A two-day trip to the Snowy Range in southern Wyoming during fall 2025 revealed an incredibly diverse landscape. Located in the Medicine Bow Mountains, the metamorphosed rocks are about two billion years old, and were uplifted 50-70 million years ago as part of the Rocky Mountains. Elevations vary from about 10,000 feet in the northeastern part of the range to 12,013 feet at Medicine Bow Peak, a prominent feature of the vertical quartzite cliff that is a hallmark of the range. The area was glaciated during the Pleistocene Epoch, leaving a thin veneer of ground moraine and a number of glacial erratics. It has been suggested that the range’s name may derive from the reflection of the sparkling, white quartzite rocks, which can look like snow from a distance during summer; however, the abundance of actual snow for much of the year is the most widely accepted explanation.