Flaming Gorge, July 26-30 2014

Dave

Broadcaster, formerly "ashergrey"
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"Where the river turns to the left above, it takes a course directly into the mountain, penetrating to its very heart, then wheels back upon itself, and runs out into the valley from which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered ; so the canyon is in the form of an elongated letter U, with the apex in the center of the mountain. We name it Horseshoe Canyon.

Soon we leave the valley and enter another short canyon, very narrow at first, but widening below as the canyon walls increase in height. Here we discover the mouth of a beautiful little creek coming down through its narrow water-worn cleft. Just at its entrance there is a park of two or three hundred acres, walled on every side by almost vertical cliffs hundreds of feet in altitude, with three gateways through the walls — one up the river, another down, and a third through which the creek comes in. The river is broad, deep, and quiet, and its waters mirror towering rocks.

Kingfishers are playing about the streams, and so we adopt as names Kingfisher Creek, Kingfisher Park, and Kingfisher Canyon. At night we camp at the foot of this canyon."

—Maj. John Wesley Powell, The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons

When Powell floated into the first major canyon of the Green River, he lacked the knowledge of experience that he'd have months later upon exiting the Grand Canyon tattered and half-starved. The journey, in its infancy, still bore a sense of apprehensive novelty. The rapids that he encountered in Horseshoe Canyon were mere riffles compared to the torrents to come. His boats were still all undamaged, bearing their original oars. Only days later, he'd lose one boat at Disaster Falls in Lodore and learn a lesson about the river.

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But paddling the drowned Green through Flaming Gorge today has none of that eagerness or discovery. It's verdant depths are more easily traversed by ski boat. But really, what fun is that?

Actually, it's a lot of fun. But so is paddling.

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Flaming Gorge. What more can I say about this place that I've not said already?

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The end of July ushered in the annual family outing at this reservoir, which seems to grow more crowded with each passing year.

This year, as last, I formed the vanguard company. I headed up ahead of my family with just what I could carry in the skin-on-frame kayak.

But unlike last year, this time I brought some company.

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We put on the water at my usual launch, Sheep Creek, on a beautiful but busy post-holiday Saturday. The motorboat crowd eyed us with a certain dubiousness. One bronzed surfer guy with feathered straw-blonde hair made a droll quip as we carted our laden boats to the side of the boat ramp.

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I figured we'd paddle around and find a place to camp at-large, but a little burst of rain hit right as we stopped at Kingfisher Island for lunch. I took it as a sign. We pitched camp there, then paddled down Kingfisher Canyon. Winds started to pick up as we came close to Beehive Point, so we headed back and enjoyed a quiet evening at camp. In spite of all the traffic on the lake, the campground was pretty much deserted.

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[PARSEHTML]<iframe src="http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3847512/GPS/Sheep_Creek_to_Kingfisher.kml&t=t4" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="800" height="800"></iframe><br><br>[/PARSEHTML]The sunset that night was one of the most intense I've ever witnessed at the Gorge.

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Unfortunately, I was a bit unprepared for it. My 6D was safely stored away for use later in the trip, so I only had the sacrificial T2i to work with. I really missed the dynamic range advantage afforded by the full-frame sensor.

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Sunday dawned. We rose late, had breakfast at leisure and prepped for the day's paddle.

On my outing last summer, I'd hoped to paddle Horseshoe Canyon but opted to forego it due to low lake levels. When water is high, a shallow cut allows watercraft to skip Horseshoe Canyon on their way up and down the channel. When the cut is open, boat travel in Horseshoe is restricted to no wake. But the cut was closed in 2013, meaning the narrow canyon was congested with boats going full-bore… not great conditions for paddling.

This year though, the high Green River snowpack had pushed Flaming Gorge up to adequate levels and the wakeless restriction was in effect (though we witnessed scofflaws breaking it with impunity).

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"Should we paddle up the canyon or down?" I asked, once on the water.

"What's the difference?"

"Well, going up canyon will get the longest part over with first. Going down canyon means we will have to paddle through the cut, then turn and follow the river course along its natural path."

"With the river. The way it should be."

And so we did. Passing through the cut, we had to dodge boats coming from both directions.

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Once on the other side, we turned right and joined the inundated river as it flowed away from the orange scarps of the Gorge and into Horseshoe Canyon.

The entry started off well, with tan cliffs rising ever higher with each paddle stroke.

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Katie spotted this awesome spot where desert varnish is reclaiming the bathtub ring created by the reservoir.

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Midway through the canyon, we started coming across motorboaters who had come here to park and party. Their blaring stereos echoed off the sheer walls. Nickleback-ish generi-rock is awful, but it's worse when blast at 100 dB in an otherwise placid place.

Hugging the Wall by ashergrey, on Flickr

Thankfully, we broke out at the foot of Horseshoe before too long and stopped in a little cove to swim and eat lunch.

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I practiced my diving.

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While she took in the view.

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Katie decided we should jump off an eight-foot rock outcrop. I worried the water would be too shallow, so she took the first leap.

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And, properly shamed, I had to follow suit.

Skywalking by ashergrey, on Flickr

She then suggested we paddle back through Horseshoe the other way, instead of heading directly back to camp. We had plenty of daylight left to burn and were both quite refreshed after the swim. So back we went.

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The most annoying of the motor crowd had cleared out and we were able to enjoy a relatively quiet trip under the watchful eyes of the resident osprey. I was starting to feel a bit sun-scorched and spent a fair amount of time clinging to slivers of shade under the canyon walls.

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[PARSEHTML]<iframe src="http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3847512/GPS/Horseshoe_Canyon.kml&t=t4" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="800" height="800"></iframe><br><br>[/PARSEHTML]Upon our return, some nice folks staying in a neighboring campsite brought us over some taco salad, which we accepted with voraciousness. The sun went down, temperatures dropped and this time, the sunset fizzled.

Dusk on Kingfisher by ashergrey, on Flickr

I wanted to shoot a stack for star trails here but messed up the settings on the camera (mirror lock-up was enabled so although it sounded as if the camera was taking a 30-second exposure over and over again, it was really just lifting the mirror and putting it back down again). I ended up with one frame.

Kingfisher Twilight by ashergrey, on Flickr

So after waiting an hour, I tried again. By that point, the sky had darkened and the foreground was entirely black and boring. Defeated and tired, I decided to try something different.

In the mean time, the fire had burned down a bit.

Island Campfire by ashergrey, on Flickr

Monday arrived with a perfect stillness. With reluctance, we packed up camp and stuffed gear back into the boats. This time when we set off, there were no motorboats with which to contend, only glassy smooth water and dramatic blue skies.

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High-elevation winds were shearing the clouds.

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We hardly talked, enjoying the stillness on the way back to Sheep Creek.

Shear by ashergrey, on Flickr

[PARSEHTML]<iframe src="http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3847512/GPS/Kingfisher_return.kml&t=t4" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="800" height="800"></iframe><br><br>[/PARSEHTML]We enjoyed another swim off the dock at Sheep Creek after unloading the gear. Unfortunately, we were again reminded of the impacts from less respectful lake-users.

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After loading out and stacking the kayaks on the roofs of our cars, we took a quick detour up to the Sheep Creek overlook for a birds-eye view of the lake we'd just traveled.

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Then Katie headed for home while I took to killing time. My brother and father were supposed to be coming up with the Sea Ray, but were late leaving the Wasatch Front. Somewhat bored and annoyed, I drove up the Sheep Creek Geologic Loop. Last time through I'd missed stopping at the Dowd grave site.

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When my family finally did appear, most of the day had passed. We motored over to Hideout and set up camp. The skies closed up, threatened rain and temperatures dropped a bit.

Misty Hideout by ashergrey, on Flickr

On Tuesday morning, my sister and her roommate joined us. The skies were darker still, but I ventured out during a stretch of smooth water for a ski run. Having had LASIK earlier in the spring, I worried about getting too much spray in the eyes.

Technically, I was supposed to wait three months post-surgery before engaging in any "vigorous" water sports. But I figured as long as I didn't cut too hard — and as long as I wore eye protection — it would be okay.

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Skiing with sunglasses on was a new experience.

Sunglasses by ashergrey, on Flickr

Thankfully, the run went smooth. I barely got my hair wet. When the time came to call it quits, I tossed the rope and sank up to my shoulders. My brother called this my "parting of the waters" pose.

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Eat your heart out, Moses.

While on the water, we visited a well-known osprey nest at the mouth of Red Canyon. I've had pretty good luck photographing birds here in the past. These two youngin's were keeping watch for mom and dad.

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The weather started to pick up, so we ventured back to camp and battened down the hatches just as rain began to fall.

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And fall it did. For hours. We hid out in the boat as drizzling rains soaked everything in sight.

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Rivulets of water ran down the canvas and plastic canopy, dripping everywhere.

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When the rain finally let up, no one felt like doing much except eating dinner and getting ready for bed. My brother flew his RC seaplane a bit.

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We made a little fire and enjoyed its warmth for awhile before retiring.

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During the night, another band of heavy rain blew over us. I was sleeping alone in a tent while everyone else was on the boat. The tent leaked, my air mattress deflated and I awoke damp and frustrated. Unfortunately, Wednesday dawned just as gray as had Tuesday.

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We went out on the water again, marveling at the cold and misty look of the place. I've endured searing triple-digit temperatures at the Gorge in August. I've also paddled through torrential downpours and white-capped waves. But I've never seen such a gloomy winter-style storm park over the place, remaining for days at a time.

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It looked more like Scottish moors than the eastern Uintas.

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The black and white treatment seemed most effective under the subdued lighting.

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It took some motivation to jump in the water with how cool the air felt. I'm used to skiing in the heat of scorching sunlight. I kept trying to remind myself that days earlier I'd swam for hours just to wash off the paddling sweat.

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The soft light did have some advantages though. I really liked the contrast between the green of this bush set against the stacks of Uinta Group rock in Carter Creek.

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We visited a couple other osprey nests, getting close enough to draw this display of wingspan from a young bird.

Thiiiiiiis big by ashergrey, on Flickr

If you look close, you can see rain falling in that picture.

Well, the worst of the rain hit as I tried to leave. I had to return home for work while my family planned to stay through Friday. As we motored back to Sheep Creek on Wednesday afternoon, a pounding rainstorm hit. Waves of water were sheeting down the boat ramp.

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My kayak, which had been mounted topside-up on my car, contained several inches of water which I had to drain. It poured all over me.

Once finally under way, I stopped to snap a quick picture of the storm…

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…and in the 20 seconds or so outside the car my camera was drenched. Thank goodness for weatherproofing.

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It continued to rain as I drove west. I stopped in Mountain View to again bail rain water out of the kayak. It was so wet that the skin, which is normally drum-tight, had started to sag.

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I guess we all have that to look forward to as we age.

The clouds didn't break until beyond Evanston. I feel bad for anyone who was camping in the Uintas that week, because they got hammered.

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Great pictures! I'm excited to visit flaming Gorge for the first time in September with my rowing club!
 
"Nickleback-ish generi-rock is awful, but it's worse when blast at 100 dB in an otherwise placid place."AGREE!You've had your fair share of bad weather trips.

As always, love the photos and commentary.
 
Another fantastic trip report. Thanks for posting, Dave. Nice to hear about Powell exploring this area near the start of his expeditions. How cool would it be to see it all when it was all still wild and free. I need to get out to Flaming Gorge soon. What are the water temps like out there in the summer?
 
Another fantastic trip report. Thanks for posting, Dave. Nice to hear about Powell exploring this area near the start of his expeditions. How cool would it be to see it all when it was all still wild and free.

I read a great book published by the University of Utah press last year called Lost Canyons of the Green River. It has some great photos of the "old" Flaming Gorge, as well as historical background about Brown's Park and the local environs.

I need to get out to Flaming Gorge soon. What are the water temps like out there in the summer?

Cooler than Powell, to be sure. I want to say they're usually in the mid to upper 60s during the summer. Usually though, I find the cooler water quite refreshing as the mid-day heating is usually pretty intense.[/quote]
 
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