No shortage of 'roads to nowhere'

"What's down this road?"

"I don't know, let's go."

This was the discussion between Rich Rosenfeld and Robert "Bo" Edgerton last summer as they put over 4,500 miles on their rental car while photographing some of southeastern Wyoming's most remote spots.

Rich and Bo have been good friends for more than 30 years. Both men worked in the auto parts industry before retiring.

Rich has Wyoming roots working for NAPA stores in Douglas and Casper before the economy went south in the early 1980s. In order to keep up his livelihood Rich moved to the Atlanta, Ga. area where he met Bo. The auto parts dealers formed a bond between themselves and their families in Georgia long before Bo discovered his love of photography and Rich showed Bo the mountains of Wyoming.

Rich calls himself the workhorse of the operation and credits Bo with the talent.

Together they are working on producing a series of books that will be a photographic testament to Wyoming.

The Saratoga Sun encountered these two daunting publishers at the annual Sierra Madre Muzzleloaders Mountain Man Rendezvous in Encampment. Bo was taking photos and gabbing with Rich when a reporter for the local paper bumped into them.

Instantly, a conversation about photography happened and the two Georgia men related a story about their love of Wyoming and a particularly hairy trip over the Shirley Range.

"We were going over the Shirley Mountain loop road and following lines on the GPS," recalls Rich. He and Bo had decided to head out in the afternoon and see where the two-tracks might take them. Eventually, coming down the backside of the mountain they realized the steep mountain road might be a little more than their rental car could handle.

Bo had to get out of the car to move rocks so that Rich could keep driving down the rocky pass. As they progressed, they realized the road was too steep and narrow to turn around and there was no way to back the car up the hill. They made it to the bottom of the mountain and into the Shirley Basin around 6:30 or 7 p.m. that night only to find a locked gate on the road.

Being familiar with ranchers and their ways, Rich and Bo searched for a rock that might hide a key to the gate, but to no avail. Deciding they were stuck, with no way out, Rich called the Sheriff's department to ask for some help getting out. Around 11 p.m. that night, a deputy sheriff and the photography duo were flashing lights at each other. The deputy sheriff couldn't find his way down to Rich and Bo.

As is turns out, that night in the wild provided Bo with an amazing view of the Milky Way, a wind farm on the horizon and a lightning storm all at the same time. One of his photographs has at least three shooting stars, three lightning strikes and the lights of the wind towers in the same shot.

If it were a hunter looking for an elk, it would be like bagging a Boone and Crockett Club trophy.

The next day ranchers let them through the gate, also showing them the location of the key.

Bo says he has always been an artist, starting as a child when a piece of paper and any pen, pencil or crayon would let him express his creativity. By high school, the Atlanta native, was airbrushing and making architectural drawings.

Around the year 2000 Bo started exploring photography. He had recently left the auto parts business and his dad knew a guy with a film camera for sale. Bo picked up the camera and a lens on the cheap and fell in love. He still has the camera on his shelf. For a long time Bo was devoted to film-based photography, often stomping around the mountains outside of Atlanta in pursuit of nature photography.

Rich fondly recalls telling Bo that those aren't mountains in Georgia because they have trees on top of them.

At some point Bo bought a nice digital camera, took about 5,000 photos with it and then calculated the cost of having to process all of those photos to prints in order to look at them. It was an "aha" moment and he decided to make the conversion to digital photography.

After denigrating the mountains of Georgia, Rich eventually brought Bo out for a trip to Wyoming. Bo "just fell in love with the place".

After a little bit of scheming, Bo and Rich decided to try to put a book together of some of the more isolated places in Wyoming. They both have expressed that lots of people have seen or know about the Grand Tetons and Devil's Tower. They both want people to see the places in Wyoming that you really have to make an effort to get to.

After working on the photography side of the book last summer they decided that they could not do the state justice in just one volume. Either it would be too big and expensive of a book or they would have to break it into parts.

They expect to have the first of a four part series entitled "The Living Wyoming: A Photographic Tribute" in late spring. The book will feature photographs from southeast Wyoming. Later this year they will begin photographing the southwest part of the state.

Both men have expressed their joy in meeting long-time ranchers, county officials that have helped them out of jams, mountain men and true western spirits of Wyoming.

One of their favorite photographic experiences was at the north end of Fremont Canyon. According to Rich this is the more isolated side of the canyon away from the bridge on the south end where most visitors go.

Bo said they hiked up to the canyon rim taking photos of beautiful landscapes along the way, having no idea of what they might find.

When they finally topped the canyon rim they were astounded. Bo began taking photos on the rock faces above the North Platte River and Rich began to get nervous that Bo would fall to his death. Forsaking his friendship, Rich told Bo, "If you fall, throw me the camera."

So goes the life of a couple of friends that want to share the most remote places in Wyoming with the rest of the world.