Surfer Amanda Studdard takes to the rapids of the Snake River in Wyoming. Photo: Sam Bland
Editor’s Note: After Sam Bland retired from his position as superintendent at Hammocks Beach State Park, he joined the staff of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. During his time as a coastal specialist in the 2010s, he would periodically write about his time in the field for Coastal Review. Now traveling the country, Bland drops a line every once in a while to share a new adventure with his readers, such as the following:
In northwestern Wyoming, just south of the town of Jackson, a 20-mile stretch of road makes its way through the mountains down to the town of Alpine.
Sam Bland
It’s a gorgeous drive any time of year with towering mountain hills covered in pine, fir, cottonwood and aspen trees. Identified as the Snake River Canyon, Grand Canyon of the Snake or Alpine Canyon, the river slithers right beside the road.
The upper part of the river runs slow enough in the canyon that beavers dam off braids of the river, forming placid ponds and wetlands beneficial to all wildlife. Gradually, the grade of the river begins to drop and the velocity of the water picks up the pace.
During our travels out west into Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, my wife, Bright, and I have driven this road many times.
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We look for the beavers and otters swimming in the ponds, the moose in the willows, elk in the meadows and mountain goats high on the steep cliffs. Much of the landscape on both sides of the road are public lands, part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Every few miles, there are access areas for hiking, camping, fishing and picnicking. One access area sign caught our eye, but we would always drive past. The sign simply stated, “Lunch Counter” with the word “Kahuna” underneath it.
The use of the word “kahuna” on a national forest sign in Wyoming was quite intriguing. A Hawaiian word, kahuna is used to signify a professional expert, such as a doctor.
During my years of surfing the North Carolina coast, I would occasionally hear the word being called out as a big swell began to roll in. In late spring, fascinated by the sign, we drove down to the Lunch Counter to see what was cooking.
Arriving in the parking lot, we saw a man in a full wetsuit with a surfboard tucked under his arm disappear down a wooded trail towards the river. Wait, what? This looked so out of place in cowboy country. We dashed down the trail, and from an overlook we could see the Class III rapids of the Snake River.
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The serene beaver pond waters of the upper river were now a raging whitewater serpent. In the mist of the aquatic chaos was a lone surfer riding the face of a large, standing wave. We now understood, the Lunch Counter and Kahuna referred to the rapids.
Surfers watch from the Lunch Counter as another takes their turn surfing the Snake. Photo: Sam Bland
The Snake River Canyon was formed millions of years ago with tectonic plates butting heads, creating thrust-fold belts along with glacial gouging and erosion by the river itself.
At some point, geologic forces created a flat shelf with a large boulder lodged against it in the riverbed. Perhaps a massive flood rolled the boulder into just the right place. Prior to reaching the Kahuna and Lunch Counter rapids, the width of the river narrows with small granite walls on each side. It is here that the water shoots through like a firehose against the rocks creating the standing wave.
The wave is seasonal though, peaking in late spring and early summer due to melting snowpack. North of the Snake River Canyon, the flow is controlled by the Jackson Lake dam in Grand Teton National Park.
In early spring, the gates of the dam are cracked open to keep downstream reservoirs topped off for agricultural irrigation. Snowmelt from streams and creeks below the dam spills into the Snake River, causing the river to gush a high flow rate of 14,000 cubic feet per second.
Water flowing over the Lunch Counter at 7,000 to 13,000 cubic feet per second creates a wave tempting enough to lure a surfer into the maelstrom. Dam control, snowpack and daily temperatures dictate when and for how long this river surfbreak will last.
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A surfer on the Snake River carves the wave’s face. Photo: Sam Bland
The flow can be variable. Thus, the wave may last for a month, a few days or not at all.
The Lunch Counter was first named in the 1960s by David Hansen, a local whitewater rafting guide. Out on his raft, with the undulating walls of waves looming ahead, he has been quoted as saying “if we are going to eat our lunch, it’s going to be right here.” The unique quote has become the identity of the Lunch Counter ever since.
It wasn’t until 1978 when a trio of brave whitewater rafting guides eyed the wave with envy, scrounged up a surfboard without an ocean in sight, and gave it a try. Surfing on the Snake was born. Like a siren, the wave continues to taunt, tempt and seduce surfers today.
Bright and I made our way down the worn gravel trail to a water-smoothed granite shelf along the river. Almost a dozen wetsuit-clad surfers were scattered about. Adorned with booties, gloves and a 5/4mm taped wetsuit, they were protected from the frigid 40- to 50-degree snowmelt.
One surfer was on the wave while another was drifting downstream after being bucked off the watery horse. Six surfers were sitting in a lineup on a rocky bench waiting for their turn on the curl as if kids patiently waiting for the music of an ice cream truck.
Watching the surfers, the first thing that hit me was that the power of the water is coming at you, not from behind like an ocean wave. What an adjustment for the mind and body for an ocean surfer.
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Just to get to the wave was an endeavor in itself. First, you must jump off a rocky cliff with the surfboard underneath you, landing into a lower trough of water created by the uneven stream bottom. This trough, what the surfers called “the seam,” would then drift them into position below the standing wave.
Natalie Catania jumps into the Snake River with her surfboard. Photo: Sam Bland
Here, the current would pull them up and into the wave. Paddle, paddle, paddle in the whiteout of foamy madness before you are chewed up and spit out. Most of the surfers would quickly find the sweet spot at the base of the wave where they would lay on the board, adjusting their balance to keep the board forward on the wave. Then they would pop up, and if the surf gods are willing, ride a river wave.
Some surfers would just chill in the pocket of the wave, occasionally drifting up the face and back down. Off to the right of the wave, the pulsing waters would create a bit of a swell that allowed some surfers to drift to the right with a quick rip to the left, fanning the water up like a rooster tail.
Unlike ocean waves, some of these rides lasted for minutes. The more experienced riders would, at times, voluntarily bail on the wave, granting others a chance to catch the Snake. But more often than not, surfers were victims of a cold face-plant due to wandering concentration. Wipe out here and you are treated to another ride, rag-dolling down the rapids and tossed like a salad.
Here, the surfers are on high alert, keeping an eye out for hazards such as a tree branch hurling toward them like a water javelin. They also have to share the break with the hundreds of kayakers and rafting boats charging into the wave seeking their own thrill.
Whitewater kayakers in their short, stubby boats would back into the wave as well. Paddling to stay in the curl, they would dance on the wave, spinning circles much to the delight of the cheering surfers. A train of rafts might come along, aiming straight for wave.
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Like a powerful bronco, the wave would try to throw them out of the boat under a shower of cold river rain.
We watched about a dozen surfers of various skill levels ride the standing wave. A few were still learning this break, but, for the most part, all the riders were solid.
One in particular, Amanda Studdard, originally of Portland, Oregon, was one with the wave.
Studdard’s movements on the wave were smooth and sure, taming the current surging under her board. She was calm and at peace on the wave while the chaos off the river surrounded her — a true soul surfer. At times, she would break away from the Zen of it all. Drifting higher and to her right on the wave, she would then make a slashing left turn gouging the wave with her stick. A wall of spray in her wake added to the watery mayhem.
A lover of river surfing, Studdard was on her lunchbreak, sneaking in a few rides. An appropriate thing to do while at the Lunch Counter. She has been hooked on river surfing ever since she dropped in on a wave at a human-made break in a waterpark in Bend, Oregon. Her occupation allows her flexibility to work remotely and drift down to the Lunch Counter each year — an idyllic life shared with her two dogs Loki and Laska along with her playful kitten, Violet. Her feel and connection with the wave were obvious, what she describes simply as “magical.”
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Studdard was joined by her friend, Natalie Catania. After tasting the wave four years ago, she has returned each spring to get her fill. Catania, without hesitation, leaps off the bank, drifts the seam perfectly into the face of the wave and springs onto the deck of the board, making it look so easy. After learning to surf on river waves, she prefers them to ocean swells. Even her board is designed for river surfing.
She explained that with the evolution of river surfing, board shapers are now designing specifically for the river waves. An ocean board will do, but a board carved to meet the distinctive aspects of the river will provide better performance. Freshwater is less buoyant than saltwater, thus, a river board needs to be thicker to provide better lift. They are also wider and shorter, 4.5 to 6 feet in length. Different river waves might also require a uniquely shaped board, resulting in a surfer having a number of boards in their quiver.
Having ridden a number of other river waves, the Lunch Counter always coaxes Catania back to Wyoming. “It’s a raw experience,” she said. “Even though it is intense, you find a state of bliss.”
When I think of some of the famous surf breaks, places like Mavericks, Pe’ahi (Jaws), Banzai Pipeline, Teahupo’o, and Nazare come to mind. Now, I will need to add the Lunch Counter to the list.
River surfing is gaining popularity throughout the world with breaks in Germany, Austria, Norway, New Zealand and Canada. The Lunch Counter is thought to be one of, if not the, best natural river surf break in the United States.
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Surfer Today has listed it as one of the best river surfing waves in the world. American Surf Magazine has it on the top of their list of best river surfing destinations in the U.S.
Surfers wait their turn at the Lunch Counter. Photo: Sam Bland
You would think with such a heady reputation that the surfers would be territorial. Quite the contrary. The vibe is peaceful, welcoming, encouraging and supportive. Compared to ocean lineups where I have seen punches thrown, this was a breath of fresh mountain air. Even the few youngsters who were cutting their teeth on this river wave were given the same respect and opportunity as the adults. And these grommets could shred.
While the melting of the snowpack diminishes and the gates of the reservoir dams are cranked down, the wave will subside as if a low tide. By mid-July, the wave will retreat into the riverbed, hibernating, waiting to roar again next spring.
As the wave-creating snow blankets the mountains this coming winter, the surfers will grow hungry — hungry with an appetite that can only be satisfied by a seasonal special found only at the Lunch Counter.
CASPER, Wyo. — Two Wyoming residents died and a third was injured in Arapahoe, Wyoming, on Friday after their vehicle went airborne and struck a pole, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
The crash was reported around 10:39 p.m. May 8 near Goes In Lodge and Mission roads south of Riverton. According to the WHP’s investigation, the Dodge passenger vehicle was driving at a high speed north on Mission Road and failed to make a left-hand curve, driving off the road.
“The Dodge drove up the roadway embankment toward Goes In Lodge Rd and vaulted approximately 154 feet,” the WHP said. The Dodge rolled end-over-end about three times, struck a utility pole while airborne and came to rest on its wheels, where it caught fire.
23-year-old Wyoming residents Kalvin Yellowbear and Rosario Lopez were killed in the crash. Another passenger was injured. No seat belt use was indicated for the deceased.
Speed and other factors are under consideration by investigators, the report said.
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There have been 40 highway fatalities so far in 2026, the WHP said, compared to previous years to-date:
34 in 2025
27 in 2024
46 in 2023
This story contains preliminary information as provided by the Wyoming Highway Patrol via the Wyoming Department of Transportation Fatal Crash Summary map. The information may be subject to change.
County 17 publishes letters, cartoons and opinions as a public service. The content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of County 17 or its employees. Letters to the editor can be submitted by emailing editor@oilcity.news.
Dear Gillette,
I am writing this letter because I am fed up with being forced to make impossible decisions just to live and work in Gillette.
We are constantly told that Campbell County is a great place to build a life, but the reality on the ground is exhausting. We are facing a double penalty here: a dwindling, high-cost economy and an almost non-existent dating scene. I am tired of having to choose between paying outrageous rent for a basic apartment or moving away from friends and community because I cannot find a genuine, long-term partner.
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The dating pool in Gillette feels more like a shallow puddle. Many of us are doing everything right — working hard, staying stable — yet we are coming up empty-handed due to limited public social spaces and transient culture that isn’t conducive to long-term relationships.
It is disheartening to see the “Wyoming Advantage” disappear while we are stuck in a dating desert. Rising costs and limited supply make housing a heavy burden, with residents struggling to find affordable options. Skyrocketing fuel, utility and grocery prices have put families under extreme financial pressure.
I am tired of sacrificing my personal happiness and financial stability to live here.
We need more than just industrial growth; we need quality of life that allows us to find love and build a future here, not just by a paycheck.
Kevin McNutt Gillette
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Rich Renner always knew he had pretty good neighbors, but he found out just how good when his new rescue dog from California got himself lost in a Wyoming whiteout.
Renner had taken the goldendoodle named Charlie out ahead of this past week’s storm to relieve himself. There was some snow on the ground at the time, but Charlie wasn’t having a thing to do with that strange, cold, white stuff on the ground.
At least not at first.
“I had taken him out to the barn, but he was staying under the overhang,” Renner said. “He wouldn’t go out to the snow.”
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Given the dog’s reluctance, Renner decided to shovel a path from the barn to the house to make it a little easier for the pooch to get around.
While Renner was doing that, the dog finally decided maybe the snow wasn’t so bad after all.
“He kind of got the zoomies,” Renner said. “So, he was running around and went around the corner, out of sight. I had boots on, so I followed after him.”
By the time Renner turned the corner, there was no sign of Charlie.
A dog named Charlie a Wyoming couple rescued from a California shelter running off with a whiteout blizzard on the way triggered a 24-hour search. It was a miracle, Charlie’s owners believe, that a newlywed couple in the middle of nowhere found him. (Courtesy Rich and Barb Renner)
A California Dog Meets His First Wyoming Whiteout
At first, Renner wasn’t too concerned. It wasn’t the first time the dog had done a little bit of exploring around the house.
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Normally, he came back on his own.
But this time was different. There was a huge snowstorm expected later in the day, and the forecast was for temperatures in the range of 25 degrees.
Charlie is a rescue dog fresh from California, which means the goldendoodle didn’t have much in the way of fat stored in his body. Nor was he yet acclimated to the cold.
Renner followed his dog’s tracks down to a forested edge, and there saw what had captured Charlie’s attention.
“There were deer tracks all over,” Renner said. “Boom, he was gone.”
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Renner was at first more worried about the deer than the dog.
He’d just put an AirTag on the dog’s newly arrived collar right before they went outside that morning. The collar also had the couple’s names and phone numbers.
“An hour later, that AirTag pinged at a neighbor’s house about a half mile away,” Renner said. “So I zoomed down there on a four-wheeler and I saw tracks, but no Charlie.”
Renner roamed around on his four-wheeler for about an hour, looking for and calling for Charlie. Then he had to go to work.
“My wife, Barb, stayed home all day and worked off and on and looked for him some, too,” he said.
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A dog named Charlie a Wyoming couple rescued from a California shelter running off with a whiteout blizzard on the way triggered a 24-hour search. It was a miracle, Charlie’s owners believe, that a newlywed couple in the middle of nowhere found him. (Courtesy Rich and Barb Renner)
A Long, Cold Night
Once Renner returned home, he and his wife did more searching until about 10:15 p.m. that night using a headlamp to see.
“I thought I’d see his eyes somewhere with that headlamp,” Renner said. “But to no avail.”
By this time, a sick feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach.
He was thinking about how the dog had chased after an animal three times his own size and how sometimes deer had charged, unafraid, at the couple’s older husky.
Maybe Charlie had been hurt. And Wyoming’s famous winter winds were picking up.
Was his California pooch stuck somewhere outside in this Wyoming whiteout, where the temperature was just getting colder and colder?
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“It had snowed all day,” Renner said. “It was just a lot of snow.”
That snow covered the dog’s tracks, making him impossible to track.
The AirTag was proving next to useless as well, suggesting the dog had gone somewhere very rugged, some place with little to no data to transmit a signal.
Tuesday night, Renner could barely sleep thinking about Charlie, lost in this heavy snowstorm, with temperatures forecast to get into the lower 20s that night.
“Since we didn’t find him, I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s not going to survive the night,’” Renner said. “I kept waking up a lot and thinking about him. Like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s he experiencing right now? Where’s he at? Did a mountain lion get him?’”
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The next day, Renner and his wife were both exhausted but had not lost hope they would yet find Charlie.
They were looking, their neighbors were all looking. They even hired a drone company to come look for Charlie using an infrared camera.
A dog named Charlie a Wyoming couple rescued from a California shelter running off with a whiteout blizzard on the way triggered a 24-hour search. It was a miracle, Charlie’s owners believe, that a newlywed couple in the middle of nowhere found him. (Courtesy Rich and Barb Renner)
Neighbors Rally As Storm Deepens
The Renners had been putting messages out on Facebook and social media about Charlie, asking for the community’s help to find him.
Renner was amazed at how his neighborhood sprang into action.
It seemed that everyone he knew — and even some people he didn’t know yet — were looking for his pet, who he feared was too skinny to survive another night out in the cold, much less the cold, wet snowstorm that continued into Wednesday.
“Before, I lived in Cheyenne for a lot of years, and you didn’t even hardly know your neighbors,” he said. “You maybe said ‘hi,’ to them when there’s a snowstorm and you’re shoveling your snow at the same time.
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“But other than that, we didn’t even know our neighbors.”
Mountain Meadows, though, proved to be a different kind of friendly — the kind that doesn’t smile and wave in passing; the kind that shows up on the doorstep and asks, “How can I help?”
“There were probably six different vehicles or side by sides at different times looking for him Tuesday night,” Renner said. “And then people were passing the word on through Facebook and emails and everything.
“And just everyone was praying for him. I mean the number of prayers that went up for Charlie is just amazing.”
A Blind Date, A Snowy Hike, And A Lost Dog
While a small army of neighbors continued to search for Charlie with drones and side-by-sides, a newlywed couple the Renners had never met were on a surprise date.
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Jada, a Laramie native, and Collin Szymanski, from Utah, are newlyweds.
Since Collin is new to Wyoming, Jada has been making a point of showing him some of her favorite places.
That day, she’d decided on a literal blind date, complete with blindfold, to one of her favorite places in Curt Gowdy State Park — Hidden Falls.
The falls are a couple miles from where the Renners live as the crow flies, and maybe 10 miles or more away in twisting, winding, dog-chasing-a-deer miles.
By the time Jada and her husband arrived at the Hidden Falls Trail, snow was picking up speed and Jada was starting to question the idea of hiking that afternoon.
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“There was, like, snow everywhere,” Jada said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, I thought it was going to be a little less snow than this.’
“So I unblindfolded him and I was like, ‘Should we still go?’”
The couple are young and in love, so of course the answer to that question was, “Yes!”
As they hiked into the thick carpet of new snow, they soon found themselves with a new-but-stand-offish friend.
“All of a sudden we see this little dog running around,” Jada said. “We’re thinking, ‘Oh well, his owners must have decided to go on a hike in the snow, too.’”
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A dog named Charlie a Wyoming couple rescued from a California shelter running off with a whiteout blizzard on the way triggered a 24-hour search. It was a miracle, Charlie’s owners believe, that a newlywed couple in the middle of nowhere found him. (Courtesy Rich and Barb Renner)
The Sound Of Loneliness
When they got to the end of the trail, though, there were no owners around.
That was when Charlie began to howl, a haunting, lost sound.
“You could tell he was so sad,” Jada said. “So we were trying to get to him, but he was a little scared of us.”
Once Jada managed to get close enough to see Charlie’s collar, things changed. The second she said his name, the dog immediately calmed down and came over to them.
It was remarkable, given that Charlie had only had that name for about four weeks. But it clearly meant everything to the dog to hear that one word.
These were friends, Charlie decided, because somehow they knew his name.
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An Answer To A Prayer
By noon, with no further sight or sign of Charlie, the Renners’ hopes were dwindling.
Their property backs up to some very rugged country with deep draws and thick timber. It’s a maze of places to get lost.
It’s also a maze full of obstacles and dangers much larger than Charlie — mountain lions, deer, moose. Then there are box canyons easier to get into than out.
Their skinny California dog, chasing a deer in a full Wyoming whiteout, could easily become lost, trapped, or hurt. More and more, it seemed like that’s what had happened.
Just as they were about to give up and call it a day, Renner got a phone call from a man he didn’t know.
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“Hey, are you guys missing a dog?” the man asked.
Relief flooded through Renner at those words as the man told him he’d just found a golden-colored dog at Hidden Falls in the box canyon.
Thanks to the collar, which had the Renners’ number on it, he’d been able to immediately call from the canyon.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Renner said, noting that calls from the canyon are usually impossible to make.
It felt like a minor miracle.
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Charlie had spent all day and night Tuesday in a snowstorm that got down to about 25 degrees, and had somehow managed to bump into what were the only other hikers on the Hidden Falls Trail, somehow none the worse for his adventures.
Soon, Renner and his wife were headed in their cars to go pick up Charlie from the Szymanskis, meeting halfway between their home and Hidden Falls.
For Rich, who describes himself as a person of faith, all these details add up to something bigger than coincidence.
“I know that God makes things happen,” he said.
Jada felt that as well, considering how things happened.
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“Their whole neighborhood had been looking for him,” she said. “He told us he had just been praying so hard. We felt like we got to be the answers to those prayers.”
A dog named Charlie a Wyoming couple rescued from a California shelter running off with a whiteout blizzard on the way triggered a 24-hour search. It was a miracle, Charlie’s owners believe, that a newlywed couple in the middle of nowhere found him. (Courtesy Rich and Barb Renner)
Celebrity Life On A Leash
Back home, Charlie acts as if nothing miraculous has happened at all.
“He’s happy to be home for sure,” Renner said. “He spent yesterday in the barn, and he’s in the barn today.”
But he’s not going outside any more for a while without a leash, Renner said, as he remains just a little too fascinated with Wyoming wildlife, particularly moose, which are 100 times heavier than he is.
Renner is looking into electric fences to keep Charlie and his moxie corralled so that the pooch’s future adventures won’t be quite so harrowing.
“We’re chuckling now, because he’s like a celebrity,” Renner said.
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For all the worry and all the searching, what’s really sticking with the Renners is how his Wyoming neighbors were there when needed, crawling the snowy hills in their trucks and side-by-sides, looking for a California pooch with no idea what a Wyoming whiteout really means.
“That’s the real story,” Renner said. “It’s the community, the neighborhood, how everyone just rallied behind this to help.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
