Review of Castle Gardens and Castle Gardens Petroglyphs, WY; August 26, 2017
Drove in there last Sunday. At the very beginning of the east/west access road, BLM was stopping every car, encouraging everyone to camp elsewhere.
The BLM guy said we could enter, but that we couldn't “go gonzo off trail” with our car, and that we'd have to stay on pre-existing ATV type roads, at the very minimum. He explained that there were no facilities available, too, but that we could park and camp if we could find available space, and good luck finding room. We explained we had already found a different site elsewhere, we were just going in to visit the petroglyphs, and then we would leave. As we toured the area, I counted 150 vehicles before I gave up trying to count them. This was mid-afternoon, Sunday, August 20, 2017. Cars kept streaming into the area for the next twenty hours, and I hope the place isn't ruined because of this convergence on the beautiful remote area that it is.
Within Castle Gardens Petroglyphs, proper, the terminus of the entire Castle Gardens area, 5.7-miles down the road, it has had a barbwire fence around it since the 1960s. This fencing was put in place to originally protect the fragile petroglyphs from cattle that would graze the region. Back then you were allowed to drive right into the petroglyphs area and park, literally, within 50 - 100 feet from them. Since then, vandalism and just lack of respect for the petroglyphs-site has prompted the BLM to upgrade the barbwire, and the petroglyphs, themselves, for quite some time, have all been fenced off with chain-link fencing. You now have to pass through a gate to enter, and that gate can be padlocked, and probably is padlocked at the end of each day after visiting hours.
The surrounding Castle Gardens hillsides are all available to camping, and it is the usual "what you bring in, you take out" primitive camping policy. No fires allowed.
Within the barbwire area, I'd estimate that potential minor FF treasure solves could number 1000. But, most likely, serious solves would be 100 or less. There are a lot of places to look, a lot of "quickly down" available spire-heights, and they are far enough off the paths to allow them to meet the restriction that Forrest imposed, which is that the treasure chest is not hidden near a human made trail. The question here is, how far away from a human made trail does the constraint of "near" apply? 100 feet? 200 feet? (who knows)
The petroglyphs-site is very safe. I worked my way in and around some spires, walked up near the top of them, and during this I only scared a few jack rabbits off. I saw no other animals.
A few people, working together as a team, could go in there, catalog the most likely places to search (i.e. where a spire exists, and at its base may be a cubby hole), and then do the entire search the following day. If they were to do this, I would hope that they would avoid walking on any of the grey "volcanic-like" stretches, because deep footprints would be left that could remain for hundreds of years. Don't ruin the place, it's very beautiful.
I also believe that the treasure chest could be alongside the Castle Gardens access road, where everyone is allowed to camp. (This would not be the petroglyphs-site barbwire enclosure.)
That five mile stretch may easily have 1000 "serious" possible solves, and would take a team days to search thoroughly.
Along that five mile stretch, at what I believe are these coordinates, 42.952419, -107.642692, is a spire/balancing-rock formation that had me do a double take. My head literally snapped around to get a better look of it as we passed it. If ever there was a "blaze" to be seen there, this one had it in spades. Kids were on top of it. Somehow they climbed up onto it. There were a few trees around its base. The top section of it was intense scarlet rock. It stood out like nothing else I saw that day. From the road it is around 600-feet, and a possible cattle trail comes within 140-feet. (this from taking measurements off of Google Maps)
Other activities and time constraints precluded me from looking around the base of that scarlet spire/balancing-rock, but that's the way it goes.
One last thing, here, concerning Castle Gardens having possible solves. (I've detailed a "general" solve several pages before this post (posts #3096 – #3101 of this thread) addressing why Castle Gardens might be a good location to search.)
I’ve never mentioned an additional clue, and I've never seen anyone else mention it either in this regard, but here it is, it follows the excerpted posts, inserted so that they reset the context.
Prior Post Excerpts
In TTotC, the only color photograph in the book is of his wife, Peggy Jean. And he writes a poem about her, too.
The very last photograph in the book, a full page photograph, is of his father as a boy. It is the best photograph in the entire book.
But the most heartfelt chapter in the book is The Long Ride Home. This chapter is the one where Forrest encounters his first significant "halt" in life, perhaps his lowest of lows that he discusses when recollecting his youth. I suppose it could be argued that this is where his WWWH exists. He mentions that he had to bribe a couple of Mexican officials to get Skippy home. Mexican is capitalized, most all Mexicans are brown-skinned, home is mentioned, and when everything is taken together "home of Brown" can be derived.
Could this chapter be the first two clues solved?
"In Wyoming, between Shoshoni and Casper, we had some kind of slight misunderstanding and I told him to just stop the dumb car and let me out."
"I remember sitting down beside the road for about an hour to consider my lot in life and ponder if anything was left in my future."
WWWH is a metaphor for life's comforts abruptly ending, and it aptly applies as life's comforts came to a screeching "halt" for Forrest for a couple hours that day, as he watched his brother, Skippy, putt-putt away in his Model B Ford, leaving Forrest behind with no money, no coat, no shoes, and to make matters worse, it started to get cold.
And to think they were having such a good time together just earlier in the trip.
Forrest was perhaps 15 years old, Skippy was maybe 17. The year, best I can tell, was 1945, WW2 had just ended, though the documents were not signed until September.
This all took place most likely on Route 20/26, and Castle Gardens Petroglyphs is adjacent to the south.
So, the above has Forrest’s personal WWWH occurring between Shoshoni and Casper, and we have a “canyon down,” by name, resulting from Canyon Creek which runs alongside Castle Gardens, and which is also between Shoshoni and Casper. But look what else can be derived from The Long Ride Home chapter, which is the additional clue I alluded to above:
“Looking back now, after almost sixty-five years, I have fond memories of that road trip. Skippy died in a scuba diving accident in Cozumel, where they found him in ninety feet of water with his weights on.”
Forrest has said that the treasure chest is hidden in a special place to him, and I believe it ties into his brother, who he undoubtedly adored:
“I have fond memories of that road trip.”
Also, there is:
"After another hour or so, off in the far distance, I saw Skippy coming back for me. I didn't think he would and neither of us said a word. I just crawled in and we drove off. I loved him forever after that and we never fought again."
So, these few lines, combined, get us to a “special place” for Forrest like no other place in the book.
But we can tie in yet another half stanza from the poem with The Long Ride Home chapter:
There’ll be no paddle up your creek,
Just heavy loads and water high.
"Skippy died in a scuba diving accident" (There'll be no paddle up your creek,) "with his weights on" (Just heavy loads) "in ninety feet of water" (and water high.)
This all adds a little more oomph to a possible Castle Gardens solve because everything neatly fits to metaphorically paraphrase Skippy's drowning. By employing these lines from the poem metaphorically, there is no need to have an actual creek without a paddle, one that would involve heavy loads and water high… all of which Castle Gardens has none of.
"His luck failed him in the end and it didn't surprise me at all. At age fifty, he was plucked from life at the moment of his greatest blossom, and I knew he wouldn't go in any normal or mundane way.”
Skippy died in 1978, roughly ten years before Forrest would have begun dreaming up The Thrill of the Chase and writing any possible version of the eventual poem.
By Forrest tying Skippy into the poem, directly, perhaps it is Forrest’s way to “smooth the grass” on the tragedy of his brother’s untimely death, to pay tribute to Skippy, to make his life immortal, too.
