Bridger Valley welcomes tens of thousands for rendezvous
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FORT BRIDGER — Everywhere the visitor gazes her eyes are met with intriguing characters clad in vintage attire. The smell of fire-cooked meat drifts through the canvas trading tents as the rhythmic beat of Native American drums keeps time.
The Fort Bridger Mountain Man Rendezvous came with the cooler temps to the Bridger Valley for yet another season. Celebrating its 45th year, the rendezvous has developed a reputation throughout the west.
With visitors coming from all over — many traveling hundreds of miles, this year’s rendezvous Booshway Bob Christensen said, “It’s the biggest campout in the Rockies.”
The boom of black powder rifles rocked the open air as knives and tomahawks soared all day long at the rendezvous.
“It would be impossible for anyone to engage in every event of the rendezvous since there is something going on all the time,” Christensen said of this year’s impressive lineup of captivating activities.
The Wyoming wind regularly gives the archery competitors a run for their money — trader dollars, that is — but this year was an exception to the rule.
“We had no wind at the archery competition. I don’t think I’ve seen that in five years,” Christensen said with a chuckle.
For nearly half a century the Fort Bridger Rendezvous has been making history while celebrating history. Situated on a historic site, the rendezvous paints a picture of what the area might have looked like a century ago.
“There’s something magical about this country,” Christensen said. “You can feel that Jim Bridger and other mountain men were here, that they walked this land.”
As is tradition, the streets adjacent to the event were lined with vehicles. This year the event and the Bridger Valley saw between 30,000 and 40,000 people. Hours of operation at the event end at 8 p.m. nightly and it is at this time that visitors who are not appropriately dressed in period clothing are asked to leave.
As the sun sets across the fields of historic Fort Bridger, a smoldering campfire sends up a stream of smoke from the middle of the mighty gathering of teepees and canvas abodes.
A quiet reverence settles on the camp and one is left wondering if this is truly 2017, or perhaps many moons ago, on a night when rugged mountain men gathered at the site.
