May 13, 2025 – A relaxed morning and kinda terrifying drive
I took it easy this morning, hitting the road for a leisurely drive from Grand Teton down to the Flaming Gorge area. I stopped at Teton Village to see the Jackson Hole ski resort – pretty neat when taken together with Jackson. Quaint and some very nice streets and shops. I stopped a couple of places along the way for random views or markers, including The Oregon Trail!
No, the actual Oregon Trail – the Lander Cut-off to be more specific. The ruts you see in the second picture are actual remnants of the original trail. I even made it back into the RV without contracting cholera or dysentery. Good thing too with all of the cuts in our healthcare and public health infrastructure…
I also had to stop a few times to secure the access panel over the generator with duct tape (which my phone tried to correct to “doubt tape”). As I started heading back up to the high plains in Wyoming it started to get a bit windy, but the warning lights and signs weren’t flashing, so I drove on.
I can’t say that it was a mistake, but it was probably the most terrifying driving I have done in my life. According to the weather app, this area was seeing 30 mph winds with gusts up to 59 mph. At one point I pulled over to let cars pass (I was going under 50 in a 70 mph zone), and while I was admiring the view from the rocking RV (from the wind…) one of the skylight/vent covers was ripped off the roof. I was able to chase it down and have reinstalled it, but had to drive the rest of the way with a hole in the roof.
I also passed the time (mild and manic) with a one-hit wonder playlist singalong, so keep an eye out for that in the next day or so. I will just go ahead and apologize now for that video…
But I finally made it to my campsite, and while it doesn’t have water, electricity or sewer hookups, it makes up for it with the view.
I am probably going to go explore a little, at least as much as the wind will let me, and I will hopefully have some video content later tonight.
May 14, 2025 – The Green River
Overcast again this morning, so I took my time getting moving, and having a rough night of sleep didn’t help any either. Eggs and oatmeal for breakfast, boiling water on the stove because I didn’t feel like wrestling with the generator. Then off to hike the Little Hole Trail that goes 7 miles down river from the Flaming Gorge dam (out and back hike).
I was joined by at least a couple dozen Dory boats floating along with mostly fly fishing, but a couple with spinning rods too.
The scenery was amazing, even with the overcast skies, I am sure the pictures don’t do it justice. The water was so clear with just a little green tinge to it, and the cliffs were gorgeous, and obviously apt for a place called Flaming Gorge and Red Canyon.
There was a decent amount of wildlife, though mostly fish and small birds. I did see an Osprey, which are common enough in FL, but still neat to see in other settings. There a lot of smaller birds eating insects on the river, but have no idea what the actually are. Apparently there are bushtits, swallows, gnatcatchers, and warblers. 🤷♂️
My big goal was to see a Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep. They were essentially wiped out by hunting and diseases from domesticated sheep, but were reintroduced in the 1980s. I got my wish somewhat unexpectedly as a single sheep was apparently grazing about head high on the cliff wall when I startled it and it startled me. It took off a ways down the trail pretty quickly, almost as quickly as the Jack Russel Terrier in the nearby boat started losing its mind.
The sheep looked back, giving me the only chance at a photo, which is pretty terrible. shortly after this picture I was walking along the trail when the boat captain told me to stop. A head sized boulder came crashing down from the cliff, bounced on the trail about 20 yards ahead of me and then into the river. The captain pointed out the sheep up on the wall to his people and suggested I “scoot” to avoid any more attempted brainings. Seems like the sheep didn’t appreciate me startling it.
There was one other interesting thing on the hike today. A rockfall landed on and destroyed part of the hiking trail bridge, which definitely made me a bit nervous, even about just sheltering under a ledge during the heaviest of the rain. I did check out the top of the cliff above the rock fall. If you look closely enough you can see the head of Wile E. Coyote sticking out over the edge and nobody can tell me differently 😜
All in all I took a bit over 5 hours to hike 12.5 miles, about 2 hours of which was in the rain. It also never got out of the 40’s. That was absolutely beautiful hiking weather before the rain, and I had a good hat and rain jacket that kept me almost completely comfortable even with the weather. My pants got soaked, which wicked down my socks (the On boots once again were excellent) and by the time I got back to the RV I had a significant decrease in manual dexterity. No risk of frostbite or anything like that, I just had trouble using all of my fingers… they are all fine now. This is the final picture of the hike, of the Flaming Gorge dam, before I climbed the 300 vertical feet to get back to the RV. All in all, a great hike, but I would love to see that in the sunlight and maybe just a touch warmer temps.
Finally a sunset!
I took a spin over to the Red Canyon Overlook for sunset this evening. It was pretty darn chilly and windy, but the clouds mostly cooperated for the first time this trip despite the rain earlier today. Finally my poor little nose couldn’t take the biting wind anymore and I came back for dinner, an episode of Mythic Quest and bed.
May 15, 2025 – Dinosaur National Monument – RAWR!!!!
Today I drove down to Dinosaur National Monument to give my body a chance to recover from the hike yesterday. The route I drove was… rural. Without Apple Maps or some app I for sure would have thought I was lost. I did get to see some mule deer and plenty of livestock, including baby goats (sorry Leah, no pictures). I did make it there without issue, and took a quick spin through the Visitor Center, buying my park pin and a paracord survival bracelet (because I always wanted one🤷♂️) before heading up to the Quarry Exhibit Hall, which is incredibly cool! There is a wall with hundreds of huge fossils partially exposed. And this is the first place I can think of where they tell you to not touch the replica, but encourage you to touch the actual fossils!! So cool!
After that I decided to drive along the scenic trail a bit, and got out to see the petroglyphs and pictographs at Swelter Shelter.
After that I decided to do a short hike, originally targeting the Sound of Silence trail, but there was no space to park, so I drove down to the Split Mountain parking lot and started hiking the Voices of the Dessert trail, which does connect with Sound of Silence. What an incredible hike! The scenery was mind boggling, with the trail taking you through several geologic layers and showing several more. The beginning of Sound of Silence trail was quite different, following some dry washes, some quite narrow, before climbing back up again. Moving between millions of years of layers, and stark visual differences between turns of the trail.
While not surprising, there was limited animal sighting on the hike, with some small lizards, ground squirrels and scat from deer most likely dominating the sightings. There were also some flowers spread around, which was neat in its own right considering the arid dessert nature of the area. Please not that identifications are courtesy of Google, so take them with a grain of salt and feel free to correct me.
All in all a great day, with the hike ending up being a bit over 5.5 miles of quiet awesomeness.
I am back at the campsite, cleaned up and waiting for the winds to die down so I can break out the grill for dinner! The wind is currently blowing in the low 20s with gusts up to about 40 mph. It brings a rather relaxing rocking to the RV – relaxing since I don’t have to drive through it!
Wind chill at about 33, making things a bit chilly outside, but I still managed to fire up the grill. Dinner turned out pretty well all things considered. I grilled a couple of petite filets and broccolini overlooking Flaming Gorge reservoir, and paired with scalloped potatoes, and Old Fashioned and a Jake Gyllenhaal movie.
- Mesa Verde – Balcony House and beyondVisiting Mesa Verde was a great, if short, experience, and novel during this trip in that the focus was much more heavily on the people that called this area home for over a thousand years, up through today. The museum in Mesa Verde is the oldest in the NPS, and openly admits that until very… Read more: Mesa Verde – Balcony House and beyond
- Slow day and transition to Mesa VerdeI had a little bit of employment stuff to do this morning, and I was low on groceries, so I headed in to Torrey for breakfast and power for my laptop, maybe even WiFi. I fortunately I found d out that my laptop is apparently in a death spiral, not holding any charge in the… Read more: Slow day and transition to Mesa Verde
- Possibly favorite hike everThe clouds and the radar cleared up early afternoon, and I found the website where NPS lists flash flood risks, and Capitol Reef was low/non-existent, so I decided to head back to do more of Sulphur Creek, this time starting from the “top”. The entire trail is 5.9 miles, and I covered 2 of those… Read more: Possibly favorite hike ever
- Aborted canyon hikeThe plan this morning was to hike Sulphur Creek Trail. It is about 6 miles one way with waterfalls along the way. I didn’t want to mess with a one-way hike, so I decided to start at the bottom and see how far up I could get. You more or less walk along and through… Read more: Aborted canyon hike
- Massage and watching a movieSo after 19 days of near constant motion and recovery I took this afternoon for a massage and taking it easy with dinner and a movie. A massage at Red Sands Hotel was decent, but they were having plumbing issues, so no steam room or hot tub. Sigh. Dinner was a spinach salad and leftover… Read more: Massage and watching a movie
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