Sheriff addresses canyon racing report

Recently, posts have appeared online regarding racing in Wind River Canyon.

Sheriff Jeremie Kraushaar noted there have been people through the years who have attempted to swerve between the line in the passing lines, but he’s not sure if the post regarding racing is legitimate or simply meant to get a rise out of people.

Though he wouldn’t necessarily call it racing, Kraushaar acknowledged there are instances of driving unsafe and driving at high speeds. A lot of the time, he said, people have a tendency to cut corners while driving the canyon because their speed is too fast, resulting in them driving in the oncoming lane around corners, and deputies do their best to curtail such behavior.

With the number of blind corners in the canyon, it can be difficult to see and stop for drivers coming from the other direction or fishermen crossing the highway. Kraushaar noted there are extremely high banks and those unfortunate enough to go down them in their vehicles are very hard to retrieve.

Kraushaar pointed out people who drive the canyon are good about calling in driving infractions, especially tourists who aren’t familiar with the canyon and might get spooked with someone driving quickly by them. Though passing drivers might still be driving at or under the speed limit, it can appear to a cautious first-timer that they are going much faster.

There has been “more than our fair share” of fatalities in canyon, with head-on wrecks and people being run off the road. It’s certainly a dangerous stretch of road, he said, and it always seems like there’s someone who’s going to make the decision to drive at extreme speeds through the canyon. But, to his knowledge, there is no set group that is using it as their personal racing track.