Nevada Sage

Added some pics of this year’s successful Antelope hunt.

Check the image gallery for “Tony Antelope…” under “Hunting”.

Yeah – I’m going to post more often. Or not.

March 2012, a scant 8 months after arriving back in the Great Basin and the last post…

In the intervening 3+ years since the last post much has happened, but with the exception of having to learn new things at work nothing of particular note.

One ‘newer’ thing which has been fun is my GoPro camera. Might post about that.

Maybe in 3 years.

It’s been a very long time since the last post, but so much has transpired in the intervening time.

After several years of shakeups in the company I work for, we were finally able to return home to the Silver State.

Things being what they are, we were quite pleased to have been able to sell our house in Colorado (greater Denver) and return to Nevada.

After a whirlwind 17 day escrow we were able to pack everything and get it out and on it’s way to the Silver State. It was a haul to say the least.

We have now settled into our new home, which is approximately one half mile from the house we lived in when we moved to Colorado in December 2005.

Now that things are starting to settle in at work, I hope to be posting more.

Certainly more than every 18 months…….

Approximately a year ago a colleague recommended the book Fall: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town. The book was written by a (now) newspaper editor who lived in the town where and when the events in the book took place.

I work in Denver, and the Wyoming town where the book events occurred is only a few hours from my residence.

The story is fairly intense to those who may read book, and is intense – and more – for those who experienced the events first hand.

Book Synopsis:
Two local criminals abduct 11 year old Amy Burridge and her 19 year old sister Becky Thomson. They drive the sisters to a secluded location. They murder the younger sister, then rape and attempt to murder the older sister.

This was in Wyoming where secluded can take on an entirely new meaning. Being from Nevada, I understood “secluded”.

The murder and attempted murder took place in September 1973 at the Fremont Canyon bridge which lies between the Alcova and Pathfinder reservoirs. The bridge is over 100 feet above the North Platte River which runs through the canyon. The canyon walls at the bridge location are sheer granite.

Eleven year old Amy was murdered by being thrown from the bridge. I will not go into any further detail regarding this – read the book.

Becky’s assailants savaged her then threw her off the bridge.

She did not die.

Becky managed to survive the fall then fight her way through the next 20 years of her life.

Nearly 20 years after her horrific ordeal, however, her Demons caught up with her. Becky plummeted to her death by jumping off of the same bridge from which she had been thrown and left for dead nearly 20 years earlier. As stated in an illustration in the town newspaper, Becky was murdered in 1973, and died in 1992.

Last weekend my wife and I decided to take a trip to Cody Wyoming. To get to Cody, we had to pass through the town where the events in Fall took place.

I could not drive past this place and not go to the bridge.

After driving several miles down a 2 lane road, the bridge appears as you round a bend.

Near the right end of the bridge is the location from which the victims were thrown. It’s 110 feet above the water. Note the talus in the bottom right section of the image.

Broken and bleeding, Becky was able to crawl onto the talus field then took all night crawling up the chute and onto the road surface where she was found by passing motorists the next morning. The 2D image cannot properly convey that the “chute” she crawled up is virtually vertical. Look at the water’s edge in the image and you can just see the face of the talus field.

To give a better sense of proportion to the bridge image above, I stood on the bridge for a photo. I’m 6’3″ and I’m also standing on an 8″ curb. The bridge is large, and this image helps to put the depth of the canyon in better perspective.

A collateral victim not mentioned in the book is the canyon itself. One might easily see the location as a beautiful place. If only you didn’t know what happened there.

An intense story.

Read the book.

Weather permitting, I put on a backpack and take a hike every weekend.

Today I went to the head of the trail I typically hike and ran across something which seemed 400 years out of date.

The images say it all. This is not a gag. Needless to say, I am looking for another ‘favorite’ hiking spot….