Lander and Shoshone National Forest

As we approached Lander, we first saw the "Sleeping Bear Ranch" RV Park, with a relocated ghost town, in the countryside about 8 miles south of Lander. It looked nice, but we decided we'd try the one in Lander first, and missed it on our first pass, so we ended up doing a little tour. Lander is a neat little town! I think the very large presence of the NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) headquarters has injected the town with some youthful culture. A restaurant called Cowfish was packed, and there were neat looking coffee shops and bookstores. We turned around and went into the Sleeping Bear RV Park.

We chose the Sleeping Bear because Devin is active on a forum for our new 2007 JK model Jeep (JK-forum.com), and the owner of this park, who goes by "Papa Bear" on the forum, is a Jeep nut, er, afficionado ;-p, and one of the moderators as well. When Devin posted that we were traveling through the west with our Jeep and asked for suggestions on where to go, he had invited us to stay at his RV Park and said he would take us out and show us some trails near Lander. We didn't really know what to expect, but we were immediately welcomed as long-lost friends and part of the Sleeping Bear Family. Dave (Papa Bear's real name) has a new 2007 JK Wrangler Rubicon, and has already done quite a few "mods" on it (Jeeper word for modifications). It has huge 35 inch wheels with bead locks (extra bolts that lock the bead of the tire down so that when you air it down for rock crawling, the tire won't flex so much it pops off the rim). He had it re-geared to go with the larger wheels. It had a lift kit which made it even higher, he had a swing-away spare tire holder on the aftermarket rear bumper, and he was waiting for his new front bumper. He had all four doors off, and I have to admit, it looked pretty sweet. Devin had Jeep Envy. Ours looks a little wimpy next to it. But Devin (and I) would have trouble getting into and out of one lifted so high, and we probably won't need all the extra features on that one. It's a Jeep that could do just about anything, though.

The RV Park is nice - up on a hill overlooking Lander with trees and an irrigation ditch of water running behind it. It is convenient for both town and back road explorations of the beautiful areas around Lander, which include the Wind River Range, many lakes and rivers, Red Canyon Wildlife Refuge, The Sinks, and more. The best part, though, were Dave and Chris, the owners, who are genuinely warm and friendly folks, and love sharing their considerable knowledge of the area with others.

Dave was excited to meet us in person, and immediately treated us like old buddies. He was going to take a couple, Scott and Marcy from Michigan, up to a trailhead for a backbacking trip the next day, and invited us to tag along, and we could do some exploring on the way back in our Jeeps.

We had a great day driving around up in the mountains, saw the backpackers off at the trailhead up in the Shoshone National Forest, and came back past numerous streams, lakes, meadows and great campsites, through Red Canyon, which is quite beautiful and is now an Elk refuge owned by the Nature Conservancy. Below is a slideshow of our day:

Dave apparently knows everyone in Wyoming! He's the kind of guy that's so friendly and nice, he'd probably literally give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He also obviously really cares about this place - he has an attitude of stewardship about these back road areas and will stop to pick up trash or let people know if they are not behaving properly (driving too fast, for example). As we drove along following him, he would stop and talk to several of the people we passed, and we got out and met the local off-road ranger, who was an old friend of his. It was surprising to us how heavily used this area was - there aren't that many towns nearby, yet the Shoshone National Forest/Bridger-Teton National Forest area of the Wind Rivers was being enjoyed by scores of campers, anglers, ATVers, hikers, backpackers, boaters and just sight-seers like us. It had more recreational use than the Sierra National Forest, where I used to live and work, and that is near several major cities and has many beautiful, accessible places to camp, hike, fish, and explore as well.

After a fun day out exploring, we came back to the RV Park and their evening barbecue and campfire, and hung around and swapped stories and enjoyed the beautiful sunset until quite late. Dave and Chris are creating a neat community of campers at their park, getting folks out of their RVs and around the campfire, which makes it more like camping used to be. We would definitely recommend a stay at their park if you are going through Lander!

See more photos of our Lander explorations - click here