Chilly this morning, but clear blue skies and light winds..

A hearty campfire breakfast today of eggs and bacon

Pulled into jackson on Wednesday afternoon.  Stocked up on groceries at the local market then headed a bit further north to a campground named Gros Ventre.  Got a nice campsite with a mountain view.

After unpacking, we drove into town to check out the sights and happy hours.  Stopped at a fish hatchery along the way, but then the afternoon thunderstorm showed up on top of us.   Never ridden thru hail like that, but luckily the tornadoes didn’t develop.

Growing trouts here

Vibe was quite touristy in town, plus the wait staff weren’t very friendly and the happy hour deals were lame.  Snooty is the best word to describe it.  Preferred other ski towns like breckenridge and steamboat.

Headed back to the trailer to cook dinner which was lobster tails and pasta.

Woke up Thursday to improved weather, working out well for our hike to the peak of jackson hole ski area.  7.5 miles and 4100 vertical feet to the top!    But a free tram ride back down..

Success has earned a couple cold ones!

Great views

More video and photos later rom our gopro…

Made our way into Wyoming on Monday.  Stopped for a number of errands in Rock Springs.  Laundry, groceries, gas and a new pair of shorts at Goodwill.  Appears we have or had a varmint in the truck.  Ate some paper towels in the glove box, chewed a hole in my shorts in a suitcase and left us some droppings..  cleaned up the truck, so hopefully it has departed.

Continued north that day and located a great, secluded dispersed site overlooking Half Moon Lake near Pinedale, WY. 

Dirty laundry limit was exceeded

Girls sleeping in today

Tuesday morning we went for a run, then spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching Django Unchained (another great Tarantino flick, but excessive gore scenes).  Great to just relax for a day..

Headed up to Jackson on Wednesday.  Plan to spend a few days exploring Teton National Park, then onto Yellowstone next week.

Packed up and drove down towards the river on Saturday morning. We were about out of water and the grey and black tanks were filling up. Conveniently found a dump station on the way down at a national forest campground. Pulled in and took care of it all, including a quick rinse of the truck and Rpod. Gets mighty dusty driving around on dry gravel roads.

First stop was the Flaming Gorge Dam. They provide hourly tours and we just caught the noon group. It was a very informative tour of an impressive human invention.  Many people complain about dams, how they are disrupting nature and affecting local species of fish.  But they do provide clean electricity and in this instance turned a dirty, unusable river into a top river fishing spot with an enormous reservoir for various water sports.

It took 12 years for the river to fill the reservoir

It’s a long way down to the bottom

Generates power with 3 turbines for about 125k homes in the neighboring areas

Fishing feeding station at the bottom, wish I had a reel with me!

I had downloaded a few of the national forest trail use maps.  These maps with Google Maps Satellite Layer are great for finding dispersed campsites.  Located a nice gravel road which could be promising, so we drove a bit further north on 191.  Drove down the gravel road and found a perfect setup for the next couple days.  It already had a fire pit created from some rocks, with just a bit of leftover garbage to clean up.

After getting the trailer set, we unhooked the truck and drove down to Little Hole trailhead.  This has a trail which meanders alongside the Green River for about 7 miles downstream of the dam.  From some quick reading online, this part of the river is world class for fly fishing, containing about 14,000 fish per mile.  We ended up walking upstream just over 3 miles, then back down to the trailhead.  Fished at various spots along the way, but only managed to catch one.

Some Class III rapids exist on the upper portion of the river, depending on the water flow released from the dam

A sunset walk back to the trailhead

Burning someone else’s leftovers on Saturday evening

Decided to shower up on Sunday morning.  Can only take so many days of shower wipes before needing to get a real shower and wash my hair.  This long hair (aka. mullet, lady wig) definitely requires more maintenance, which I am not a fan.  The ladies were sleeping in today, so I jumped in the truck and drove down to the bait shop to get some advice on locations or techniques for fishing locally.  Ended up buying a couple lures and fishing a spot in the reservoir, but did better with my own choices.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir on a beautiful Sunday morning

Only spent about an hour at the reservoir.  I wasn’t catching anything and the calm winds led to the nastiest swarms of jumbo mosquitos!

Drove back to the truck, packed up the backpack while Cindy made to-go sandwiches for lunch and we headed back towards Green River for more hiking and fishing.  Decided to try the other end of the trail, so we parked up by the dam and walked downstream a couple miles.  The winds had calmed down, so the conditions looked perfect.  Ended the day with about 14 fish! A mix of rainbows and brook trout.

Exactly how I imagined the West: mountains and clean, cool rivers

Cindy gave it a try, but the trout weren’t as active on our walk back

Hiking and Fishing on the same trail, a great combination!

We both really enjoyed this area and hope to be back some day!  Time to move on further north into Wyoming.

After stocking up in vernal, we drove a bit east towards the dinosaur quarry.  On the way we passed a local farm which had a small store selling various meats.  Picked up some fresh ground beef and bacon for some meals this week.  Really enjoying the local meats in this area.

An impressive wall of dinosaur fossils. They constructed a building to surround this remaining quarry.

Luckily this one wasn't alive!

Afterwards, we continued our trek northwards towards flaming gorge reservoir.  It’s actually the same Green River we have seen a few times, but now dammed up just south of Wyoming, creating the reservoir.

Overlook to vernal, utah on our way back into the mountains

Downloaded some maps of Ashley national forest, showing possible dispersed campsites.  Noticed an interesting area called red canyon, which had pay sites and some dispersed areas.  Found ourselves an awesome lakeside site!

Lakeside sunset, Gorgeous!

Chillin w/ a Fat Tire

Left steamboat springs on Wednesday morning headed towards dinosaur national monument.  It’s in the northwest corner of colorado, right near the borders with utah and wyoming. 

Stopped in craig at the local BLM office to get info on dispersed camping near the park.  The woman was very helpful and pointed out a few spots for excellent campsite views.  We decided to head to the north side of the park, which is called gates of lodore. 

This place was wayyy off the grid, about 60 miles to the closest services and we saw about 2 other cars the entire visit.

A fantastic view from our free campsite

Finally using our r-dome!

Entryway to the gates, green river in the background

Thursday we ventured off with the truck to check out nearby sights.

Awesome lunch vista

The expanse makes the truck look like a toy

Hiking to a peak on cold spring mountain

Success!

Gorgeous views from the top with fresh wildflowers

Back down a steep mountain..watch your step!

How was this canyon named?

More petrolgyphs from over 1000 years ago

Beautiful start to the day on Friday.  Packed up and drove down the road to check out a possible drive thru the mountains into Utah.  No one around at the ranger station to ask about the road conditions.  One map said 4wd only but another one said just high clearance,  so we decided to charge it with a quarter tank of gas and 45 miles to cover into the next town.  Swing bridge was skinny and narrowly beefy enough to hold us, but we made it!

Another beautiful morning in the middle of nowhere

Just outside of Vernal, Utah

Stocking up today at wally world, propane and fuel, then likely into the forest near flaming gorge for the next couple nights. 

Big empty parking lot to start our bike ride

Arrived in steamboat springs yesterday afternoon.  Parked up the hill in a forest service area for the night.  Drove down into town to explore on our bikes today.  Probably about 20 years since I was last here skiing with my dad..

Explored the yampa river and downtown area on our bikes. They have a great paved bike trail along the river. Had lunch at sweet pea’s, where I had some great tacos with chicken and pork (locally grown of course, and it’s new month, so today is my meat day). Cindy had a good falafel sandwich, but did sample my tacos.

Yampa river flowing strong with snow melting

A legacy caboose parked along the river

Not sure if this someone's car..

Great view of steamboat and the ski area, standing on howellson hill

Gonna hit up a couple happy hour establishments and park it another night up the hill, before we head further west tomorrow. The joy of not having a plan!

After our 12 mile hike the day before, we decided to make it a lazy Sunday morning. We relaxed over a nice breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. Once we finally got motivated for the day, we decided to hike the short trail from our campsite down to the creek below to try some more fishing. It turned out to be a gorgeous day with sunny skies and temps up into the lower 70s. We hiked about 5 miles along the creek and caught about a dozen trout. Around 4:30p we headed back to our campsite and enjoyed a couple tasty beers, guacamole and chips, salad, and leftovers from the previous few nights alongside our warm campfire as the sun set and the temps dropped. Another great day in the Rockies!

Woke up on Saturday to much improved weather! Skies were overcast, but the winds had laid down nicely. Discussed our plan for the day and agreed we would take the shuttle up to bear lake trailhead, talk to some rangers about trail conditions, then head off for some hiking. We also brought along our fishing gear, as it’s a free fishing weekend in Colorado so no license is needed for two days.

Quickly learned that the upper elevation trails were still covered in snow and could be very tough to hike or even dangerous. Decided to check out a couple lakes near the trailhead first.  Still was quite a bit of snow on these short trails.  Sorta crowded on this trail, with some people wearing shorts and t-shirts!

Dream Lake

Our first try at fishing, but no luck at this lake

Ate our PBJ’s for lunch before heading back down to the trailhead.  Next destination would be towards cub lake to see about some more fishing.  We would take the lower elevation trails, which worked out well.

Warmer temps and light winds allowed us to shed some layers

After-effects of the 2012 forest fire

Made it down to Cub Lake and noticed that shallow and weedy conditions were no good for fishing. This made sense, since there were no references to this lake in the regs or online recommendations for good fishing.

It was about 4pm when we reached a stopping point where we had to decided to walk back to the campsite or continue further up the mountain to another lake. While out of water and food, we took the challenge and hiked the 2 miles towards Fern Lake. Glad we did, cause the fishing was great and we had the lake to ourselves in the late afternoon.

First fish!

Biggest fish!

A perfect June day in Colorado. Just what I imagined this place would be.

Sun was starting to set, so we packed up the fishing gear and started our 5 mile walk back home.  Made it back to our campsite around 8pm, so about 10 hours of hiking and fishing. Ended up covering about 12 miles in total. Feet and legs were completely shot. A warm fire, a couple cold ones and a 3 course meal (guacamole + chips, salad and home-made mac and cheese) was the perfect end to a great day!

Today’s route map with our trails in red

Drove into Estes Park this morning.  Stopped up near the Stanley Hotel.  We were told this was the site for the filming of The Shining, but researched further to find out that was not the case.  Stephen King stayed at this hotel and was his inspiration for writing the book.  The movie was filmed at a lodge in Oregon for outside shots and a London film studio for indoor shots.

Took the opportunity with cell coverage to research camping options near Estes or within the national park.  Commercial campgrounds with full hookups, around $50!  That is insane…  Decided on the more reasonable campgrounds within the park for only $20.  Pulled in around 1pm and luckily found a few sites still available.  Looking forward to a couple days exploring the park!

A great view from our campsite