Gunnysack

The Gunnysack Inventoried Roadless Area covers 12,890 acres of mountainous, montane terrain on the northern flank of Laramie Peak within the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, in Converse County, Wyoming. The land is organized around Davis Peak, Breakneck Hill, Indian Flat, Fire Canyon, and Negro Gulch — a sequence of forested ridges and incised drainages dropping north and east toward the North Platte River. The watershed is the Upper Deer Creek system: the area holds the Upper Deer Creek headwaters and feeds Texas Creek, Davis Creek, Canyon Creek, Horse Creek, Gunnysack Creek, Little Gunnysack Creek, Strawberry Creek, Aunt Ag Creek, and Buck Creek. The streams flow north through the foothills to join the North Platte at Glenrock.

Forest composition tracks aspect and elevation closely. South-facing slopes and lower benches carry Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland and Ponderosa Pine Savanna in open stands; the foothills hold Intermountain Mountain Sagebrush Steppe and Great Basin Big Sagebrush Steppe with stemless point-vetch (Oxytropis lambertii) and Oregon bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva). North-facing slopes and the higher reaches carry Rocky Mountain Lodgepole Pine Forest, Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest, and Rocky Mountain Dry Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest. Rocky Mountain Limber and Bristlecone Pine Woodland holds the rocky outcrops on Davis Peak and Breakneck Hill. Rocky Mountain Aspen Forest occupies the moister benches and draws. The canyon bottoms — particularly Fire Canyon and the upper Deer Creek drainages — carry Rocky Mountain Foothill Streamside Woodland and Rocky Mountain Subalpine Streamside Woodland, with willow and dogwood along the water. Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) and prairie rose (Rosa arkansana) hold the meadow openings.

Wildlife relationships reflect the layered habitat. Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) caches limber pine seeds across the ridges and rocky outcrops, sustaining seed dispersal where wind and birds alone reseed the species. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) hunts the canyon shoulders and forest-edge zones, using the dense cover of mixed conifer and the open ponderosa savanna as corridors between habitats. The pine-savanna and foothill grassland mosaic supports a community of ground-nesting birds and small mammals that depend on the open canopy structure, and the streamside woodland in Fire Canyon and along Gunnysack Creek provides cover and water for ungulates moving between the high ridges and lower winter range to the north. Lanceleaf stonecrop (Sedum lanceolatum) holds the rock terraces; the open meadows support pollinators including the federally Proposed Endangered Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee. Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

A traveler descending into Fire Canyon from the ridges above moves from open ponderosa savanna and sagebrush bench on the rim, through aspen and lodgepole pine on the north slopes, then onto the streamside willow and dogwood of the canyon bottom. The granite ledges of Davis Peak rise to the west. Deer Creek runs north through the canyon. Clark's nutcracker calls carry across the ridges; the limber pine stands frame the views.

The Gunnysack Inventoried Roadless Area lies at the head of Deer Creek on the northern flank of Laramie Peak in Converse County, Wyoming — country whose recorded human history opens with the meeting and conflict of Plains nations and the United States along the North Platte River corridor below. The "Medicine Bow" name attached to landmarks across the surrounding ranges recalls Indigenous use of the mountains: in one tradition, Indian tribes "found mountain mahogany in one of the mountain valleys from which bows of exceptional quality were made," and "it became the custom of friendly tribes to assemble there annually and construct their weapons" [1]. By the 1850s the Deer Creek drainage carried the heaviest white travel of any in present Converse County. "An early trading post about where Deer Creek flowed into the North Platte, near the present western boundary of Converse County, developed into a stage stop, Pony Express and telegraph station by the 1860s" [2]. Deer Creek Station, on the site of present Glenrock, "became a familiar landmark along the Oregon-California-Mormon Trail between 1857 and 1866," beginning as Joseph Bissonette's trading post, serving as Pony Express remount from April 1860 until October 1861, and "from 1857 to 1861" also serving as a trading center for the nearby Upper Platte Indian Agency three and a half miles upstream along Deer Creek [3]. After the Civil War "Indian-white hostilities escalated"; troops from Fort Laramie built an installation across from the trading post in 1862, and Indians "finally burned Deer Creek Station on August 18, 1866" [3]. Fort Fetterman, "built in 1867" twenty miles east on the North Platte, "became an important staging point for the army in the Indian Wars of the 1860s and 1870s" [2].

Land use in the upper Deer Creek country itself followed the soldiers and trail traffic. Irrigated farming below the mountains "utilizing the natural flow of the mountain streams" began about 1880, and a great concrete dam was later built on La Prele Creek to store winter waters [4]. The North Laramie Mountains forests were worked for lumber from local sawmills: "their product having been sold to ranchers and even at railroad points in competition with lumber from distant points," and by the mid-1910s "the better or more accessible forests have been cut over, so that this industry has greatly declined" [4]. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that "mining prospects in the upper drainage basins of La Bonte and La Prele creeks are most directly reached from Douglas" — situating mineral prospecting directly adjacent to the Gunnysack country [4]. Cattle and sheep ranching used the mountain slopes from May to September as summer range [4].

Federal protection came in two stages. The Medicine Bow Forest Reserve was established on May 22, 1902, by President Theodore Roosevelt, with an original boundary of "about two million acres" [5][1]. The Wyoming portion was repeatedly redrawn through 1908 and 1910 before settling as the present Medicine Bow National Forest. Crucially for the upper Deer Creek country, "the Laramie Peak unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest was added in 1935," bringing Gunnysack Creek and the surrounding drainages under Forest Service administration [5]. In 1987 the Laramie Peak area was combined with the Thunder Basin National Grassland to form the Douglas Ranger District [1]. The 12,890-acre Gunnysack Inventoried Roadless Area is today administered by that district under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

• Upper Deer Creek Headwater Integrity: The Gunnysack Roadless Area holds the Upper Deer Creek headwaters and feeds Texas Creek, Davis Creek, Canyon Creek, Horse Creek, Gunnysack Creek, Little Gunnysack Creek, Strawberry Creek, Aunt Ag Creek, and Buck Creek. Without a road network to deliver fine sediment from cut slopes, these high-gradient mountain streams maintain the cold, clear flow and stable channel structure that supply downstream irrigation, riparian habitat, and the North Platte system. Headwater integrity here directly determines water quality through the Deer Creek drainage into Glenrock and beyond.
• Interior Lodgepole, Mixed Conifer, and Ponderosa Woodland: Roughly 45% of the area is Rocky Mountain Lodgepole Pine Forest, 19% Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest, and 18% Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland. The roadless condition preserves an unbroken canopy across Davis Peak, Breakneck Hill, and the ridges above Fire Canyon, sustaining interior-forest bird communities, supporting the natural low-intensity fire regime that ponderosa pine evolved under, and providing the cool, shaded forest floor where moisture-dependent understory persists.
• Foothill–to–Subalpine Connectivity: A continuous gradient runs from the lower Intermountain Mountain Sagebrush Steppe and Great Basin Big Sagebrush Steppe, through ponderosa savanna and aspen draws, into mixed conifer, lodgepole, and the Rocky Mountain Limber and Bristlecone Pine Woodland on the high outcrops. This unbroken sequence lets bobcat, ungulates, and pollinators (including the federally Proposed Endangered Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee) move between elevations with the seasons, and supports Clark's nutcracker seed-dispersal relationships with limber pine on the exposed ridges.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

• Sedimentation of Upper Deer Creek and Its Tributaries: Cut-and-fill construction on the steep granite-soil slopes above Gunnysack, Canyon, and Davis Creeks would deliver chronic fine sediment to the channel network with every snowmelt and convective storm. Fine sediment fills stream-bottom interstices, suppresses macroinvertebrate production, degrades the riparian Rocky Mountain Foothill Streamside Woodland that depends on stable banks, and persists in the system for decades. The sediment moves downstream into Deer Creek and the North Platte.
• Fragmentation of Continuous Conifer and Ponderosa Canopy: A road corridor through the dominant Rocky Mountain Lodgepole Pine Forest, Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest, and Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland would slice the closed-canopy stands into smaller patches with sun- and wind-exposed edges. Edge effects shift microclimate inward, accelerate windthrow, displace interior-forest birds, and create the dry conditions in which mountain pine beetle outbreaks and white pine blister rust attack limber pine stands on Davis Peak. Roadside ignitions also rise in stands whose fuel structure has been altered by a century of fire suppression — pushing ponderosa pine further from its pre-settlement open-canopy state.
• Invasive Species Introduction and Sagebrush Community Loss: Disturbed roadside soils and vehicle tires would carry cheatgrass and other non-native annuals into the Intermountain Mountain Sagebrush Steppe, Great Basin Big Sagebrush Steppe, Rocky Mountain Foothill Shrubland, and Intermountain Semi-Desert Grassland of the lower benches. These invasions convert native bunchgrass communities to fire-prone monocultures, degrading the meadow-and-savanna habitat that supports prairie rose, wild bergamot, Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee, and the pollinator-dependent flora. Once cheatgrass establishes and alters the fire regime, restoration to roadless function is not feasible at management timescales.

The Gunnysack Inventoried Roadless Area covers 12,890 acres of the northern Laramie Peak country in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, with primary access at the Deer Creek Trailhead on the Douglas Ranger District. The Deer Creek Trail (659) runs 2.2 miles on a native-material surface from the trailhead into the area and is signed for horse use. The trail and trailhead are the only developed access points within the area; there are no developed campgrounds inside the boundary. Visitors stage from dispersed sites at the trailhead or from broader Medicine Bow National Forest infrastructure off the access roads out of Glenrock and Douglas.

Hiking and horse travel center on the Deer Creek Trail and the cross-country routes along Gunnysack Creek, Little Gunnysack Creek, Strawberry Creek, and the Fire Canyon drainage. The trail climbs from the trailhead through Rocky Mountain Foothill Streamside Woodland on Deer Creek, into Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland on the lower benches, then into Rocky Mountain Lodgepole Pine Forest and Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest on the upper ridges. Cross-country routes onto Davis Peak and Breakneck Hill reach the Rocky Mountain Limber and Bristlecone Pine Woodland on the high outcrops. Dispersed camping along the trail and at backcountry sites is the standard pattern.

Fishing focuses on Upper Deer Creek and its tributaries — Texas Creek, Davis Creek, Canyon Creek, Horse Creek, Gunnysack Creek, Little Gunnysack Creek, Strawberry Creek, Aunt Ag Creek, and Buck Creek. The cold reaches support trout fisheries under Wyoming Game and Fish regulations.

Hunting is a primary fall use. The mosaic of sagebrush steppe, ponderosa pine savanna, aspen, lodgepole, and mixed conifer supports the area's ungulate and predator populations, with elk and mule deer drawing the heaviest pressure. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) occupies the canyon shoulders and forest edges and is a regulated furbearer species under Wyoming law. The adjacent Deer Creek Hunter Management Area provides additional access on the lower drainage. Hunters typically pack in from the Deer Creek Trailhead for multi-day fall trips. State seasons govern.

Birding from the trail network targets the foothill-to-subalpine gradient. Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) caches limber pine seeds across the high ridges of Davis Peak and Breakneck Hill. The ponderosa pine savanna on the lower benches supports an open-canopy woodland bird community, and the streamside cover along Deer Creek and its tributaries holds breeding songbirds and woodpeckers. Wildflower observation in the meadow openings — wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), prairie rose (Rosa arkansana), Oregon bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), Lambert's locoweed (Oxytropis lambertii), lanceleaf stonecrop (Sedum lanceolatum) — is a quiet but real summer use, as is observation of native pollinators including the federally Proposed Endangered Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee.

Wildlife photography centers on the granite ledges of Davis Peak, the views across Fire Canyon, and the limber pine stands on the upper ridges. The historic context of the surrounding Laramie Peak country — Deer Creek Station downstream at Glenrock dates to 1857, and Fort Fetterman on the North Platte to 1867 — adds an interpretive layer for visitors moving between the roadless area and the broader Converse County historical landscape.

Every one of these uses — quiet backcountry trail travel on the Deer Creek Trail, multi-day horse pack trips, cold-water trout fishing in the Upper Deer Creek headwaters, fall pack-in hunting through the unbroken ponderosa-and-conifer mosaic, and undisturbed habitat for Clark's nutcracker and the native pollinator community — depends directly on the absence of roads through the interior. The current trail places visitors deep into the canyons within two miles of the trailhead, but only because the surrounding country is roadless. Road construction would replace canyon-bottom hiking and horse travel with motorized day use and shorten every one of those experiences accordingly.