Run the Red: The Race for a Wild Wyoming Landscape

Wyoming’s landscapes come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and textures. Some, like Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, have risen to global acclaim for their dramatic and inspiring features. But few realize that Wyoming takes its name from a far more-subtle landscape.

The name “Wyoming” probably came from a Delaware Indian word meaning “at the big plains,” and there’s no better example to represent this than Wyoming’s Red Desert, in the southern foothills of the Wind River Mountains.

These 600,000 acres of sweeping country are blanketed with sage, rich with wildlife, steeped in cultural significance, and teeming with backcountry recreational opportunities.

Each spring, NOLS takes students into the Red Desert to teach horsepacking courses from Three Peaks Ranch. As one of the largest unfenced areas in the contiguous United States, there are few other places where we, or anyone, can ride the open range for days without crossing a major road or development.

In the last year, though, hundreds of oil and gas leases were offered across the desert by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the State of Wyoming. If developed, these leases would call into question the ability of NOLS to continue operating on the landscape.

What’s NOLS doing about this?

Our Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability team has been working hard to address the threat of oil and gas development in the Red Desert. We’ve met with the Governor’s staff, talked with BLM officials, and voiced our concerns as outfitters to local decision makers. Our efforts are slowly gaining traction, promoting a new narrative around the importance of the sustainable recreation economy in Wyoming.

But winning the struggle to keep the Red Desert open and undeveloped requires more than conversations with Wyoming’s leaders; it requires building broader public support and awareness. With the fate of the Red Desert still largely undecided, our next steps are to bring people out on this landscape to race across it.

If we have learned anything over fifty-four years of NOLS experiences, it’s that the landscapes we operate on speak for themselves, if we can get people out there to experience them.

Run the Red Desert Race will be held at Historic South Pass City on Wyoming’s newly created Public Lands Day, September 28. You’re invited to join us and see what this landscape is made of.

Join the Run the Red race and learn more about Wyoming’s Red Desert.

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the Summer 2019 edition of The leader