Hunting Dinos and a ride in a Rzr

[DrMoab]

HUNTING DINOS
A Trip Report

You wouldn't think 903 miles in five days would be that much for a guy who regularly drives 600 miles a day for a living. That isn't in a rough riding jeep with a canoe on top, pulling a trailer on a lot of dirt roads though.

I was pretty wiped out when I got home.

A few months ago my brother had a crazy plan take Rzr's across the southern part of Wyoming from Rock Springs to Saratoga and back all on dirt roads. Because of a wet spring and heavy snow pack that didn't happen so since I had the days off I decided to take my son TJ and do some back roads exploring on our own. I had six days so we packed up the Jeep, canoe and trailer and pretty much spun the bottle to see where it would lead us.

Day 1
May 22​

Miles completed so far 30.2
iPod Shuffle : Mumford & Sons, Broken Crown

I drive past Devils Slide every day almost for work and TJ has been by here probably 100 times in his life but I thought it would be fun to stop and actually let him "see" it.

Mi 38.5
Gary Jules, Mad World

Kozy Cafe

If you have seen the move The Fastest Indian or many many other movies you have probably seen this little cafe. Growing up it was always a stop when we were going to our cabin. A few years ago it closed and to me it was the loss of an iconic 50's era greasy spoon. A month or so ago it reopened. The only thing that has really changed was the old cigarette machine is no longer in the lobby. Other than that the booths still have the same old vinyl, same tile on the floor and I'm pretty sure the same old codger sitting at the bar.

After leaving the Kozy and eating by far the best pancake I think I've ever had...and a side of bacon....and a pancake for my kid, we took off for Dinosaur land. Oh, did I mention that Kozy also has the same 70's menu I remember and I think the same pricing as they had when I was a kid?

Mi 92.6
AWOLnation, Knights of Shame

Wolf Creek Pass(Utah, not the famous one in Colorado)

We stopped at the top of Wolf Creek to admire the snow. Still quite a bit. I honestly thought about camping up here because we have had a lighter than normal snow pack. Guess not that light.

I asked TJ if he needed to use the bathroom. He said not bad enough to walk through that.

From there we hightailed it to the Vernal area. TJ decided he wanted to check out Dinosaur national monument. Ok with me as I had never actually been to the quarry before. The NM now makes you ride a shuttle bus to the quarry if you are there later than 9:30 am so we decided to wait till the next day and go do some other exploring before looking for a camp. I remembered going to Echo park a long time ago and thought it was as good a place as any to check out so off we went. It wasn't long before the scenery took on that southern Utah look I love so much...even though we were in Eastern Utah and actually for a couple miles, Colorado.

The road going into Echo Park is very scenic for this part of the state. Dropping off several switchbacks and eventually into a very tight canyon with slickrock surrounding you.

Mi 262.5
Gordon Lightfoot, Pony Man
Chew Ranch
Before you get to Echo Park proper, which is a confluence with the Green and Yampa rivers you pass an old homestead called Chew Ranch.

driving into the ranch

I don't think modern day people could ever comprehend just how hard a life it must have been to make a living in a place like this. Probably worth it though.

Now this is a crapper with a real view.

 

[DrMoab]

Mi 264.6
Red Hot Chili Peppers, 21st Century
After leaving the ranch we had one more stop. Whispering cave.

I've been in a lot of these little slickrock cracks before but this one is kind of unique. It was about 80* outside but when we got out of the jeep it felt like it was about 70*. Walking into the cave it was more like 50-60*. There is a constant drafty breeze that blows from somewhere that keeps it cold. It felt quite nice actually.

TJ investigating the cave.

Mi 266.3
Fatpaw, Killing Time with Matchsticks
Finally we made it to Echo Park. One of the prettiest places on the Green river I think.

When you first pull in you notice the great rock in the center of the park.
They call the rock Steamboat.

As you walk through the trees you notice that the river actually flows around it. It's a spectacular place.

While we were walking around the NP ranger came up and asked us if we planned on using our Canoe to float the river. I laughed at him. I am not a river guy when it comes to skinny boats. He seemed relieved as well and then told us about a couple of petroglyphs that were behind his cabin. He even let us use the service road to go up and check them out.

TJ standing next to one for scale.

It was getting late so we decided to head out and look for a camp somewhere. We weren't sure where we would camp but on our way out we happened across a good sized gopher snake crossing the road. I got out, snapped a couple of photos and then grabbed a stick to herd him off the road so no one ran him over. The stupid thing coiled up like a rattle snake and struck at me. It really took me by surprise. I thought for sure I had came across a rattler that didn't have any rattles. He coiled up right under my door and I couldn't get him to move. I finally had to get TJ to drive the jeep forward a few feet. As he did he struck at the Jeep too.

Sitting under the jeep all pissed off.

Stay tuned for day 2.....

 

[mako my day]

Awesome, thank you.

 

[Lowrange2]

Sweet! Looking forward to the rest!

 

[westvirginia24976]

Great shots. Looks like an awfully short stick for snake pokin'. :laugh3:

 

[DrMoab]

Great shots. Looks like an awfully short stick for snake pokin'. :laugh3:

Unlike a lot of places in the country we only have one major kind of poisonous snake. Usually if there aren't rattles at the end of the tail they won't harm you. It was the first thing I looked for and he was really docile till I poked him.

 

[Fore Wheeler]

I live in the wrong part of the country. Looking forward to the rest of the story

 

[DrMoab]

Day 2​

Day 1 didn't end as well as we had hoped. After running into the snake my boy started to not feel well. He had developed a stomach bug and really didn't feel like setting up an early camp needing to go to the bathroom every five minutes. So we made the trip into Vernal Utah and found a place to grab dinner. Well, I ate dinner and he ran back and forth to the bathroom. I thought it might be a good idea to camp close to town in case he got worse so after eating we started looking for a camp site around town. No deal... We just weren't having any luck. So we made the long backtrack to the area I had picked out to camp before and after driving around what seemed like half the state we finally found a flat spot under a tree. When I woke up in the morning I was astounded at the view. We had driven closer to Blue mountain that I thought we had and if we weren't in a hurry to make it to Dinosaur NM I think I might have stayed and explored the area a little more.

The view

So we warmed up some breakfast burritos and headed into the park. In 2006 they finished a major renovation on the quarry building and it was actually quite a site.

The story is that this area was on an ancient floodplain that collected all the bones of dinosaurs that had either died earlier or been caught in the flood and deposited them in one giant mound of critters. It's really amazing to see so many dino fossils in one place.

Here are a few photos from inside the building.

These full casts and skeletons were found in the park.

After leaving the quarry we headed further into the park to see some of the petroglyphs and another old homestead.

Our first stop was split mountain campground and boat ramp. I just wanted to see it since I had never been there before.

Some petroglyphs along the way.

The parking area for the short hike to look at the rock art.

 

[DrMoab]

Mi 424.4
AWOLnation, Not Your Fault

After leaving there we headed up to the old homestead of Josie Bassett Morris.
At almost 40 she was divorced, her kids were grown and she just wanted a place to live on her own. She built this cabin, the farm and lived there for most of her life. Quite a lady.

After leaving the park it was time to hit a major dirt road stretch of our trip. We left pavement right out of Vernal and headed towards Dimond Mountain and down into Browns park.

Mi 497.6
Pink, Crystal Ball

Crouse Canyon

As we got closer to the Green river, the canyon kept getting deeper and more scenic. We stopped for a quick bathroom break under the rock cliffs.

Mile 500.
The view

Mi503
Pink, Babe I'm gonna leave you (live Zeplin cover)

After popping out into Browns Park we came to one of the features on this trip I really wanted to see. The old swinging bridge that crosses the Green River. I have to admit I was slightly nervous. It has a weight limit of three tons and I know I was pushing that if not over by a few hundred pounds. This bridge is crazy. A suspension style bridge with wood planks built on top of cables. As you drive across you can hear it creak and moan. It also sways from side to side and builds a rolling wave of the deck in front of you....crazy!

Here is a short gopro video of driving across the bridge. The creaks and pops are not the jeep but the bridge itself.

http://youtu.be/P2dwtimZiKI

 

[mako my day]

Amazing again.

 

[DrMoab]

After leaving Browns park we were way ahead of schedule. I had planned on camping one more night before meeting up with my parents and my brothers but since we were only 80 miles or so away we decided to hightail it to Flaming Gorge dam and then up towards Rock Springs Wyoming where my brother lives.

TJ had never seen the dam before so I thought we would stop and take a gander at it.

As soon as we hit the state line we turned toward the lake and things got interesting. I had planned and routed out a track I wanted to take and plugged it into the GPS. The problem was the roads that were on the GPS didn't actually exist. At least not all of them. What should have taken us a couple of hours took us most of the afternoon and into the evening.

It was hours and hours of roads like this with several backtracks that were a few miles.

Most of the time we were following the lake. We could see it but we never could get close. This was frustrating because the main reason I brought the canoe was to paddle around some of the smaller side canyons of the lake.

After finally getting on better graded roads we popped up over a hill to find this view. This is the Firehole area of Flaming Gorge and it's quite beautiful.

From here it was about 20 miles into my brothers camp. We arrived beat up, tired and dusty. My family all camps in RV's and admittedly it was quite nice to wash my hair and have a real flushing toilet. My boy was so happy he wouldn't even sleep in the tent with me and bunked in with his grandparents that night.

Stay tuned for Day three...which takes a total different direction.

 

[mako my day]

I wish I could trust my XJ enough for a trek like this someday. You could charge good money for a tour like this.

 

[DrMoab]

You could charge good money for a tour like this.

Then I would have to deal with people. It's the reason I go on treks like this...to get away from humans.

 

[DrMoab]

Day 3​

TJ was pretty tired after being beat up in the jeep over rough roads for 600 miles in two days. Honestly I was too so on day three he decided to hang at camp with his grandma and I hopped in the passenger seat of my brothers hot rod Polaris Rzr 900.

There was us in is, one brother in another Rzr and still another brother in a new Arctic Cat Wildcat 1000 and my dad on a Suzuki King Quad.

My brother lives in the area and from his house he can ride in any direction for as many miles as he could ever want to ride. He took us on a pretty cool 40 mile ride that took pretty much all day.

We started out following an old pipeline road south of camp that brought us up on a large flat plateau. The view was pretty great.

From there he took us down to a place called Work Creek Ranch. I can't dig up any info on this ranch but there was a couple of very old houses and outbuildings.

Very old nails

From there we headed east up on another large plateau area where my brother always sees wild horses. Sure enough we ran into a few herds.

Then we ran into this poor girl. He had some sort of joint problem. I guess when they get this the herd shuns them and they live out their lives alone and eventually will die of the sickness or starvation....if the coyotes or wolves don't get them. Really sucks because it was a beautiful animal.

If you look you can see the size of the joints in its knees.

My brother had talked a lot about this hidden canyon with these weird rocks. I'm really disappointed with the photos here. They just don't do justice to how strange this place really is.

Here are a few I took.

My brothers in the shot for scale.

Tell me what you think this looks like.

It was getting late and my wife, daughter and dog were scheduled to arrive soon at camp and I wanted to make sure to be there in time so we headed back.

Had a nice sunset that night.

It was a full moon too.

My shabby family sitting around the campfire.

 

[Fore Wheeler]

Re: Re: Hunting Dinos and a ride in a Rzr

Then I would have to deal with people. It's the reason I go on treks like this...to get away from humans.

Lol, that's why I drive truck, I don't like people

 

[DrMoab]

Day 4

Don't have a ton of photos from this day. My brother took us on this wild little jeep road that required a lot of my attention and I didn't get out much to get any photos.

My brothers camping cat. His name is Buck. Named so because my brother got him for a buck. Awesome cat. We had eight dogs in camp. A Doberman named Zues, a Boxer named Honey Bucket, a Wiemer named Reatta, a Chihuahua named Romeo, a Yellow lab and Rottweiler mix named Nugget, A pomeranian named Grizz, a Yorkie named Dottie and my Tobe who is a half chocolate lab and half Wiemer. Not once did this cat even flinch at the dogs. If he got bothered he would just walk back to his trailer and stick to his own domain.

Since my wife and mother hadn't seen that ranch we decided to go up in that area again and show it to them. We ran into some more wild horses along the way.

Again at the ranch.

TJ wanted some driving time. I figured it was time to let him handle something a little tougher than a graded dirt road. He was fine till he got stuck trying to climb out of the creek crossing.

In the afternoon we took the crazy little jeep road my brother had been bugging me about. Didn't get any photos of the trail. Took this one at the highway at the end though.

My brother offered to cook everyone chicken and potatoes in dutch ovens for dinner. Well who am I to complain?

 

[DrMoab]

Day 5
The last day​

Sadly this was our last day to explore. On day six we woke up early and headed home. The whole week went by without the ability for us to get the canoe on the water. It was just too windy. We decided to get up early and head to the lake to see if we could beat the afternoon winds that always blow in that area.

We made it to the lake but again, too windy. We got a couple of short paddles out on the lake but ended up just enjoying the sun and the beach.

My daughter and her almost always present smile.

I figured with all the snowmelt that the lake would be far too cold for the kids. Didn't seem to stop them from splashing around with my dog...who is two parts water dog breed and HATES the water.

My daughter grabbed my camera a few times on the trip. Here are a few she took. I think she might have "the eye" we will see.

This one made me laugh. I don't know what she bribed her brother with to get in this pose but I know he would NEVER agree to it unless it was something good.

And...that pretty much wraps it up. The next morning we broke camp and daylight and headed home with a canoe on the roof and a horrible headwind. 9mpg FTW baby!!!

 

[Fore Wheeler]

That's an awesome trip Ryan, what's better than the trip is the memories that you made with your kids. They will never forget that

 

[GSequoia]

I find it amusing that Kirsten always smiles and TJ never does. Wonder who each take after

 

[bigalpha]

I'm super jealous. Was the trip to the Dinosaur Nat'l Monument worth it? The wife and i debated taking a trip up there but wasn't sure if it warranted a couple days.