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| We left Thermopolis after church
on Sunday headed south toward the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area
(NRA) in northeast Utah. |
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| As we traveled, the landscape
constantly changed. |
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| We camped at Skull Creek
Campground near the Red Canyon
Overlook and Visitor Center. Driving to the Overlook, we were treated to a herd of female bighorn
sheep and their babies. I never knew bighorn sheep were brown! The
staff at the Overlook told us that the females don't grow the big curved
horns that the males grow. As usual, the females got shortchanged! |
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| The view from the Red Canyon
Overlook is breathtaking. I just wish photographs could really
capture the beautiful red colors contrasting with the emerald green of the
Green River. The Canyon, at this point, is 1,700 feet deep and about
4,000 feet wide. The water is part of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir,
formed by damming the Green River 13 miles downstream. When full,
the reservoir is 275-feet deep at this point. |
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| Flaming Gorge straddles the
Utah/Wyoming border near the northeast corner of Utah. Though it reaches
some 60 miles north to Green River, Wyoming, most of the activity and the
most dramatic scenery are at its southern end in Utah. |
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| The Canyon was first noted in
1825 by General William H. Ashley, for whom the surrounding national
forest is named. John Wesley Powell, upon seeing the Canyon in 1869,
gave us the names Flaming Gorge and Red Canyon after he and his men saw
the sun reflecting off the red rocks. |
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| The rock formations throughout
the Canyon are spectacular. |
