Rock Springs, Wyoming

As we have moved south the smoky haze has gotten worse.

Boar's Tusk

The Cedar Canyon Petroglyphs are dated back more than 200 years, with some of the petroglyphs unique to this location, including several panels that include depictions of plants and markings referred to as calendars.

You have to search high and low in this area for the petroglyphs

White Mountain Petroglyphs are a permanent reminder of the Native Americans that called Sweetwater County home. With a 300-foot cliff face as their canvas, the area’s earliest-known human inhabitants created rock art that tells the stories of another time.  This site remains in use for ceremonial purposes.

This site has the largest sized animals we have seen.

Shadow selfie

Birthing rock

Driving Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Loop.

Wild horses with Pilot Butte in the background.

The beauty of this view is hidden by the smoky haze.

John Wesley Powell named the Flaming Gorge in 1846

Flaming Gorge Reservoir, measuring 91 miles long and spanning the states of Wyoming and Utah. Not to be outdone, the Green River is here, too, separated from the reservoir by the towering wall of the Flaming Gorge Dam.

This concrete pillar is a permanently installed base from which tiny movement in the dam can be measured.

This impressive view of the dam reveals its mass and height.  The dam stands 455 feet above the river channel.  It extends below the river bottom for another 47 feet, where it is anchored in bedrock.  One million cubic yards of concrete were used to build the dam and powerplant.

Boat ramp for launching rafts

In 1909 Oscar was only sixteen years old, which meant he was too young to file for a homestead at the location he had picked out in the Uinta Mountains. So his widowed mother did it for him. In 1913 Oscar and his wife, Emma, moved to the isolated, high-country ranch and lived in a one-room cabin that Oscar relocated from another ranch. At the time of his death in 1968, Oscar and Emma were the last remaining homesteaders in the area, having accrued 397 acres and constructed eighteen buildings, three of which were homes for his wife and constantly expanding family of nine kids. In 1972 the Forest Service bought the ranch and has subsequently turned it into a working historical site, where you can now get a taste of the homesteading years and what it took to make a living so far away from civilization.

House 1

House 2

House 3

Vegetable garden

Garden irrigation

Cold storage building

Root cellar

Saw mill

Chicken coop and pig pin

Blacksmith shop

They promised not to put us to work if we stayed for lunch

Perched high upon the rocky cliffs of Flaming Gorge, offering a commanding view of the vast Red Canyon, carved by the Green River many eons ago. 

This route winds through the dramatic geologic formations of the Sheep Creek National Geologic Area. The Uinta Fault, which runs for more than 100 miles along the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, is clearly visible in the extremely twisted rock layers along the upper part of the loop.

Another large rock cairn