Tuesday, April 27, 2008--Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Tuesday morning we headed north on Utah 191 toward Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. The road was steep and curvy. There was even a sign telling us there were 10 switchbacks on the road. As we drove along the highway, there were signs telling what geologic era the area was formed and what happened in that era.

As we gained elevation, the snow was thicker along the sides of the road.

We had planned to stop at Fireman's Memorial Campground near the Flaming Gorge Dam, but the campground doesn't open until May 9. We continued on our way and crossed the bridge we saw from the ridge.

The next stop was the visitor center. The young lady manning the center told us which 3 campgrounds were open. We chose Dripping Spring near Little Hole on the Green River.

We stopped for propane first as we hadn't had hook-ups since Torrey, Utah and it has been cold the last few nights!

Dripping Spring had a few sites, and we found a great one. The area around Dripping Spring and Dutch John, Utah burned in 2002. At first we thought it was a prescribed burn, but we found our later that a car blew a tire going over a cattle guard--the spark caused the fire. The grass has regrown, but the trees are dead.

From the campground we drove to Little Hole which is on the Green River. Major Powell and his group stayed here in 1869 as they explored the river. From the overlook, we had a great view of people fly fishing.

We saw several people reel in trout. The catch rule is keep 2 under 15 inches and one over 22 inches--you can't keep anything in between!

As we watched the fishermen, an osprey was also fishing. Joyce tried to get a picture, but the osprey didn't cooperate.

From Little Hole we drove to the dam overlook and the spillway overlook beneath the dam.

We hoped to see a bald eagle as they winter at Flaming Gorge. We only saw osprey flying over the river.

We did see a magpie near the cars in the parking lot!

We drove around the other 2 campgrounds just to see them. They were about like the one we were in, but they cost $17 instead of $5! They had live trees, but that was the only difference! The water had not been turned on in any of the campgrounds since they still expected freezes at night.

We went back to our campground to decide on a plan for Wednesday.