WYOMING – The recent 24/7 Wall Street feature, “Middle of Nowhere in Every State” was a fascinating read. The website compiled each state’s ‘middle of nowhere’ according to its proximity to the nearest city.
Whether you look up your own home state with nostalgia to see if you recognize its ‘middle of nowhere,’ or whether you live in Wyoming now where all your friends think you are already living in the middle of nowhere—it is pretty cool to know truly rural settings do still exist in every state.
“The romanticized ideal of the untamed wilderness emboldened thousands of Europeans to go west until the western frontier closed at the end of the 19th century,” wrote 24/7 Wall St. “With every inch mapped and cataloged, and with ongoing population growth, it’s harder nowadays to traverse unspoiled terrain in the United States. Today over 80% of the world’s population lives within one hour of a city. In high-income countries like the United States, the percentage is more than 90%.”
Would you be surprised to know the middle of nowhere New York is an idyllic spot in the Adirondack Mountains (Five Ponds Wilderness) some 5 hours from the nearest city?
The most remote spot in Wyoming was identified as Hardluck Mountain (GPS coordinates 43°59’45″N, 109°40’15″W) in the heart of the Shoshone National Forest. To be specific, it’s a nondescript scree field off the west slope of the mountain that feeds into the South Fork of the Shoshone River, right there just a little north of the confluence of Robinson and East Fork creeks. If you’re floating the South Fork of the Shoshone (and we don’t know why you would be or how you would come about to be there in a kayak) and you hit Silver Creek, you’ve gone too far north.
Got your bearings yet? Probably not. This is the heart of the Thorofare—the most isolated region in the Lower 48 states. There are no roads, only trails, rivers, and creeks.
The exact spot marked by 24/7 Wall St. as the most remote in Wyoming is indeed off the beaten path.
As the crow flies, it is:
- 42 miles northeast from Moran
- 31 miles due north of Dubois
- 41 miles west of Meeteetse
- 35 miles south of Wapiti
And none of those towns are exactly thriving metropolises.
