Steamboat Mountain

date?

By: Bob Michael

DESERT PEAKING IN "AMERICA'S GOBI"
Wyoming's Red Desert
Steamboat Mountain (8,683') Steamboat Mountain I've never been to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, but, from pictures I've seen, the Red Desert of southwest Wyoming must be similar. Both places are deep in the interior of a continent; very far north for a desert (both are about 42°N); brutally cold in the winter; not as hot in the summer as "typical" deserts; not too mountainous, but with great snow peaks (the Altay, the Wind Rivers) in the distance; places of Mesozoic badlands, space and solitude, wind and wild horses. The Red Desert (it's not all that red; more greenish-gray where I was) also sits atop a lot of oil and gas. A recent trip to inspect some drilling operations put me irresistibly close to the highest peak in the desert, Steamboat Mountain (8,683'). This peak is a huge lave-capped mesa on the north flank of the Rock Springs Uplift, about 30 miles as the crow flies northeast of Rock Springs. The Continental Divide - or its west fork - runs over the top. (The Divide loses its sense of purpose once it falls off the Wind Rivers, and splits into two halves that enclose a large basin of internal drainage.) A spectacular sand erg - rivaling any dunes in California - laps up on the mountain's west flank.

I bagged the peak on a threatening day in early June. Of course, you don't want to get caught in rain on any dirt roads, but doubly so in this country where there is lots of clay (mucky old Cretaceous seafloor) and you can easily get 50 miles from pavement. Luckily, the weather was all bluster and no precip. The mountain is reached by dirt roads off US 191 north of Rock Springs. These roads are kept up pretty well by the BLM because of all the oil and gas activities. A steep road (easy 2WD when dry, unthinkable if wet) goes up the side of the mesa to a good starting point on its northeast flank. A jeep road heads up a pretty valley with a spring; because of the altitude and northern exposure, it looks more like the Rockies than the desert, with groves of limber pine and aspen and some typical Rocky Mountain wildflowers. The road soon fizzles to an awful 4WD track that tops out on the large summit area and meanders towards the high point, which is about 1/2 mile south of the track in wind-beaten sage. A register was placed at the summit, which would have had a jaw-dropping view of the icy peaks of the southern Wind Rivers except for an uncharacteristic haziness and the flat gray dull light filtering through a heavy overcast. To the southeast, a wide belt of creamy sand dunes advanced easterly out of nowhere into the nothingness of the Great Divide Basin. One of the loneliest places I've ever been; it will be a long, ~ time before ~ desert sprouts golf courses and factory outlet malls.