Day 39 and 40: Flaming Gorge

Sunday and Monday

After our scary, windy night, when the trailer was blown off its jacks and we moved forward about a foot and the front dropped by about 6 inches, we set out from Rock Springs to explore Flaming Gorge. This is a gorge and canyon network through which the Green River flows. Yes the Green River, we are now within the watershed of the Green River and hence the Colorado.

Route 191 takes us up onto the plateau above the river valleys, we pass several before arriving at Flaming Gorge, the weather is not brilliant and we can see showers all around, some of them snow.

We are staying at the Flaming Gorge Resort, for which it would probably be a slight exaggeration to say that ‘it is a slight exaggeration to to say it is any where approaching a ‘Resort’’. Still we are cosy and warm and that goes a long way in my book. Monday morning  we awoke to crystal clear blue skies, as only the Northern Rockies can provide. We set off to visit the Flaming Gorge Dam and then take the scenic byway which took us to the wonderful Sheep Creek Overlook, a magnificent view up the lake with its view of the Flaming Gorge Rocks. We now took the Sheep Creek Geological Loop which led us through a variety of narrow gorges through stands of willow and aspen, where we saw a big horn sheep!, well it was big, had horns and was a sheep. We got quite close before it ran off up the hill. We stopped by the creek for our lunch, it was very peaceful, sunny and warm, if you kept out of the chilly wind. This loop takes you past some amazing rock formations, which we really enjoyed. Finally we stopped at the Red Canyon Visitor enter to take in yet another view of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, this time with 1700ft cliffs.

After arriving back at the trailer and having had tea I took a walk to a local overlook for sunset, got there a bit late, but still managed to get a few pics.