spectacular of the seven climbs we had made and the range in its northern third was granitic, while the southern two thirds is volcanic, a strange circumstance indeed. There was no cairn on the summit, so we left one. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring summit registers this weekend and we left our names only on the first peak climbed, scribbled with burnt matches on a gasoline receipt and placed in a plastic bag. Generally the roads are good, although sandy in a few places. Except for the northern part of the Paradise Range, all the peaks and ranges appear to be of volcanic origin. DESERT PEAKING IN WYOMING!!                      Bob Michael Between the Medicine Bows and the Big Horns in central Wyoming exists the only sizeable structural break in the Rocky Mountain chain. Through this gap poured the old emigrant trails, the first transcontinental railroad (now the Union Pacific), and the Lincoln Highway (now interstate 80). This high lonesome country is true desert, as a glance at a Wyoming rainfall chart will show. The average annual precipltation at most of the desert stations is in the 5-6-7" range. The big difference, of course, with our familiar southern deserts is that this is cold desert, generally cool in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. Thus, the evaporation rate is much less. But it is the very harshness of this winter that makes the Wyoming desert seem so sparse compared with the wonderful variety of plant life in the Sonoran. Sage, greasewood, and bunchgrass have almost sole domain over vast areas. A low growing, matt like prickly pear is the only cactus except for a cottonwood here and there. In an arroyo, only plants that hug the ground can make it in the vast windy steppes of the Great Divide. Yet this like all deserts has much beauty to offer to anyone with an explorer's eye. One fine fall weekend, some friends from Laramie and I were interested in climbing the highest peak in the Wyoming desert, the 10,037 ft. summit of the Ferris Range 40 miles north of Rawlins. The Wyoming desert is generally not as mountainous as our DPS sporting grounds, and far to the south the range is unmistakable because of the striking white chevrons that march along the black mountain front. This is actually a vertically-standing, resistant bed of limestone eroded away into free-standing white fins. Camp for the first night was made on the 7000 ft. high desert floor in a large area of beautiful cream-colored active sand dunes edged with late-blooming rabbitbrush on the south side of the range. At sundown, with the silhouette of the peaks against the purple dunes, the place had a nostalgic resemblance to the California desert in winter. Next morning we nearly got

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