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.