This 30-square-mile area was a focal point for the discovery of gold in 1842 and the resultant 1867 gold rush that settled this part of Wyoming.
From Casper, drive south approximately 9 miles on State Highway 251 to the top of Casper Mountain, where the state road ends and County Road 505 begins. Continue on this paved road for approximately 3 miles, where it turns into a maintained dirt road.
This area is just west of a segment of Thunder Basin National Grassland. Although the lower elevations here are grasslands, stands of ponderosa pines line the ridges and cover the uplands. Some intermittent creeks run near the campground.
This area is comprised of two wilderness study areas, one of which is open to ORV use.
The Medicine Bow/Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grasslands (TBNG) encompasses nearly 3 million acres from the north and eastern borders of Wyoming, south to the I-70 corridor that traverses northcentral Colorado.
The Bighorn National Forest encompasses 1, 107, 671 acres in the Big Horn Mountains of north-central Wyoming.
Located in the Wind River and Absaroka mountain ranges of northwestern Wyoming, lies the 2.4 million acre Shoshone National Forest. Elevations range from 4, 600 feet near Cody to 13, 804 feet atop Gannett Peak, the highest point in Wyoming.