]

During its short existence, 200 framed tents and portable buildings had been erected, lots sold to the highest bidder, from $800 to $1,000, and dusty streets laid out. Benton was plotted into five wards and a mayor and one alderman from each ward had been appointed.

might become a more permanent town. A forwarding house was even established to take advantage of the active business taking place.

The most prominent building was described by Pence and Homsher as an immense canvas tent lit by imported chandeliers.

“An immense plate-glass mirror behind the corner bar reflected a strange hubbub of humanity,” Pence and Homsher wrote. “Pistol-packing mamas; lace-gowned and French-heeled dancing damsels; plaid-vested and fob-twisting come-on spielers; campaign-uniformed Indian fighters; corduroyed and buckskinned freighters; bow-tied and velvet-coated dude dandies — all taking chances with fate.”

The historians claimed  more than once during his night shift an overworked barkeep would have to change into another clean white coat to be rid of spatters of beer, bullets or blood.

By September 1868, the railroad had moved on, and so did nearly everyone else. 

The depot was moved east three miles to Fort Steele and Rawlins was designated a rail terminal. Pence and Homsher said that as tents were erected in the new town of Rawlins, former Benton residents were hesitant to buy lots and be fooled again into spending money on real estate that would not last.

Benton only existed for three months before the town was dismantled and it became one of Wyoming’s most infamous ghost towns.

Benton 1 Benton A C Hull Photo 7 5 26

<title>Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Of the Wyoming Territory towns that arrived on wheels along the Union Pacific Railroad, none were as tawdry, bawdry and lawless as Benton, which witnessed as many as 100 murders in its three-month lifespan. Benton, it was said, was "bred by the devil."

Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

CASPER — Thirteen years ago, James Pulver sat in a jail cell wondering whether his life was over.

At 24, he was facing federal kidnapping and domestic violence-related charges and staring at a $100,000 cash bond — an amount so far beyond his reach it may as well have been $1 million.

He remembers the clang of the steel doors, the uncertainty, and the crushing realization that he had no idea what happened next.

"You don't know anything," Pulver recalls "You don't know the process. You don't know the courts. You don't know what's coming."

Eventually, Pulver accepted a plea agreement, pleading no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence and misdemeanor theft after spending 367 days in the Fremont County Detention Center.

He still insists the most serious allegations against him weren't true, but says the experience permanently changed how he views people accused of crimes.

Today, when someone in Wyoming is arrested and their family doesn't know where to turn, there's a decent chance the phone rings on Pulver's desk.

[{"type":"text","text":"The irony isn't lost on him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Before I was a bail bondsman,\" he said, \"I was an inmate.\""}]

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

Most people picture a bail bondsman as someone who signs paperwork, takes a fee and disappears.

Pulver, who lives in Casper, laughs at that; he said he believes his job is to guide defendants through one of the most frightening experiences of their lives.

[{"type":"text","text":"He said his sister calls him the \"bail bond doula.\""}]

His advice starts immediately. He tells his bondees: eat well, get sunlight, and stay sober. 

"You're already walking in there in shackles looking guilty," he said. "They're literally judging you."

Know your lawyer's phone number. Know your address before standing in front of a judge.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wear your nicest clothes."}]

A Casper bail bondsman has an unorthodox job that requires him to be part bounty hunter and part life counselor. And he can empathize with his clients. "Before I was a bail bondsman, I was an inmate," he said.