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Kate Meadows

Outdoors

A Wyoming hunter is on a mission to untangle confusion over public and private land boundaries after repeatedly encountering "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" signs where the public should legally be allowed to travel or recreate.

Cheyenne resident Jon Farris says the issue isn't about advocating for hunters to ignore private property rights. It's about making sure public lands remain accessible when they legally should be.

"I want other people to be able to enjoy public lands the same way I do," Farris told Cowboy State Daily.

To help, Farris has created an email address where hunters, anglers and other outdoors enthusiasts can report locations they believe may be incorrectly marked as private. 

He hopes to research each case using county records, state maps and conversations with local officials before forwarding legitimate concerns to the appropriate agencies.

"If we can streamline that process, maybe we can get some of these corrected," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Signs That Sparked Questions"}]

Farris said his interest in the issue began in 2024 while traveling in Carbon County.

A county road led toward national forest land, but along the route he encountered a sign declaring the road was crossed and private property.

"That was really what got me started in wondering how often this type of thing occurs," he said.

Since then, he said he has noticed similar situations in Carbon, Goshen and Laramie counties.

One example, he said, involved state land in Laramie County that was eventually reposted as public after previously being marked private.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Sometimes they won't be marked right,\" Farris said."}]

He said he also believes about 160 acres of state trust land within the historic Whitaker Ranch in Laramie County is marked in a way that could confuse visitors into believing it is entirely private.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Public Land Doesn't Always Mean Public Access"}]

Even when land is publicly owned, that doesn't necessarily mean the public can legally reach it.

That's one point emphasized by Rob Weppner of the Whitaker Ranch, where nearly 40,000 acres of ranchland include parcels of state trust land.

Weppner acknowledged there are "No Trespassing" and "No Hunting" signs throughout portions of the property.

"The disconnect that I see in our area — I talk to a lot of hunters — is that in various places there's state land," he said. "But to have state land (for hunting), you need to have public access to it."

Many state trust parcels are effectively landlocked, surrounded by private property that cannot legally be crossed without permission.

"Knowing which roads in this county are actually public is really challenging," Weppner said. "It's very difficult to know what's what, which roads actually have legal access and which roads don't."

He said while a county road passes through part of his ranch, portions beyond that become private property, making the transition difficult for visitors to identify.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Do Your Homework"}]

Farris said he never encourages people to ignore posted signs or assume property is public. Instead, he urges hunters to verify land ownership before setting foot on questionable ground.

"Don't take 'No Trespassing' signs at face value," he said. "Go home and do your research."

His first stop is typically OnX, the popular digital mapping platform widely used by hunters and outdoor recreationists.

Farris photographs signs he encounters in the field, then compares their locations with OnX mapping and the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments' GIS maps.

Because no mapping system is perfect, he said he compares multiple sources before drawing any conclusions.

 has been known to be off by a few yards, which is enough to potentially get users in trouble and charged with trespassing.

"It is important to check and get a clear answer from the state office before assuming it's public," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Honest Mistakes Happen"}]

Melissa DeFratis, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments (OSLI), said the agency regularly fields questions about land ownership and public access, particularly before and during hunting season.

The office serves as the administrative arm of the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners, which oversees roughly 3.4 million acres of state trust land.

While DeFratis said it is not common for landowners to intentionally mark public land as private, she acknowledged it does happen.

She added that more often, misplaced signs are the result of honest mistakes, outdated information or confusion over property boundaries.

When questions arise, OSLI occasionally sends field staff to investigate and work with landowners to correct misplaced signs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Complicated Landscape"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Boundary confusion isn't always the result of inaccurate maps."}]

Farris recalled one game warden telling him about a Goshen County landowner whose understanding of his property lines had been passed down through generations, based largely on where a relative decades earlier believed the boundary should be.

He also said he once was offered access to public land across private property — for a fee — which he declined.

Those experiences reinforced the need for better public understanding of Wyoming's complicated patchwork of federal, state and private lands, he said.

Rather than confronting landowners directly, Farris said he hopes his volunteer effort will encourage people to document questionable situations, verify the facts and work through the proper channels.

"I've seen this all over," he said. "If we can get the right information to the right people, hopefully we can clear up some of the confusion."

Private Road Sign Jon Farris 7 16 26

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

<title>Wyoming Hunter Wants To Clear Up Confusion Over Public Lands Marked ‘Private’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Wyoming hunter is on a mission to undo confusion after repeatedly encountering "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" signs where the public should legally be allowed. "Knowing which roads are actually public is really challenging,” said a landowner.

Wyoming Hunter Wants To Clear Up Confusion Over Public Lands Marked ‘Private’

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

It was raining lightly outside at about 10 p.m. when Steve Nally of east Thermopolis heard a sudden sound that brought him outside to his porch.

“I heard this roaring coming in my direction,” Nally said. “I saw a wall of water coming down around the van, and it looked like it was 10 feet tall.”

dialed 911, and by the time he got through, the water was already getting close the road.

"You need to send rescue out here,” Nally told the operator. “We're in trouble."

By the time he hung up, the flood water was already up to the skirting of 

“From there, it just went crazy,” Nally said. “I hollered for my wife to come out when I first saw it, and by the time she got out there it was already up to the house, and it just kept getting worse and worse, going on the highway.”

That water came from a deluge of about 4.25 inches of rain in an hour, which is close to half what the town typically gets in a year, said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.

“I heard from someone in Thermopolis that they got 4.25 inches of precipitation in one hour on Wednesday,” he said. “Thermopolis usually gets around 9 inches of precipitation in the whole year.”

The flash flood was “classic monsoon” behavior, he said, the result of several intense thunderstorms reported throughout northwest Wyoming on Wednesday. 

Nally said that he saw the lights from emergency vehicles 

responding to help people caught in the torrent,

 but the road was already so flooded that they could only get so close.

“They showed a light over here to see if I was OK. I said, 'Yeah, but check on those people,' because I hadn't seen anything but them, because they couldn't get out the front door,” Nally said.

He was referring to a trailer house where 24-year-old Morgan Jacobs 

. Her trailer is in a low valley where a culvert was directing the water.

Thermopolis Chief of Police Pat Cornwall said that he had only seen the area flood once before, and that Wednesday night's was the worse he had ever seen.

Once the waters began to recede, Cornwall made the decision to wade through waist-deep water to rescue the young woman and her dog, who were stranded in the trailer.

“We waited probably about 15 minutes, and I could tell that the water was starting to recede back, but it was still rushing in (and) this gal is scared to death,” Cornwall said. “When I got to the front steps, they were full of debris, so I had to clear it out of the way just to get in the front door.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Logs were floating by me as I was going by.”"}]

Cornwall reassured the young woman she was safe and told her to pack a bag.

“She had ankle-deep water inside the house,” Cornwall said. “She had her dog and a rabbit, and she's a younger gal, so I could understand why she was so scared.”

Cornwall said that when he got inside her home, the entire house was full of mud and it felt like it was rocking.

“I just calmed her down,” Cornwall said. “I told her to pack a bag and that I'd piggyback her out of there once she was ready. I think she was more worried about the whole trailer starting to float away because it was pushing so hard against that trailer.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Kathy Sorensen also watched the rescue, and said she was impressed."}]

“The chief waited a few minutes because we could tell the water was going down, so it wasn't quite as risky,” Sorensen said. “He tested the water a couple of times and came back out. 

"Once he thought it was a calculated risk, he went over and sat with her until the fire department could get in and carry her out, along with her dog.”

Once they got Jacobs safely out of the house, Cornwall continued to survey the damage and realized her car had been swept about 75 feet away.

Attempts to reach Jacobs were unsuccessful by publication.

Jacobs told Cowboy State Daily that the flood came up so fast, she had no time to react or get out.

[{"type":"text","text":"She was alerted when her dog, Raven, was outside and wanted to come in."}]

“She started whining, and then it became an extreme whining, so immediately I was alerted and I thought something had happened,” Jacobs said. “So I had gone outside.

“I didn’t make it two steps off of my office stairs into my house before I realized that everything was underwater. There was nowhere for me to go.”

[{"type":"text","text":"She said that not only was the water rising, it was fast and aggressive."}]

“The water was moving so fast, and it almost looked like a waterfall in flash-flood form,” she said. “It was pulling just so extreme.”

It didn’t take long after retreating into her home that Jacobs said she became aware that she wasn’t out of danger.

“When we got into the house, I realized that our situation had gravely changed directions,” Jacobs said. “The water was coming up through the vents and the floorboards. It was filling the hall, the bathroom. There was nowhere there wasn’t water, and it was coming fast.”

After trying to call her boyfriend, Jacobs said she spent 26 minutes on the phone with a 911 operator “just begging for her not to let me die."

I genuinely didn’t think I was going to make it out,” she continued. “I could feel the house moving like we were on a boat, and it just got worse and worse.

By the time emergency responders arrived, they couldn’t immediately get to her as they worked to cut off power to the home. Then Chief Cornwall got there.

“As I waited, he found a light and he had made his way across the yard into the house to sit there with me and comfort me,” Jacobs said. “I will never forget the feeling of seeing somebody come to my rescue and knowing that I’m not alone and that I’m not going to die by myself.”

Now she’s waking up to the reality that her home is a total loss and “my car is three houses down,” Jacobs said. “I swear it was parked next to my house last night. It’s filled with water.

“Everything we owned is just totaled, and it doesn’t look like my landlord’s insurance is going to cover it.”

Despite that, Jacobs said she’s “thankful for everybody who showed up for us and who is continuing to show up for us."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Out Of The Woods"}]

The National Weather Service in Riverton issued its first warning for flash floods at 5:22 p.m. Wednesday for the Thermopolis area, and continued advisories and warnings until about 1:30 a.m., said meteorologist Jason Stroub.

“There is a flood watch in effect again (Thursday) pretty much from Thermopolis northwest toward Cody,” Stroub said. “This same scenario is possible for the next several days.”

 areas now are pretty saturated, which means

 any small thunderstorms can develop more quick flooding to any little creek that hasn't seen a lot of water recently.

“This same scenario is possible the next several days,” Stroub said. “If anybody sees floodwater, we just advise ‘turn around, don't drown.' You don't know what the depth of the water might be.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Roaring Spring Creek"}]

Sorensen had heard reports of the flood and went with her husband Basil to see what was going on. They own property in the area and arrived to see the home surrounded by water.

Eleven-year-old Micah Moon had gone outside at about 9:45 p.m. when he saw the flood rush down the street at his home in east Thermopolis.

“I thought there was just lots of rats going down the street,” Micah said. “Then I looked closer and realized it was water.”

He ran inside and got his dad, Joe, who watched as the flood surrounded the house.

“Water was on both sides of our house,” his dad said. “It was just flooding, and there were emergency crews out here, the fire department, and everybody.

“They had some roads blocked off, and it was just rushing down that creek there. It's devastating.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Receded In Two Hours"}]

G.R. Davis was visiting Thermopolis from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  

“Nothing like a natural disaster to welcome you to town,” Davis said. “My daughter noticed some police lights about 9:45, we came outside, and the water had already come up and had gone back down.

“It had already peaked and was receding ... in just a short amount of time.”

[{"type":"text","text":"That also was Nally’s experience — intense and short."}]

“It just seemed like it lasted for a couple of hours,” Nally said. “Just water everywhere. It was horrific, (and) kind of hard to describe. It was the first time I'd seen that much water that way. I've seen it once before, but this just came down so fast.”

During the flood, Nally said he and his wife Donna had tried to get out the back door, but by the time they got to the door, the water was already around back.

“I guess we could have waded through it because it wasn't swift back there, but we didn't,” Nally said. “We just stood here and didn't know how much worse it was going to get.”

Joe Moon said that at his place several blocks from Spring Creek, the water had reached the rims on his truck and had washed his wood pile away.

“It took somebody's shed down in the creek over here,” Moon said. “At least a foot of water was running down this alley. It’s not good.”

Once the water receded a little bit, Sorensen said that she kept hearing a strange glugging sound.  

“Everybody was looking at one another, and then we got the smell,” Sorensen said. “All at once everybody said, 'Oh no, that is a gas line.'”

[{"type":"text","text":"Davis said that he had witnessed the gas line going off as well."}]

“The gas line was shooting up out of there for quite a while until they got it shut off last night,” Davis said.

According to Sorensen, the fire department plugged it off once the water had receded enough to safely do so.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Blue Skies"}]

Joe Moon and Nally both said that it wasn’t raining that hard when the flash flood hit.

Meteorologist Straub said that the thunderstorm that caused all the damage developed about 10 miles east of Thermopolis and just kind of sat there for about an hour and a half.

“All of this moisture flowing across creeks that haven't seen a whole lot of moisture recently isn't going to absorb quickly,” Straub said. “So some of this floodwater was able to make it into east Thermopolis.”

Straub explained that the overarching impact was that they hada lot of monsoon moisture moving across western Wyoming yesterday. Little showers and thunderstorms were popping up here and there in isolated areas.

The thunderstorm that caused this flash flood had developed an estimated precipitation accumulation of between 2 and 4 inches.

Shane Rankin, the road supervisor for the Hot Springs County Road and Bridge, said this is the worse flooding he had seen.

“It didn't even really rain that hard in town, but I've heard reports of Lucerne Valley getting 2½ inches in an hour and the Buffalo Creek/Kirby Creek area getting up to 4 inches in an hour,” Rankin said.  

Rankin had been called out at 10 p.m. to start closing down Buffalo Creek and Kirby Creek roads. The road closure has been lifted since they are passable, but Buffalo Creek Road remains closed to through traffic.

“Talking with some ranchers up on Buffalo Creek, it's the worst they've seen,” Rankin said. “It pulled fences out of the ground and stretched them across the road.

“It washed over the road in several spots, but we never lost the road anywhere. It remains intact, but all the gravel washed off in those places.”

Rankin said the county is going to have a couple of weeks of repairs to do once it dries out.

“Roads are still passable, but we do have some major damage in places where it's going to take us a while to fix,” Rankin said.

Joe Moon is already surveying the damage around his own home and said that he has about 2 inches of water in his garage. He has about a half inch of mud all the way around his place and his family is just trying to get out without wading through mud.

“It washed the little bridge out over here near east Thermopolis,” he said. “The bridge is literally hanging off into the creek, and they just redid that when a flood happened eight years ago.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Sorensen said she is grateful the damage wasn’t worse."}]

“I was amazed — our house was surrounded by water, but it was dry inside,” she said. “Our yard is a debris field.”

Thermopolis flooding Kathy Sorensen IMG 2950 7 16 26

<title>‘We’re In Trouble’: East Thermopolis Floods After 4.5 Inches Of Rain In An Hour | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A wall of water surged through east Thermopolis late Wednesday, stranding people and breaking a gas main after 4.5 inches of rain fell in an hour near the town. "You need to send rescue out here. We’re in trouble,” one resident said when he called 911.

‘We’re In Trouble’: East Thermopolis Floods After 4.5 Inches Of Rain In An Hour

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

Andrew Rossi

Park County officials are still evaluating the damage done by a 

flash flood that nearly destroyed a bridge on County Road YXD along the South Fork of the Shoshone River southwest of Cody.

The flooding was reported around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, 

“We watched a wall of debris build up and surging muddy water begin to overflow the banks,” she said. “Huge logs were floating down the South Fork.”

The Park County Public Works Department announced that the narrow wooden bridge over Boulder Creek on County Road YXD, also known as Hunter Creek Road, 

Cowboy State Daily confirmed with county officials that the bridge is “structurally compromised” and a temporary bridge was being installed in the vicinity.

Until then, several people living on the opposite side of Boulder Creek are stranded while a temporary bridge is installed.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hurry Up And Wait"}]

Park County engineer Brian Edwards was watching the flood across County Road YXD for most of Wednesday afternoon and evening. 

For most of that time, all he and the heavy machinery from the Park County Public Works Department could do was watch and wait.

The bridge was barely visible under the torrent of muddy water, splintered tree trunks, and massive boulders that had been carried onto the road by the flash flood. 

After three hours, Edwards wasn’t even sure if the flood had reached its peak.

“I’m pretty shocked that it’s hanging in there, to be honest with you.” Edwards told Cowboy State Daily at the scene. “It’s an old bridge and was already in pretty bad shape."

Even as Edwards watched, the flow of rushing water was expanding across the road. The roar of the water was punctuated with the loud, hollow thuds of tree trunks smashing into boulders and each other as they rushed down Boulder Creek.

“The guys will probably be here most of the night,” he said. “You don't want to put an operator or piece of equipment in danger trying to get to it, because you can do something that changes the direction of the flow and causes a bigger problem, or get somebody hurt.”

By 6 p.m., the summer sun had broken through the thick clouds over the South Fork. Edwards’s concern was the dark storm clouds over the mountains to the south, which indicated rain was still falling.

“It seems to be coming up even more,” he said. “With the clouds up there, it’s important to know if it’s still raining up high.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mudslides, Too"}]

Someone was finally brave enough to drive an excavator into the flood, managing to remove a few boulders and one massive tree, but that was the extent of what could be safely done at the moment.

The road and bridge crews worked until 11:30 p.m. to clear a narrow path through three different mudslides in the area. The slides were more than 100 feet long and, in some places, more than 6 feet deep.

On Thursday, the wooden bridge was “closed until further notice,” Edwards said.

“It’s going to be a little bit before we get something temporary figured out, but it’s important,” he said. “Some landowners up there that have no other way in and out. That’s their only route.”

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

Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said the flash flood was “classic monsoon” behavior. Several intense thunderstorms were reported in northwest Wyoming on Wednesday.

Flash flooding was also reported in Hot Springs County and the North Fork of the Shoshone River during the same period.

Day didn’t have specific statistics for how much precipitation fell on the South Fork on Wednesday, but “several small but intense thunderstorms” moved through the area when the flash flood occurred.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Day, these should be cautionary tales for Wyomingites."}]

“There’s a historical precedent for monsoonal rains and flash flooding in late July and August,” he said. “There’s a strong likelihood we’ll see more of these heavy thunderstorms and more flash floods for the next week.”

The Park County Public Works Department hoped to have a temporary bridge installed across Boulder Creek by the end of Thursday.

Edwards said the compromised wooden bridge had already been “high on our priority list for replacement.” 

[{"type":"text","text":"Wednesday’s flash flood made replacing it a top priority."}]

“We recognize that this is the only way in and out for several people who live on Hunter Creek Road,” Edwards said in a statement. “We will be working with local officials to get the road opened back up as soon as possible.”

Park County flooding IMG 0911 7 16 26

<title>Flash Flood Damages Bridge, Cuts Off Only Access For Park County Residents | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Park County officials say a Wednesday flash flood nearly destroyed a bridge over the Shoshone River and cut off access for some county residents. “We watched a wall of debris build up and surging muddy water begin to overflow the banks,” said one witness.

Flash Flood Damages Bridge, Cuts Off Only Access For Park County Residents

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Wind turbines kill thousands of Wyoming birds and bats every year, but a wildlife official says that emerging technology might help lower the kill count.

In 2025, wind turbines killed 1,160 large birds, such as raptors and waterfowl, Wyoming Game and Fish habitat protection program supervisor Will Schultz told the state Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday.

Turbine blades also killed 9,152 small birds, such as meadowlarks, and 13,423 bats, Schultz said.

Fast-spinning turbine blades aren’t always the most deadly, he added.

“A lot of the mortality for birds and bats happens at very low wind speeds, because they’re flying around and they’re not paying attention to those blades,” Schultz said.

The official tallies might not represent all the birds and bats killed by wind turbines, he said. The deaths are recorded by people, usually private contractors, who occasionally walk around underneath turbines and count carcasses.

Sometimes, dogs are brought in to help make the counts more accurate, Schultz said.

Wyoming’s bird and bat losses are generally considered to be within the acceptable range by region-wide standards, he said.

More than 23,000 birds and bats were killed by wind turbines in Wyoming in 2025, according to a report presented Wednesday to the state Game and Fish Commission. “They’re flying around and they’re not paying attention to those blades,” said an official.

Danny Lawrence Robertson, 78