Our Forest Service Gig at Flaming Gorge, Utah

 

Flaming Gorge, named by John Wesley Powell on his epic trip down the Colorado River.  Upon floating into the gorge and seeing the red canyon walls illuminated by the sun he wrote that it was as though the gorge was on fire and that he and his crew agreed that the name Flaming Gorge was the right name.  And we get to live here for four months.

Actually, Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area is a relatively small area within the 1.2 million acre Ashley National Forest.  Everything we do is associated with the recreation area.  And while it may be dwarfed by the size of the forest, the rec area is plenty big.  Our short commute to work is 12 miles round trip, the long one is 30 miles round trip.

May/June 2023

As previously posted, we arrived on May 19th and almost immediately set to work in getting all the interpretive sites that the volunteers were going to operate in appropriate condition for opening beginning the week leading up to Memorial Day.  There are three, the first being the Red Canyon Visitor Center where you can stand in front of a floor to ceiling wall of glass on the precipice of a 1,380' (421 m) cliff looking straight down to the reservoir below.

Picture from behind the wall of glass at the Red Canyon Visitor Center.
Our first six weeks was this kind of weather most days.

Next is the Swett Ranch, it is on the National Register of Historic Places and our first assignment for the summer.  More later.

And last is the Ute Mountain Fire Lookout Tower.  This is the one that gives us volunteers a 30 mile commute each day, several miles of which are Forest Service dirt roads climbing to 8,834' (2,693 m) elevation.

Ute Mountain Fire Lookout Tower.
Sitting atop Ute Mtn surrounded by Ponderosa Pine and Aspen.

Our first assignment, the Swett Ranch, had us doing docent duty and being caretakers of the 14 acres and 15 structures that are included in the National Registry.  This place's claim to fame is that it is as if it were frozen in time.  1935 to be exact.  Oscar Swett, the founder of the ranch in1909, was a great resistor of change.  He never owned a tractor or trucks and trailers.  If he couldn't do it with muscle and horse power, he didn't do it.  So despite the ranch operating until 1968 it was as if it were stuck in time thirty years prior. Now eighty-eight years ago.

Oscar's homes, just as he built them, where he built them.
Nothing re-created or "staged".

The front pasture where sheep were grazed, the horse barn and chicken coop.
The gorge and reservoir are below the mountain in the distance.

Cyndee going over research material.
Even though we had been sent stacks of literature to study months 
before we arrived, there was even more when we got here.

Our first week was a little slow.  The weather was mostly cold and wet and schools had not adjourned for the summer yet.  Which was good, it gave us time to flesh out narratives for those that asked for a guided tour.  When we had to start talking about the historic site and answer questions we found ourselves returning to the literature to confirm specific things.  Then came Memorial Day weekend.

The holiday promised to be different.  Of the two cattle ranches that have permits to graze the Swett Ranch and surrounding pastures, one of them, the A3 Ranch, is obligated to give a public demonstration of spring branding.  Despite it being 42 degrees and raining all day, they put on quite a show for about 70 people.

Ranch hands gathered up in the lower pasture waiting for the herd to be brought in

Vaccinating

Notching the ear.  Another form of identification (the old way).

Applying the brand.
This is where we lost a bunch of spectators.
Between the calf bawling its head off and the smell of burning hide 
they were overwhelmed and decided to be somewhere else.

Picking the next one.

Between the cold, the rain and the shock of the physicality 
of branding, vaccinating and ear tagging, this was what was 
left of our 70 visitors when the event was concluded early due to hail.

Hail brought an early end to the branding demonstration.

Visitors beat a hasty retreat to their vehicles as the hail fell.
The intrepid ranchers stayed with it and finished the last few calves.
A total of 45 head when it was all said and done. 

The weather didn't just put the kibosh on the branding demonstration.  The ranch became empty of visitors and the Forest Service dirt roads were becoming difficult to pass.  We locked up all the buildings and got the ranch ready to close as soon as the ranchers could get their trucks and trailers out of the pasture.  What should have been three minutes tops took nearly an hour.  Trying to move those trailers full of horses up the wet sloped pasture, which is primarily a top layer of clay, was a battle.

The last one out was the matriarch of the A3 Ranch.  As she passed us she stopped and spoke to Cyndee and me.  She invited us to join the family for a chuckwagon meal about a mile up the forest road.  Who were we to say "no"?  Didn't want to offend anyone so we said; "Sure!".

We followed the directions we were given and arrived at this scene.
Rain or shine they were by golly going to have a chuckwagon cookout.

It took an entire canopy to cover the burger grill.
They needed a grill that big.  There were at least four generations of family 
and a whole passel of neighbors and friends.

The chuck wagon was no joke.  There it was, a fully functional and well stocked, 
water barrels and all, chuckwagon with a Pillsbury Doughboy cook bustling around making preparations to feed a small army.

I can attest that these Dutch ovens contained some mighty fine eating.
Especially so because it was the only thing remotely warm that day.

Can't wait to see what the rest of the summer has in store for us.