Return to Vedauwoo

Some of the most formative times of my life were spent living in Laramie, Wyoming. Before moving there for college, I thought it was a desolate, forsaken place. Those impressions were based solely on what I saw on annual bus rides there for competitive swimming meets, where we would enter the town from the north, coming from my hometown of Casper. Upon relocating to a dorm room at the University of Wyoming, I soon discovered two of Laramie’s outdoor gems, the Snowy Range and Vedauwoo.

Vedauwoo is essentially an intriguing pile of rocks about fifteen miles east of Laramie, near the high portion of I-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne. The rocks are coarse, pink Sherman granite, adorned with colorful lichen, and host a number of rock climbs, from fun and easy to quite challenging. For roughly fourteen years of my life I spent probably an average of 20+ days a year exploring and rock climbing there, before leaving Laramie in 1994. I have only returned a handful of times since then.

I was excited to recently spend a couple days camping at Vedauwoo with my wife and some old friends. They all intended to do some climbing, but I had something else in mind. Unlike in the past, I would use my camera to try to capture some of the magic of the place, rather than to simply document rock climbing activities. It would be wonderful to spend more time in the area, to catch the rocks and their surroundings in various weather and lighting conditions, but I did what I could with what I had: