Those Are Some Huge Tetons!!

After our detour back into the southwest to enjoy the warmer weather we headed back towards the north and the awaiting snow.  Our first stop was Grand Teton National Park.  The high country was still snowed in so we camped along Jenny Lake and went for several day hikes in the area.  On our first hike we almost walked into a rather large moose, needless to say we quickly reversed to a safe distance and watched him eat everything in sight (it was a long winter).  Another hour down the trail and we saw and even larger moose 50 feet off the trail. The next day during a hike Alexis got to see her first grizzly bear sign, large claw marks on a tree; we decided to purchase some bear spray (or as I call it "human spice sauce").  After three nights in the park we moved north into Yellowstone.



Our plan was to spend a week or so canoeing around Yellowstone Lake.  Driving in, we passed Lewis Lake (pictured below left, and yes that is all ice) and things didn't look so good for our canoe plan.  We checked in at the backcountry office near Yellowstone Lake and found out that the lake was ice free but snow covered most of the camps and the area was pretty cold.  We decided to change plans again and not canoe around the lake as camping on snow didn't seem like a great time.  We started a driving tour of Yellowstone in the Old Faithful area.  We spent hours walking around the geysers and springs and saw some buffalo and several geysers erupting.  The weather turned wet so we checked out the historic lodge and enjoyed a drink and some good people watching before making a dash to our campsite.



The following day we continued our tour of all things hot water related seeing numerous geysers, hot pools, and mud pots.  We also saw a bunch of buffalo (the novelty quickly wore off as they blocked traffic and caused people to generally drive like they were drunk talking on their cell phone) and elk.  After a full day we headed back to camp to make dutch oven pizza; because of the cool weather Alexis had spent most of the day with the pizza dough warming in her lap.  Of course it started dumping rain that evening so we set up a huge tarp and enjoyed some fresh baked pizza.



We then move our camp up to north Yellowstone where I did some fishing in the flooded creeks (not even a bite as the creeks were 5x the normal flow), and hiked to Grizzly lake where I saw only black bear sign.  On the way there we stopped to see the upper and lower falls on Yellowstone river.  The falls were quite impressive because of the afore mentioned runoff.  We spent five days in Yellowstone and decided to try our luck further north in Glacier. 

 

 With a name like Glacier the area must surely be snow free right?  Well, the lakes of Glacier are about 2500 feet lower than Yellowstone lake so we now plan on doing a canoe trip there with a possible backpacking trip if we can find a snow free area.  On our way out of Yellowstone I called my old friend Alan who just happened to be traveling to Bozeman where we were headed.  We met up at a new microbrewery for a beer and then headed for the hills for a bit of camping.  We had a great time catching up and enjoying our campfire (photo above right).  We are now in Helena getting ready for Glacier.
    

Flaming Gorge Canoe

The plan was to meet our friend Lisa in Moab so we headed that way.  Along the way we stopped at Seigo Canyon to check out the petroglyphs and pictographs.  They were pretty amazing but unfortunately pretty vandalized as well.  We found a great camp just outside of Canyonlands National Park that was in our budget ($8).  The following day we did the tourist thing around Canyonlands and went for a few short hikes.  When in cell range again, I talked to Lisa and found out she was not going to be able to make it.  Definitely bummed about that.  We restocked in Moab and decided to get out of town since the place was a bit of a disaster with the tourists flooding in.  We camped just outside of Moab in Fisher Valley where the hoards of tourists could not find us. 



With Yellowstone still frozen with a ton of snow, we decided to enjoy the warm weather a little bit longer and push back our Yellowstone trip.  We stopped in Grand Junction for a short one night backpack trip in the National Monument.  Nothouroughfare canyon was pretty remarkable with tall, red sandstone cliffs, waterfalls, and big cottonwood trees.  We stopped at Main Street Bagels which is where my group of college friends would often enjoy breakfast.



We decided to head next to Flaming Gorge Resevoir for a canoe trip.  We put together a four day trip starting from the marina next to the dam.  The people manning the visitors center were not terribly helpful but we figured with the map we bought we would be set.  The afternoon winds really started kicking in but we made some miles while tucked in next to the shore.  Heading for the gooseneck campground, we rounded a corner and encountered some serious wind and waves.  It was a battle and the 1/4 mile we went took some time.  When we reached the area where the campground was supposed to be, all we found was an extremely steep slope and more wind.  There were not a lot of other camping options due to the steep valley the reservoir is in so we pressed on for another campground.  When we finally made it, we found some seriously luxurious boat camping.  The campsites were nice and protected in the trees with picnic tables and flat tent spots.  The visitors center people did not inform us that these were pay sites; however, it is still the off season and since we had no money with us we poached some free camping.   We also had the whole place to ourselves.



We decided to set up a base camp and poke around without all of our camping supplies.  The area was pretty remarkable with tall, steep cliffs and not many boats other than us.  We explored all over a lake and checked out a few streams entering the reservoir that were flooding.  We also got to see a big horn sheep and a wee baby sheep.  Our next campsite was overrun with boy scouts and since we didn't want to hang out with 20 teenage boys, we paddled over to the group site (they took all the individual sites) and claimed that as our own.  It had a beautiful view of the lake with the Uinta Mountains, still covered in snow, in the background.  After our canoe we took a short tour of the dam and headed north.  Our next plan is to head to Yellowstone and see what we can get ourselves into.

 

Green River Through Desolation Canyon

We really want to thank friends Amy & Taylor for putting this trip together and Juan and Amber for bringing rafts and everything that goes with them.

We wrangled our supplies in Vernal, Utah and then headed for the put-in at Sand Wash where we were meeting with friends coming from all over the country.  Apparently this is supposed to be a VERY buggy place, but due to our late spring we were completely bug free!  The northern Utah area had been experiencing a lot of flooding lately and the river was flowing at about 27,000 cfs.  Due to the recent cold temperatures the snow pack had not been melting and the river was expected to stay at about the same level while we were rafting.  It was predicted to reach 50,000 cfs once things warm up.

  

With people coming from everywhere it took a bit of organizing to pull it all together.  We got on the river at the crack of noon with a wide variety of vessels comprising our flotilla.  We had four rafts (18', 15.5', 14', 10') a kayak, a ducky, and a river board.  The first day was warm and sunny with really calm water.  The water was moving so quickly that we did not even have to row!  We did a couple short hikes to see some petroglyphs, an arch, and even found a sweet turtle fossil.

  

After that first day the canyon really started to enclose around us and the water became more exciting.  A lot of the rapids were mostly washed out but we did manage to find some big waves that were a lot of fun.  One of the most exciting was Joe Hutch rapid which was modified by a debris flow in 2008.  We stopped to scout the rapid prior to running it and got to see a dory and a cataraft go through the big waves.  We got to watch the others run the rapid first as Ron was manning the party barge (the 18' raft) with me and Eva as passengers.  Both our ducky and mini-me (the 10' raft) braved the waves and got to go swimming.  It was really impressive to watch.  The party barge had no problems due to our enormous size! 

   

Ron and Taylor got to take a small airplane as a shuttle back to the put-in.  It was not the most organized shuttle as they did not even ask their names, just told them to hop on the plane.  The pilot flew them right over the Green River and they got to have an amazing areal view of everything we just rafted.  We are now going to slowly make our way to Moab where we will meet up with our friend Lisa and our wee godchild Leif.  It looks like we have finally found summer...or at least spring.