Wyoming
Permanent Fix For Teton Pass — Rebuild The Mountain — Could Be Done…
Now that Teton Pass has been temporarily repaired and commuting life is back to normal, motorists have moved on while they putter up and over the steep mountain pass.
Less than three weeks after a section of mountain dropped off and took part of Wyoming Highway 22 with it, the temporary fix was done.
For the Wyoming Department of Transportation, the work is just getting started.
WYDOT was heralded and lauded as much as a government entity can be after fixing a vital stretch of roadway in record time. Typically, tempers flare and patience wanes when travelers encounter “Roadwork Ahead” signs. Not as much this time.
WYDOT played the hero when it promised a temporary bypass within three weeks of the road failure June 8 when 200 feet of Highway 22 washed down an embankment.
The department delivered, and the pass was back open 20 days later on June 28.
“I think every Wyoming resident or regional commuter can be proud of their transportation department,” WYDOT Director Darin Westby said. “WYDOT staff from a variety of departments and areas of expertise rolled up their sleeves and got to work for the people. A master-level class in public service.”
Still, a long-term solution looms, and questions about what that might look like. A bridge? A reroute or redesign of the road? A tunnel? Or, is the answer staring everyone right in the face?
Plans now are for WYDOT to rebuild the mountain and the road on its original spot. Basically, rebuild the mountain.
Dips And Curves
Why can’t the temporary fix be the permanent solution?
The tighter, steeper curve constructed inside the old switchback appears to be perfectly functional, especially with qa speed reduction to 20 mph that tends to slow down some of the more impatient locals trying to get to work on time.
“Well, it’s a little bit steeper and curved a little tighter than what we want. It’ll do for temporary road, and works fine that way, but we can’t leave it like that,” said WYDOT resident engineer Bob Hammond.
Using less real estate for the new curve means the grade has increased to about 11.2%. The entirety of the pass is a consistent 10% grade, which is about as steep as engineers like to go when it comes to ascending and descending.
Already at 10%, runaway trucks have been a problem barreling into the tiny burg of Wilson at the base of the pass in Wyoming.
A new high-tech truck arrester system was installed in 2021 to replace the old sand barrel runaway truck ramp. It has been used more than once since it opened.
A curve is another road aspect that has federal guidelines.
First, centripetal force is carefully measured. That’s the leaning energy passengers feel when they are pushed to one side of a vehicle or the other. Depending on the banking of the road, a speed advisory is sometimes posted ahead of tighter curves.
“You look at what is the superelevation of the curve, the banking. I think the bank is about 4-5% there. You could go as high as 6% with a bank,” Hammond said.
Keeping A Close Eye
WYDOT geologists were monitoring the known problem section of Highway 22, dubbed after the catastrophic failure the Big Fill, decades before it completely collapsed.
Slight movement was detected and fixed every once in a while, particularly during a very wet spring.
What happened leading up to June 8 was the perfect storm of variables, experts report. The ultimate failure was attributed to heavier-than-normal runoff which compromised the 70 feet of fill put in place by engineers in the 1960s when the road was built.
Over the years, water seeped into the fill material causing increasing instability. It all came to a head last month.
Intensified monitoring continues at the Big Fill. Two distinct methods are in place. A nearby radar trailer scans the new curve bypass in real time. If it detects any movement, an alert is sent to department officials.
In addition, the geologist department of WYDOT has installed an inclinometer, a device that measures slope movement. For now, it relays data a couple of times a day, but once more parts arrive the system will function continuously day and night.
To date, scientists are content with what they are seeing from soil samples taken from several drill holes. That material has been sent to Cheyenne for more in-depth classification.
Time + Money = Permanent Fix
WYDOT busied itself immediately following the reopening of the pass with plans for a long-term fix.
Forget a bridge or extensive realignment of the highway. WYDOT plans at this juncture to simply put the road back where it was.
“It’s really the only idea, without realigning the entire road for miles. That would take forever to do,” Hammond said. “Really, there is nothing preventing us from going back to old alignment. That old fill was the weak link in the whole thing.”
WYDOT administrators were already eyeing the permanent solution when they opted for the tighter inner curve short-term fix. It will allow future work without interruption of traffic.
“That’s a major reason why when we sited the detour where we did. Doing our best to mitigate the steepness and keep it away from the original failure spot,” Hammond said. “Next, we will finish improvement to native fill and hopefully build that two back out to where it was before the failure.”
WYDOT moved some 30,000 cubic yards of fill in shoring up the bypass. A rebuild of the portion of mountain curve that gave way will almost certainly make that look like Tonka truck sandbox play.
It will be a massive undertaking, but WYDOT already pulled off one miracle this summer. It will only take time and money — two things the department never seems to have enough of.
“The money is there,” Hammond assured. “The FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) is in the loop and has cost projections. They are aware of the costs. So, absolutely the money is there.”
And time?
Final plans for a permanent fix should be approved by the end of the month. Contractor bidding on the project closed Tuesday. The department is using a CM/GC type of selection process where a contractor is selected before the work is scoped out.
This unique procedure is a quality-based selection as opposed to a cost-based selection. WYDOT will choose a contractor on a qualifications-based proposal that highlights capabilities, experience and past project history. From there, the contractor will come alongside the department in the decision-making process to better achieve end goals.
Hammond says he thinks his department can have the highway put back like it was, better than it was, by November. And do it with little disruption to everyday traffic.
“That’s the goal,” he added.
Take his word. After all, this is the guy who on June 9 promised, “We got this.” Less than three weeks later, the rubber met the road on that guarantee.
Jake Nichols can be reached at jake@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026
4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.
The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.
Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.
Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.
“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”
The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.
Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.
Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.
Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.
“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.
Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”
Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.
For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.
Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.
In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.
“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”
But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.
“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.
While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.
“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”
As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.
“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”
A Sublette County man who captured and brought an injured wolf into a bar in February 2024 has struck a deal with prosecutors that could keep him out of jail, reports WyoFile.
A signed plea agreement filed with the Sublette County District Court and acquired by WyoFile on Wednesday afternoon means that Cody Roberts, 44, would likely no longer face trial. It had been set to begin March 9.
Under the deal, Roberts withdraws his earlier not guilty plea and changes that plea to guilty or no contest for felony cruelty to animals.
The deal calls for a prison sentence of 18 months to two years that would be suspended in favor of 18 months of supervised probation and a $1,000 fine. Additionally, agreed-upon conditions of his probation include: no hunting or fishing; no alcohol, presence at bars or liquor stores; and a requirement that Roberts follow recommended addiction treatment.
As part of the deal, the parties are asking that a “pre-sentence investigation report” be ordered by the court.
Roberts allegedly acquired a wolf by striking it with a snowmobile, leaving it “barely conscious” on Feb. 29, 2024. Photos and video from that night showed him posing for pictures with the animal and even kissing it. The wolf’s behavior suggests that it was gravely injured, according to biologists who’ve reviewed video of the muzzled animal while it was prone and barely moving on the floor of the Green River Bar.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department initially handled the incident, issuing Roberts a $250 fine for possession of warm-blooded wildlife. The state agency declined to seek stiffer penalties or jail time, and Game and Fish officials maintained that predatory animals, including wolves, were exempted from felony animal cruelty laws.
Sublette County law enforcement officials disagreed. In August, prosecutor Clayton Melinkovich convened a grand jury that indicted Roberts for felony animal cruelty. That crime could have put Roberts in jail for up to two years, though his plea agreement averts mandatory time behind bars as long as he successfully completes probation.
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
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