{"id":81397,"date":"2019-08-22T07:59:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T14:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=81397"},"modified":"2019-08-22T07:59:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T14:59:05","slug":"the-red-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=81397","title":{"rendered":"The Red Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Famous as the site where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u2019s Hole in the Wall gang hung out, the Hole in the Wall area is quite the spectacle. The massive red wall seems to stretch for miles, only broken up when its wavy path is visually blocked by the wall\u2019s own protrusions and dips. In the distance, hills made of the same red sediment disappear into the blue and grey of faraway vegetation, and the only sounds that pervade the landscape are the wind and the mumbling of cattle, insects and birds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vista from on top of the wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was\nlucky enough to visit the Hole in the Wall via an odd route. While I had\npreviously attempted to reach the site by the normal designated roads, the\nmixture of bad weather and a computer malfunction in the car meant we had to\nturn back before reaching the base of the wall. So this time, we went in over\nthe top of the wall. Our goal was to see if the marked road was still\naccessible to trucks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road\nstarted off decent enough, with only a few tight spots and turns. But as we\napproached the edge of the wall, we found ourselves at our first really iffy\narea. The road sloped steeply downward with a layer of loose stone on top,\nmaking slipping inevitable. At this point, we switched drivers to that the member\nof our team who had been driving Wyoming roads since she was a kid could tackle\nthese sections with much more confidence and know-how than me or my supervisor,\nboth from the East. We made it down with little incident and continued on,\ngetting right up along the edge of the wall at one point. Then came the\nscariest slope of all; what felt like 50% slope up on that same broken and\nloose stone. I\u2019d be lying to say I didn\u2019t close my eyes and grip the seat,\nknowing that even if we made it up, we\u2019d have to take the same crazy slope back\ndown on the way back. While we made it, I didn\u2019t really relax for the rest of\nthe drive, which became much more pleasant but less stunning as we moved into\nthe grassy areas further in from the edge of the wall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in\none of these grassy areas, we ran into a rancher herding his cows. Well, more\nlike we were suddenly surrounded by cows and sat waiting in the truck until the\nrancher, some ways away, drove over in his ATV. It is clearly a lonely job,\nroaming the fields each day with cows and not interacting with people very\noften, so we all had a nice long chat. He also gave us a heads up on a mountain\nlion in the area, alongside a terrifying story of watching a hunter behaving\noddly in the distance who, upon questioning, said that he had been preparing to\nshoot the mountain lion lurking on a ledge just above the rancher if need be. Needless\nto say, we proceeded with even more caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time we finally made it to the end of the road, three hours had passed since we first entered the gate. Though only 13 miles, the landscape had made the passage difficult and safety standards necessitated caution. But the final destination was worth it. We wandered the landscape above the wall, locating the specific sites our team\u2019s archaeologist wanted to find. We found several pieces of flaked stone, likely broken off from the rocks used to form tools hundreds of years ago. Obviously, we left them at the sites, relatively confident that others would not find them, or if they did, have no idea what they were really looking at. <\/p>\n\n\n\n