A million people – more than double Wyoming’s
population – are expected to visit the state’s portion of the
150-year-old Mormon Pioneer Trail this spring and summer. The
impending stampede has the Bureau of Land Management planning
temporary closure of some trail sections.
“At
this point nobody knows the size of the elephant,” says BLM
archaeologist Terry Del Bene in Rock Springs. “We’re very worried
about the overall impacts so much additional traffic will have on
the trail.”
The agency intends to allow a
commemorative wagon train to pass over as much of the original path
across Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah as possible. But this year’s
hefty snowpack and muddy spring thaw may play havoc with narrow
19th-century steel-rimmed wheels.
There are other
worries, too. “Along the trail between (the Wyoming towns of)
Atlantic City and Farson there’s only one bathroom,” says Del
Bene.
Most of the original trail from Nauvoo,
Ill., to Salt Lake City has been obliterated by modern development
or fenced off by private landowners. In Wyoming, however, there are
spots where visitors can still see 20-mile stretches of undisturbed
two-track ruts: LDS Church followers took 9,600 wagon teams
westward between 1847 and 1867.
*Chris
Smith
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline BLM braces for Mormon pioneers.
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