After our visit to the Sinks and the Rise, we headed out of Sinks Canyon State Park, through Lander and southwest on Highway 28 to the South Pass area. I was determined to find the South Pass, the actual spot where the emigrant wagons crested the Continental Divide on their ways to Oregon, California and Utah. After a few wrong turns, the directions that I got off of the BLM website finally started to make sense and we found ourselves driving the CRV on ruts left behind by hundreds of wagons headed west.
I had my picture taken at the monument placed by Ezra Meeker on June 24, 1906.
After our brief visit, we made our way back to Highway 28 and South Pass City, an historic old gold mining town. South Pass City was very interesting. In the late 1860s, at the peak of the mining boom, South Pass City had a population of about 2,000 people. Today, it's a largely a ghost town, with many of the buildings protected by the state of Wyoming as a historic site.
We walked through the town site and checked out many of the buildings,
including the old school
and the creepy jail.
We were even allowed to bring Rosie inside the buildings with us.
Besides the buildings, we checked out a small mine in the town site.
We also tried our luck in panning for gold.
Unfortunately, we discovered not a flake. On the way out of town we drove past the real money maker when town was thriving; the Carissa Mine.
It was a fun visit. We left South Pass and headed east to Saratoga, where we are camped at Saratoga Lake. Earlier, Sierra and I had a chance to soak in the hot springs.
It was Sierra's first experience in a hot spring and she really enjoyed it.
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