Discover Casper: Culture and Outdoor Activities

Casper offers several themes to choose from for a hotel stay: exhibits on America's westward expansion, contemporary art and education, historical reconstructions, and activities by the river and on Casper Mountain. Choosing a destination based on your interests can help you decide what to focus on during your stay. These places differ not only in their themes, but also in the kinds of experiences they offer: galleries and programs, tangible historical recreations, or activities on trails and by the water.

Museums and Historic Sites

At the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, interactive exhibits and programs tell stories of America's westward expansion. You can explore six exhibit galleries there. The galleries present the subject in an exhibition setting, while programs offer another way to interpret it. If you are interested in westward expansion, this is a clearly defined cultural focus.

The Nicolaysen Art Museum is dedicated to contemporary art and education. The Discovery Center at the Nicolaysen Art Museum offers sensory and imaginative play areas, drawing and painting stations, a puppet theater, and a crayon rubbing table. Alongside the museum's thematic focus, there are specific creative and play spaces. In contrast to the galleries and programs at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, the focus here is on art, education, and these play and creative spaces.

The grounds of the Fort Caspar Museum include reconstructed fort buildings. The grounds also include a replica of the Mormon Ferry, which operated in Casper from 1847 to 1849. The buildings and the ferry represent different historical points of reference: the fort buildings are reconstructed, while the ferry is associated with a specific period of former operation. If you prefer to explore historical subjects through structures and reconstructions, this offers a different approach from a tour of exhibits.

The Tate Geological Museum is home to Dee the Mammoth, an 11,600-year-old Columbian mammoth. This specimen offers a different thematic focus from westward expansion or the history of the fort. The museums therefore offer a range of themes to choose from: historical narratives, contemporary art and education, or a specific prehistoric mammoth.

Outdoor Activities

The Casper Mountain Trails Center is an outdoor recreation center on Casper Mountain and provides access to multi-use trails that are open year-round. Activities include snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, hiking, and mountain biking; their seasonal availability may vary. This distinction matters for planning: the trails are open year-round, while the availability of individual activities may vary by season.

On the North Platte River, the Platte River Trail provides access to the river for activities such as river floating, kayaking, canoeing, and fishing. The outdoor recreation options differ: Casper Mountain focuses on multi-use trails and a variety of recreational activities, while the river offers the listed pursuits on and by the water. If a particular type of activity is the reason for your trip, you can use these differences to consider whether to plan your stay around the mountain trails or the river activities.

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