CuRVWander: Summer is Moving to the Rear View Mirror

Flaming Gorge Reservoir

September 2023

It's hard to think about it but the time is coming near when we have to pack up and leave this summer paradise. There are a few days of fire watch tower duty left and a multi-day excursion to Yellowstone National Park and then that's it, we head south.

Labor Day weekend tends to be Flaming Gorge's biggest visitation time. Bigger even than Independence Day. But our visitation at the fire watch tower had been such a dribble for the whole month of August that we figured that since we were so remote that we probably wouldn't feel the effects of the holiday. Couldn't have been more wrong.

The tower, being the wooden legged structure that it is can only hold so many people at a time. We had a ten person limit on the tower at one time. We had only seen that limit hit a couple of times when we had tour groups come to the top of Ute Mountain. The rest of our time we never saw more than one or two vehicles (2 to 6 six people) in the "cul-de-sac" at a time. Labor Day weekend that all changed.

A chock-full cul-de-sac and steady stream of people all
Labor Day weekend.

We had to quickly develop a new method of how we managed our day. Suddenly we were having to divide our time between being docents and traffic control. But a lot of credit to a successful weekend goes to the visitors. They were really great at working with us on the ten person limit. Groups organized themselves and everybody was real good at being patient waiting their turn to come up.

Not only was a date on the National Recreation Area calendar telling us that this was our last hurrah but our first day on duty (Friday) this weekend we were greeted by a message from Mother Nature that summer was coming to an end, abruptly.

The mountain top to our west-southwest revealed a fresh coat of
snow on the morning of our last weekend.

Inside the cab was frigid. Our presence fogged over the
windows immediately.

The last hoorah weekend went well. Our final act was to pack up the displays, removing the more valuable items, and prep the cab for winter. Then we left Ute Mountain for the last time.

Now it was time for a mini-vacation. We asked for, and got permission to leave our rig in its current location for the few days we were going to be in Yellowstone National Park. It wasn't that big of a deal though, we also agreed, gladly, to an extra week of work on the historical ranch when we returned.

You would think that in mid September, with no holidays in the immediate future, all schools back in session and winter looming that one could easily find a hotel room and at a reasonable price in the Yellowstone area. Wrong!

First, hotel rooms were in short supply and the ones that could be had were extraordinarily priced, anywhere anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a night. No way were we going to fork out that kind of money. Cyndee spent hours searching an ever-widening circle for a hotel room that was not insanely priced. Cody, WY at an hour-and-a-quarter away from the east entrance was where we landed.

In the end it worked out great. Cody had a lot to offer, most prominently was the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. One couldn't tell from the outside but this is a world-class museum. On approach we thought we would be in there maybe an hour and check out some cheesy exhibits. Couldn't have been more different. This place was exceptional and we had to break off our visit after 5 hours without seeing everything.

The next several days were spent commuting to Yellowstone NP early in the morning and dragging home late in the evening. We took it all in and took well over a thousand photos. No narration but here are a few pics.

Trumpeter Swans.
Less than 15 of these left in Yellowstone

Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

My bride enjoying the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Scalding hot fountains depositing minerals.

Mineral terraces.
Boardwalk to get close was closed.

Mineralcicles not icicles

Happened upon this bull elk as he was
scraping the velvet off his rack.

Got really excited when I thought I was photographing wolves.
When I got home and studied the bone structure closer it didn't
look heavy enough for a wolf. I think they are just big coyotes.

That's a creek directly in front of them.
They were very skittish about ducking down and getting a quick drink.

It just wouldn't be right to go to Yellowstone and not
make it to the lodge at Old Faithful.

The architecture was beyond impressive to me.

Inside as well.
We just lingered for a good while and took it in.

Still going strong

I switched to video for the eruption, so no stills.

Our daughter just happened to call as we were waiting for
the eruption and she asked if there were very many people
since it was the off-season. The picture is of the crowd to
my right, there was an equal number to my left.