Cultural Heritage

Cultural Heritage. . High in mountains where the natural environment changes swiftly, eroding or burying the past, for how long a time can vestiges of man's frailer achievements withstand obliteration? No matter!, for here man has brought or developed cultures which are already heritages--treasured in memory if lost in substance. , Presented is a natural scene, a park surrounded by forest and parted by a virgin stream. But it is crossed by a road and also by a zigzag fence of rotting logs. Reconnaissance might reveal a campsite of prehistoric aborigines or discover a beaver trap once the property of a mountain man. Thus, is a cultural environment incorporated with the natural one. , Indians hunted these environs far into historic times. From exits of Union Pass, tribal trails branch in all directions. The road mentioned above, elsewhere explained, might cover ruts made by travois. Camps of mountain tribes, their chipping grounds, drivelines and animal traps exist throughout the area. Earliest among far wester fur traders came this way--possibly Colter in 1807, certainly Astorians under Hunt in 1811. Mountain men camped here, Jim Bridger surely during the 1820's and, much later, guiding Captain Raynolds in 1860. Others, whose camping grounds may some day ascertained, include: Bonneville, soldier, explorer, fur trader, enigma -- recording carefully in 1833; Gannett, of the 1879's Geologic Survey with Yount his hunter-packer; Togwotee, a Shoshone Sheep Eater; Wister, famous author; Bliss, horse thief, Anderson, precursory forester; and, not far distant, Sheridan a general and Author a president of the United States. , The zigzag fence of rotting logs is a vestige of the continuing culture. Pastoral in nature it relates to the 1920 decade when cattlemen, under U.S. Forest Service permit, fenced rich grasslands to hold beef herds, fattening for the market.