The Trek to Elk Mountain

Bill Jones is part owner of Bow River Crossing, the convenience store in the town of Elk Mountain that has been open for about a year and a half.

What is remarkable about Jones is that he lives in Laramie and has only missed coming in to run the store once until this past February. That one time was due to road closures. He does admit that there were a couple times, if roads were bad, he had some people that would open the store for him. All and all, he said the first year he was able to make it in.

It is a record he is pleased to tell people. In general, he has always found a way to get to Elk Mountain, using back roads or by beating the weather before it closed everything down.

"I have been lucky that I beat the closings of the interstate, or I used roads that take longer, but I got here," Jones said. "It probably helped some days it was really bad, it wasn't a day to work."

Once making it in, he said that he always made it home.

"I have taken US 30 when it wasn't much fun, but I eventually made it," Jones said. "I have followed trucks going six miles an hour, hoping they wouldn't go off the road because, if they did, I might."

He grew up in Elk Mountain and is used to the bad weather conditions Carbon County can put forth. Jones knows patience is the key.

Jones also admitted a lot of his travel has involved luck. Westbound on the interstate might be open with eastbound shut and other times it would be the other way.

His luck ran out recently when in the month of February, the interstate and roads he had always used started shutting down.

"I haven't seen the winds be this brutal in all the years, I lived here," Jones said. "There has been this much snow before, but it is the winds that changed so much this year."

Jones great record got crushed during the month of February and early March.

"I missed two days the first week in March alone," Jones said. "Some of the days I missed were due to wrecks closing down the interstate and then there was a rolling closure to other roads."

He said the accidents seem worse in recent years. Jones said it might be because truckers don't use Citizen Band (CB) radios as much with the advent of cell phones.

The CB radio was the most popular way truckers use to communicate with each other before the 2000s. The CB radio is not completely dead but there are a lot of other ways to communicate thanks to social media and the rise of cell phones. Unfortunately cell phone coverage along Interstate 80 is spotty and warnings about accidents are usually for locals.

Jones can't say for sure why the wrecks seem to have been worse this year, but between them and weather closures for roads, his record for not missing days is gone.

And it happened in one month.

Jones said he really doesn't care his record is gone. He is happy that April is coming and, although roads can still close, winter is probably on the ebb.

"What is important is that you drive safe," Jones said. "I was lucky for a long time but I realize you have to respect mother nature when she says you are going nowhere."