Trip to the historic Hole in the Wall

You've read about it in history books.

You've seen it in the movies.

You've heard the tall tales.

But have you actually ever seen the Hole in the Wall?

I was fortunate enough this past weekend to join 46 other folks for a special tour of the "Den of Thieves" conducted by one of the premier historians of the area, Clay Gibbons.

Our day trip to the Hole in the Wall began early, gathering to carpool in Thermopolis at 7:30 a.m. Once Gibbons arrived, we were off on a once in a lifetime adventure.

The first stop of the day was at the south end of the tunnels in Wind River Canyon, where Gibbons showed us the spot where two tectonic plates collided billions of years ago, paving the way for the creation of the Rocky Mountains.

If you stop just south of the tunnels, look across the river toward the north and you will see black rocks pushing up from the ground. That is the fault line where the two plates met 3.2 billion years ago.

We were lucky enough to have Tom Arnold, a known geologist of this area, along for the ride and Arnold went into even deeper detail about the force that was created at the time.

You've probably noticed as you've driven through that particular area the 'lightning bolt' type streaks of white and pink going vertically up the walls. These were created 3.7 billion years ago when the original cracks in the rock were filled from below.

As Gibbons commented, "You never know what you're looking at until you know what you're looking at."

Our caravan headed toward Casper, making a left turn toward the tiny town of Arminto, about 46 miles from Shoshoni.

Back in the day, Arminto had been a bustling hub of activity, shipping cattle and sheep out of the area.

A short way down the dirt road you will notice a small house with two front doors that is clad with what appears to be sheets of old fashioned tin ceiling.

Gibbons pointed out the two doors, an unusual feature to be sure, suggesting that the probable reason for the two front doors in one house was most likely a sneaky little trick done during the days when the Federal government was giving away acreage to anyone willing to homestead in the west.

The Homestead Act of 1862 granted 160 acres of land, for free, to anyone who signed up, including the free slaves of the period.

The caveat was the homesteader had to build a home on the property to claim the land. Gibbons believes the two doors in one structure was probably a husband and wife who each claimed 160 acres and built a single structure at the center of the two parcels, adding a wall and two front doors, to create 'separate homes', thereby each having legally homesteaded their parcel.

The same trick could have been used between brothers or partners, too, allowing them to own twice as much land between them.

Similar structures can be found throughout Wyoming and across the West if you know what you're looking for.

The next stop on the day's adventure was the gate to the Hole in the Wall, a 57,000 acre private cattle and horse ranch owned by the Willow Creek Ranch, just five miles from Kaycee.

In order to proceed from this spot, you must gain permission from the Willow Creek Ranch.

Fortunately, Gibbons has free reign to explore the area with the ranch's permission, including keys to all the locked gates you encounter along the way.

A few miles down the gravel road we paused to take a look at something that, at first glance, simply looked like a road grader had pushed rocks out of the way, leaving them in piles along a line.

Those little piles were actually cairns left behind by the Native Americans as they traveled the area.

The natives frequently traveled from the southern portion of Wyoming all the way to Montana and the best way to keep everyone on the trail was by stacking rocks into small piles known as cairns.

They would leave the stacked rocks along the trail all within sight of each other, traveling from cairn to cairn on their journey. Again, if you don't know what it is, you don't see it.

There were also several teepee rings in the area, flat stones laid out as the base of the teepee. The area was known as a Sioux war trail and was used for 1,500 years.

If you look behind you, you will see a long island of rock known at Rough Lock Hill.

Gibbons explained the name was derived from the need to keep the wagons from overtaking the team of horses while coming down a mountainside, also known as a rough lock.

Wagons would sometimes gain so much speed coming down a mountainside that they would overtake the horses causing a catastrophic crash. To prevent this, the driver would do what was called a 'rough lock', attaching a chain to the rim of the rear wagon wheels and the wagon itself to slow down the movement of the wagon, stopping any skidding.

Fortunately, modern automobiles have four-wheel drive to eliminate that issue as we headed out on dirt roads and what sometimes amounted to simply two tracks across a grassy field to get to our final destination.

Before long, we get our first glimpse of the Red Wall, a 30 to 35 mile wall that parallels the Big Horn Mountains.

In Hot Springs County we are accustomed to seeing red dirt and red hills at every turn, but the absolute massiveness of the Red Wall is a spectacle in and of itself. You can see every layer Mother Nature laid down punctuated by streaks of black here and there, an indication of water roaring over the cliffs for millions of years.

Lunchtime brought us down into a beautiful valley of green with a creek running past, the sight of the original Hole in the Wall cabin.

Gibbons kept everyone enthralled after lunch with his tales of the Johnson County Cattle Wars, Nate Champion's last stand as he and his partner were ambushed at their cabin by 60 men, how rustling was as easy as changing a brand and other assorted tales of the area.

Hopping back in our modern carriages, windows down, covered in dust, we made our way closer and closer to the Hole in the Wall.

At times, there were antelope, running at full speed beside the Jeep, other times coming straight at us so fast it was incredible. Everything was so green. One of the people on the tour compared the beauty of the grass against the red of the cliffs to a carpet of velvet.

If you don't know what you're looking for, you won't see it.

The Hole in the Wall is nothing like the movies tell you it is.

Fortunately, Gibbons pointed out what really is nothing more than a trail that the outlaws could slip between the rocks, becoming invisible to the posse in a matter of moments. With a bubbling spring between the rocks, they pretty much had all they needed right there to hole up for as long as they had to.

There was just one way in and one way out. Butch, Sundance, Kid Curry and Tom O'Day along with the rest of the gang were safe there between their adventures in cattle rustling and bank robbing. No lawman ever successfully entered the Hole in the Wall to capture the outlaws during its more than 50 years of active use.

To say the view is breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe the country you're surrounded with. Green grass, red dirt and blue sky that feels like it goes on forever. A view so immense that it's actually hard to come up with words to describe.

If you missed this incredible journey, take heart, for Gibbons does the tours occasionally, but the number of people allowed to go is limited to keep the area as pristine as the day Butch and Sundance rode 'hell bent for leather' along the prairie.

Gibbons is a wonderful storyteller with a vast amount of knowledge on the area and the men who claimed it as theirs. You can hear those stories, too, if you know what to look for.

I'll help you with that.

Gibbons now does western history podcasts on the Internet and you can listen to them on iTunes or at claygibbons.libsyn.com.