Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The madness in Wyoming

Wyoming’s population almost tripled for a day during Monday’s eclipse, according to early estimates.
Initial estimates by the Wyoming Department of Transportation reported a 494,000-car increase over the normal five-year average for that day. But they were updated Tuesday morning to show that overall traffic increased by 536,000 vehicles, almost 68 percent more than normal.
“If you go by yesterday... and figure two people in every car, you could say roughly a million people,” said Jeff Goetz, a public information officer for the department. “I don’t see why not.”

Traffic counts showed an increase of 217,000 on Sunday, but the big push was Monday morning. Vehicles lined up at a standstill on parts of Interstate 25 near Cheyenne and Glendo. Some reported it took 10 hours to get from Orin Junction to Fort Collins, a 160-mile drive.
For the dramatic increase in people, WYDOT reported relatively few problems.
“We still had people pulling over on the interstate, which we knew we would have. Depending on traffic, we knew all along no matter where you were trying to get to, when that time came, that’s where you would be viewing it from, which for a lot of people was stuck in traffic on I-25,” Goetz said. “Overall I didn’t have reports of anything major.”

The biggest increases were in Laramie County with 209,394 more vehicles than normal, according to a WYDOT news release. Other busy counties included Converse, with 40,220 more vehicles, Albany with 34,692 and Fremont with 32,973.
The traffic counts also don’t reflect all traffic movement in the state as all roads don’t have counters," the WYDOT release stated.
Keep checking trib.com for more on impacts of the eclipse on Wyoming.

Three or four of them probably bought a cold drink and maybe even a hamburger, too!

Congrats to Wyoming: Eclipses bring money.

But just think of all of that pollution that was put in the air.

I bet someone will come out with data that shows that the ice caps are melting now.

Pure BS, we went to Jackson Sunday AM. Roads empty. Jackson no busier than any August weekend. Watched the eclipse from the Hospital parking lot ALONE.

Most motels in Jackson displayed "vacancy" signs.

More media hysteria.

AND btw for the population to triple would require 1.2 million eclipse tourists.

A nice Charcuterie and chilled Chardonnay back at the rented chalet for viewing the solar eclipse....$1000

Sitting in traffic on I25 and actually viewing the solar eclipse.....priceless. 😁

A killing was made by all, Rocky, no doubt about it. We went down town Monday evening for an ice cream cone and the mob was unbelievable, couldn't get close to anywhere that sold food of any kind. Probably the biggest shot in the arm our state has ever received.

Wasn't "James Essex" the black murderer who killed several police officers and firemen in New Orleans in 1972!!

Mark James Robert Essex


In this case, "JamesEssex" is the gender confused geriatric TROLL from Pinedale Wy..... Larry Root.

I drove in from Denver International Airport last night, and the southbound traffic on I-25 was wall to wall all the way to exit 13 in Wyoming, where I exited at 10 p.m. Southbound traffic usually disappears once you get past the northernmost Fort Collins exit, forty-five miles from town, but not last night.

Monday evening I drove from Rawlins to Riverton. There was a non stop line of cars until Jeffery city. There was a state trooper directing traffic at muddy gap.

It took my stepson a little over 8 hours from Thermopolis to Evanston . And, he took a cut-off or two! memtb

Ah, ha!!! I wondered. I noticed in his post that he watched the eclipse on Sunday.

What a douche. Always has been - always will be. Go to Hell Larry.

A lot of ado about a shadow.....

Agreed. I think all the hoopla and craziness exhibited by the public was at least as interesting as the event itself.

Wow, if there needs to be a director at MUDDY GAP, it's a busy one. Cheyenne not a surprise, but Jeff City and Riverton, maybe those were Cheyenne escapees.

The clustermuck from Fort Collins on up, that was all Denverites escaping in their lemming mode. I saw that all the time when I lived in Steamboat. Friday nights heading west and Sunday nights going east it was always busy, often jammed.

In a solar eclipse, you don't see a shadow. You see (or actually don't see) the moon itself. You are in the shadow but don't see it like you do with a lunar eclipse.

At any rate, looking at pictures or seeing a partial isn't the same. Not even close. The instant it goes total, everything changes. It's wild to see it in person. You're watching a sliver of sun getting smaller and smaller, then suddenly it's gone and a brilliant corona shoots out all around it. Anyone who took the effort to see it got a great once-in-a-lifetime show that we will remember a long time.

" Anyone who took the effort to see it got a great once-in-a-lifetime show that we will remember a long time."

unless you were blessed with heavy cloud cover, like me.

Sorry to hear that. Observing nature isn't an exact science.

I'm hoping to see some video of the penumbra racing towards a position at some altitude, at 1K MPH,....
Glad that this was enjoyed by so many, went as smoothly (and profitably) as it did, and would have loved to have been there myself.

GTC