Carved in the 1800s, wagon ruts criscross Wyoming's South Pass National Historic Landmark, which could be mined. (Richard Collier, WSHPO)

Wyoming is a paradise for Oregon Trail buffs who call themselves "rut nuts." Yet any Yellowstone-bound tourist with a highway map can follow the trail etched into the landscape by an estimated half million emigrants in the mid-1800s: the deeply incised Guernsey Ruts, the weathered inscriptions on Independence Rock, and the famed South Pass through the Rockies.

"Some parts of the trail system have been captured by modern roads. Some are pristine and grown over," says Terry Del Bene, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Rock Springs, Wyo. "South Pass is one of the few places where you can stand in 2006 and 1846 at the same time. That's pretty special. We're running out of places like that."

Next month, Del Bene will co-lead a team of volunteer fieldworkers to South Pass to determine the boundaries of the area, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961. The long-planned survey has a new urgency: a proposed gold exploration project near the common trail corridor of the Oregon, California, Pony Express, and Mormon Trails.

BLM-managed public lands in Wyoming comprise more than 18 million acres of surface land and 30 million acres of subsurface estate. This tally includes 1,442 miles of national historic and scenic trails in the National Landscape Conservation System, more than any other state. But the federal agency is underfunded and understaffed, and it's facing increased pressure to allow energy and mining development. Last June, the National Trust named the system, which encompasses 26 million acres in 12 Western states, to its list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

Wagon ruts bisect Wyoming's McIntyre Ranch (Richard Collier, WSHPO)

Last year, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office received about 4,300 requests for comments on proposed projects from the BLM alone, notes Sara Needles, the office's deputy director. Among the most controversial is Canada-based Fremont Gold's plan to dig 200 test pits at Dickie Springs, located three miles from the South Pass summit.

"Under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, it is the federal agency's responsibility to resolve any adverse effect," Needles says. "We saw the test pits as an adverse effect: number one, for their ground disturbance, and number two, for the cumulative effect." However, due to the provisions of the Mining Act of 1872, the BLM and the courts do not view gold mining as a reasonably foreseeable outcome of exploration, so the digging is slated to begin in July.

"We did a memorandum of agreement with BLM and the company, which must perform on-site mitigation such as land contouring and revegetation," says Needles, whose office filed comments on the BLM's environmental assessment, along with the National Trust and other groups. What if Fremont finds gold and wants to begin a mining operation? "We would consider that a whole different undertaking," says Needles.

The National Trust's comment on the BLM's environmental assessment, written by Amy Cole of the Trust's Western Office, also questions the future impact on the South Pass National Historic Landmark if full-scale mining should proceed. "The proposed exploratory pits are as close as 1.3 miles from historic trails, and the majority of the project is actually inside of the South Pass ACEC (area of critical environmental concern) boundary," Cole notes. In fact, more than 53,000 acres of BLM land was designated an area of critical environmental concern in 1997, to further protect the South Pass' historic trails and the visual integrity of the surrounding area.

In October, the Alliance for Historic Wyoming joined the Wyoming Outdoor Council, the Sierra Club, and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance to file an appeal with the U.S. Dept of the Interiors Board of Land Appeals, contending that the BLM failed to consider the impacts that placer gold mining would have on the historic landscape. The board denied a temporary hold on the project but has yet to rule on the merits of the case, a lengthy process which is expected to take many months, if not years.

Near South Pass (Lesley Wischmann)

Meanwhile, the BLM has partnered with landowners in the area, the National Park Service, the Oregon-California Trails Association, and the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office on the South Pass study. "If we don't get the work done, people who are either pro-development or anti-development are going to force the issue in court," Del Bene says.  "Somebody will claim they're either in or out of South Pass, and the judge is going to scratch his head and say to the federal government, 'You'd better figure this out.'"

Among the volunteers participating in the South Pass Historical Study is trails historian Lesley Wischmann, who co-founded the preservation advocacy group Alliance for Historic Wyoming last year.  "I think we can get boundaries, and the state will honor them, because it would create such a furor if they didn't. Of course, I would be right at the top of the list of people promoting a furor."

Needles notes that in addition to providing on-site mitigation such as camouflaging and interpretive signage, developers who cause adverse effects are often required  to give something back to the public in the form of "off-site mitigation." One notable example is her office's Web site, which invites virtual tourists to trace the emigrants' route. A mix of video clips, audio files, photos, paintings, and text bring to life such scenes as the jubilation of reaching Independence Rock, the midway point of the 5,000-mile journey from Missouri.

"Nowadays, when we think about a trail, we think of some little walking path," says Wischmann, who wrote the Web site's text. "The emigrants talked about it as a hard road, a steep road, a dry road, a this road, a that road. I don't think I've ever seen an emigrant diary that refers to it as a trail. It's not a trail. It was a superhighway," she says. "That's why the ruts are so deep and lasting."

Tricia Vita is a journalist who lives in New York City and Norwich, Conn.                                                                                                                   

For more information about the South Pass Area Historical Study or volunteering for the June 19-30 fieldwork, call Terry Del Bene at (307) 352-0301 or Colleen Sievers at (307) 352-0324 in the BLM's Rock Springs, Wyo., Field Office, or visit its Web site at http://www.wy.blm.gov/newsreleases/2006/03/13rsfo-southpass.htm.

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