Wind River Valley Wyoming

Recent work involvement takes me to the interesting town of Thermopolis Wyoming.  Thermopolis is the town ~20 miles north of Boysen reservoir alongside the wind river valley.  Approaching the end of the reservoir from the south the typical Wyoming scrub was downright boring.  Then a couple of turns take you into a canyon that is quite spectacular.  The Boysen Damn on the north side of this large reservoir is the first thing one sees entering the Wind River Canyon.  Power lines from the damn hydroelectric generation station are evident as one approaches the canyon from the south.

The canyon is only a few miles long but contains outcroppings of rock from Paleozoic, Precambrian, and Cambrian rock formations. These formations are super old and some of the oldest ever.  It is such an interesting looking canyon that that the river has cut.  It really feels like you can watch the canyon crumbling in front of myself.  This causes such a sense of discontinuity as the rocks are so old the formations have stood for eons.

All this interesting geology makes for Thermopolis being a central area for geology nuts.  There are also dinosaur bones in the area so Wyoming has built and hosts a Dinosaur museum of specimens found in the area.  I hope that I can make a fun trip to Thermopolis in the future to see the active dinosaur digs and museum that is there currently.