Flaming Gorge Recreation Area – SW Wyoming
New Picasa picture link, needed to break down into smaller web albums. (Part 2)
https://picasaweb.google.com/107097369989809012646/WesternTrip2013Part2?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLbyj7_-puraswE&feat=directlink
The drive from the Yampa Valley to Flaming Gorge was one of
the prettiest drives so far. As we headed west and north through the Uinta
Mountains in Utah, the landscape changed from high desert to forest, red
canyons, then back to high desert areas with small rounded mountains and slopes
down to the reservoir. The Uintas include the Ashley National Forest, which is
a beautiful mountain forest. This is part of the Flaming Gorge National
Recreation Area, beginning in the northeast corner of Utah and continuing up
into Wyoming. The Green River is the architect of the gorge. The Green River
dam is at the north end by the town of Rock Springs. We arrived at the
campground to find nicely laid out campsites, each with a wind shelter over the
picnic table, much like what we had in Yampa. We got the RV setup; we had
electrical connection, but had to fill our water tank for this stay. The
campground host was very friendly and helpful. This area had a large commercial
marina and a commercial RV park right on the lake. As we soon discovered, this
camping area is all about the lake fishing. We walked the dogs down to the lake
to have a look. There were some sloping areas down to the lake and other
shoreline that was cliffs.
As the afternoon progressed, the wind began to get very
strong. There were gusts up to 45-50 mph. Every one retreated to their RVs for
protection. We decided to have happy hour inside and discuss our options for
activities. Our initial inclination was that we would not stay past this first
night. We thought maybe we would go ahead and move towards Teton the next day.
When we awoke the next morning, the weather was beautiful
and the forecast looked very good. Since we had already pre-paid for 4 nights,
we decided to stay here and work with it somehow. Maybe we would leave a couple
of days early. There was not much to do other than fishing, and you need a fishing
boat for this lake. The second day we decided to drive up to the town of Green
River (26 miles north) and look into another RV park and see if there were more
activity options. We spent most of the day looking around the town and found
there was only one RV park, which we looked at, and decided that it was a
little scary looking. There was also not that much to do in that area, except
some hiking. It was crazy that the Green River flowed right through town, but
there were no outfitters in the area. Even the Visitor Center worker said they
received a lot of complaints from visitors who wanted to kayak/canoe this
river! So we gave up and headed back to camp.
By then we decided to go ahead and stay one more night, then
move north to Grand Teton. So the third day
we drove back into Utah and Ashley National Forest to hike the Red Canyon Rim
Trail. We had passed this on our way to the campground, but didn’t have the
time to stop and hike. It was well worth the 60 mile round trip drive south. We
spent a few hours hiking and driving around to explore the forest. There was
dispersed camping everywhere, with primitive campsites. It would have been
awesome to camp there, but would require boondocking our RV. Maybe in the
future if we ever come back to this area, we will consider camping in this
forest. It was very beautiful, much better than the reservoir camping.
We were definitely going to move the next day to Grand
Teton, so after returning to camp we got everything ready for the move. The
drive up there would be about 5 hours, so we needed to get an early start.
