I Camped Where He Disappeared
I camped alone by a river once on this trip — no campground, no neighbors. Two hundred years earlier, a trapper named John Hoback camped in that same wilderness and never came back. This is Wyoming's stretch of Highway 191: fur trappers, wild horses, a rendezvous ground where mountain-man legends did business, a ghost town a drone couldn't find, and one night alone that taught me something about all of it.
Riding a Ducati Multistrada solo, this episode covers a wild horse holding facility, an abandoned coal tipple, the ghost town of Winton, the Oregon Trail's Lander Cut, the Wind River Range, the Museum of the Mountain Man, the Green River Rendezvous site, a night of wild camping on the Hoback River, Jackson's antler arches, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone — including Old Faithful Inn and a very unconvincing grizzly bear sighting.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro — The Hoback River
1:08 Welcome & Crossing into Wyoming
1:24 Wild Horse Holding Facility
2:40 Reliance Tipple
4:03 Winton Ghost Town
5:49 Sand Springs & the Lander Cut (Oregon Trail)
7:20 The Wind River Range
8:17 Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale
9:18 Trappers Point Overlook
10:04 Green River Rendezvous Site
11:33 The Hoback River — John Hoback's Story
12:23 Elkhorn Trading Post
13:04 Wild Camping on the Hoback River
15:59 Reflections on Solo Travel
17:19 Jackson, Wyoming — Town Square & Antler Arches
18:25 Miller Ranch
18:52 T.A. Moulton Barn, Mormon Row
19:30 Highway 191 Through the National Parks
20:35 Grand Teton National Park
21:15 Schwabacher Landing & Teton Point Turnout
22:14 Oxbow Bend
22:27 Grizzly Bear Sighting
23:46 Yellowstone National Park
25:26 Yellowstone's Geothermal Basins
27:05 Old Faithful Inn
28:43 Riverside Drive, Madison River
29:10 Closing — The Hoback River, Revisited
About the Episode
This is Episode 3 of a solo motorcycle journey from southern Arizona to Alaska, roughly 10,000 miles over six weeks, riding U.S. Highway 191 north across Wyoming — about 400 miles from the Utah border to the Montana line.
This stretch of 191 runs through some of the most historically significant ground in the American West. It passes an old coal tipple still standing in the sagebrush; the site of Winton, a coal camp that mostly emptied out when its mines closed in the 1950s — some houses were sold and hauled away whole to towns as far off as Idaho and Colorado, though real ruins, foundations, and stone walls still remain scattered across the site, low enough to the ground that they're easy to miss from the air. It follows the Oregon Trail's Lander Cut, climbs into the Wind River Range, and passes through Pinedale, where the Museum of the Mountain Man and the nearby Green River Rendezvous site mark one of the most important gathering places of the 19th-century fur trade — a spot where men like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith did business. It follows the Hoback River, named for a trapper who vanished into these same mountains in 1813, before ending in Jackson, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone.
This channel follows one rider, solo, on a Ducati Multistrada, documenting the history, geology, and people found along the way — not just the well-known stops, but the roadside oddities, ghost towns, and small-town history that most travelers ride right past.
Credits & Links
Rider Justice is the motorcycle law firm I recommend if you've been in an accident. Go to https://riderjustice.com/ to find more information and advice on protecting yourself and your motorcycle. Call Scott O'Sullivan at (877) 562-9425
Configure your Ducati - https://configurator.ducati.com/bikes...
Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mi...
My Gear - https://www.norenfilms.com/gear/2026-...
Butler Maps - use code "norenfilms" for 10% off - https://www.butlermaps.com
Buy Me a Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sterling...
My Motel in Bisbee, AZ - https://www.thejonquil.com
Next up: Montana — a fish older than the mountains, and a highway of things that refused to change.