Days 42-51, July 1-10, Nevada to Wyoming

This post covers many days and a lot of road miles.  It's been a transition period, one that was supposed to evolve from a quiet break with Trish in Las Vegas to a new set of fly-fishing adventures.  The quiet break happened as planned, punctuated by an evening and a night at the Palazzo resort on the Strip and dinner at Postrio.  Trish and I had a wonderful time together.  On the morning of the 6th we said goodbye again.  Driving north from Las Vegas, I thought a lot about the dynamics of marriage.

Trish often informs me during our daily phone calls that many people she talks to are bewildered by my decision to be away from her for the better part of four months, or by her decision to "let me" be away for so long, or both.  Apparently these earnest folks believe that I'm too irresponsible or that she's too generous, or both.  With all due respect to those reading this who may be among the people feeling and expressing such sentiments, that perspective is rather narrow, I think.  My journey is not about being away from Trish.  Being away from her is an unfortunate side effect of my pursuit of personal passions, necessary in part because Trish has little or no interest in fly-fishing or camping in remote places and I don't want her to have to feign interest or endure activity that bores her.  I gladly reciprocate, enabling her to pursue substantially all of her own personal interests, including frequent visits to far-flung friends and family.  We respect each other's individuality.  That, to us, is an essential component of love.  Of course I miss Trish when we're apart, as I've reported many times.  If I thought I would never be with Trish again after this trip, my immediate priorities would change and I would return home now, because in the long run there is no higher priority than being with her.  But neither of us is so pessimistic, fearful or insecure that we must constantly cling to one another as if an absence were anything more than temporary.  In my opinion, unless a couple happens to share exactly the same interests all the time (hard to imagine), the best thing they can do for one another - the beating heart of true love - is to support one another's passions and obsessions.  There would be few adventurers - no astronauts or sailors or soldiers or explorers or foreign correspondents, for example - if there weren't husbands and wives somewhat comfortable with the notion of being separated for relatively long periods.  In the big picture, four months isn't a long time, and we'll be together for the better part of a week on three separate occasions during the remaining 70 days of my trip.  I look forward to each of those occasions with great relish.

Maybe I'm feeling defensive now because of the consistently gloomy skies I've been under since I arrived in Las Vegas.  I've gazed upon many spectacular scenes the past five days - giant hoodoos and chimney rocks, magnificent ridges and cliffs, red rock canyons and snow-capped peaks.  Most of the time, those scenes were in the shadows of clouds, and sometimes were veiled behind black sheets of heavy rain.  Worse than that, all the rivers I crossed, and there were many, were high, muddy and virtually unfishable due to an abnormally cold and snowy spring across most of the mountain west.  I planned to be fully re-engaged in fly fishing by now, following the Vegas break, but the full transition may yet take some time due to the late runoff.

That said, I snuck in two short fly-fishing sessions on the way north from Vegas.  They were fiascoes for the most part, but not entirely without reward.  The day I left Vegas I drove Excalibur into the southeast highlands of the Wasatch range in central Utah.  I had always wanted to fish the Fremont River, but it quickly became apparent that the sections of the river most frequented by fly fishers were high and muddy.   Also they are on private land accessible only to certain guides.  So I moseyed up a narrow road high into the mountains nearer the headwaters of the Fremont.  The water there was off-color but low enough for me to recognize potential.  I situated Camelot in a quiet spot between the road and the stream where there were no other human souls within sight or earshot, strung up my 3-weight mountain rod, and made the short hike through sagebrush to the little river.  My disappointment about the water quality was exacerbated when I discovered that the river banks were severely degraded by cattle.  Still, I ducked under the tight brush to a small pool that showed promise and was surprised to discover one of the most prodigious hatches of mayflies, caddis flies and even little yellow sallies (a small stonefly) that I've ever witnessed.  A trout revealed itself to me in the fast current coarsing through the gray pool, rising to a large mayfly.  I immediately cast an elk hair caddis into the current and fooled a 10-inch brown trout.  Within a few minutes I caught two more like him on the same fly, then repositioned myself to cast into a little eddy behind a protusion in the bank.  I required several tries before my fly landed in the exact spot it needed to be, an inch away from the bank at the top of the eddy.  I was shocked when a fat 16-inch brownie sucked in the fly and swam several circuits around the pool before I could bring him to hand.  Unfortunately I hadn't brought my camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it that he was a prize, coming from such a small river. I tried to find another pool upstream but didn't get far before I stepped into what appeared to be a solid piece of grass but turned out of be one of a multitude of deep holes dug by cow's hooves.  For a few seconds I was seriously worried as my right leg sunk into mud high up my thigh.  I was barely able to reach a nearby limb that gave me just enough leverage to unplug myself from the mud.  Fiasco or epiphany?  You be the judge.

The next morning I drove backroads up through Utah, much of which looked spectacular between breaks in the clouds.  My goal was to camp along the Green River south of Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  The land surrounding the reservoir was green and gorgeous and the dam was impressive in height, so I thought I'd made a good call.  But just as I pulled into a gas station in the town of Dutch John above the river canyon, dark skies unleashed a torrent of rain, then hail, and frequent bolts of lightning that sounded like they were striking just across the parking lot.  I took it as a sign, even if it was just coincidence, that I should roll on.  I crossed the border into Wyoming a short time later.  I eased Excalibur down the steep grades from the Uinta Mountains into the high desert, taking a short detour west shortly before Rock Springs.  The detour took me down into the Firehole Canyon to a little-visited arm of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir where I found an empty campground and set up Camelot before an amazing vista.  Late in the evening, the sun made a brief appearance from behind the clouds just before dropping over the horizon.  I took this photo of the scene while cooking dinner over a campfire:

I retired when night fell, just as a couple of families were moving into the campground.  They managed to erect their tents and crawl into them just before the next storm charged in.  For the next few hours I was occasionally torn from slumber by distant thunder and the steady patter of rain on Camelot.  It was soothing, actually.

The next morning after coffee and pancakes I navigated to the town of Green River before turning north again to follow the river to the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge.  There I stopped to read the historical markers describing the nearby pioneer trails and the ferries that carried wagons across the river, which was normally swollen in the early summer when most of the pioneers arrived.  On the occasion of my visit, swollen was a word that couldn't contain the reality of the torrent.  The Green River would be more accurately named if it were the Grande Cappucino River.  Ever the optimist, I strung up my Sage XP 5-weight rod.  Easing down the steep river bank to a shallow ledge of loose rock, I positioned myself near an eddy where there appeared to be enough slow water for fish to congregate.  I made dozens of casts with many different kinds of nymphs and dries, drifting the nymphs as deep as I could, but to no avail.  I know there are large trout in the river, but apparently they weren't where I thought they should be on that day.  Still, the sun was shining at that moment and the hatching insects were even more prolific than on the Fremont two days prior, so it was a pleasant stop, all in all.  I counted at least four different kinds of mayflies, including the large and narcissistic specimen perched on Excaliber in the picture below, in addition to caddis flies of every size and the largest midge species I have ever seen - beautiful little creatures with flourescent green heads and pinkish bodies draped with long, shimmering, transparent wings.  Despite all that food washing around the eddies along the banks, the mighty river was not forthcoming with trout.

I took my time on the banks of the Green, taking pictures of the blooming prickly pear cacti and the aquatic flies that seemed fascinated by Camelot and were trying to get in it.  I also made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - an exquisite treat on a fine afternoon among the cottonwoods.

Heading northeast, I gradually crept up on the Wind River Range, which is one of the most impressive mountain ranges in the west.  For a time the clouds formed a halo over the range, shading the lower slopes but allowing the sun to illuminate the snow-shrouded tops, to dizzying effect.  A little farther northeast, a long curtain of rain occupied the desert slopes between the highway and the mountains.  I steered Excalibur as gently as possible along its leading edge, buffeted in the transition zone between 80-degree and 55-degree slabs of air, tunneling through the noisy deluge, dodging lightning.  I finally eased out of the storm near South Pass, notable as one the main routes through the Rockies for tired pilgrims and their wagons in the 19th century.  The Sweetwater River, the Sandy River, the Popo Agie River, the Wind River, the Big Horn River - all high and muddy and unfishable.   Past the Red Canyon near Lander, WY I drove (see picture below). Then through the narrow gorge where the Wind River slices through the Owl River Mountains.  Through Thermopolis and its bubbling and sulphorous hot springs.  Through the Big Horn Basin east of the southern Absaroka Range.  And finally to Meeteetse where I spent the evening with my close friends of many years, Chip and Julie.

Julie has now departed to see friends and family in Iowa, but I'm still in Meeteetse with Chip.  Yesterday we hauled a flatbed trailer with Chip's friend Billy to Billings, MT to pick up some lumber and hardware, crossing the turgid Greybull, Shoshone, Clark's Fork and Yellowstone Rivers on the way.  The bridge across the Yellowstone is very near the site of last week's oil spill where an Exxon pipe that was supposedly buried safely beneath the river bed burst and dumped a gusher into the river.   The drilling won't stop - you can be assured of that.  Last night we visited the Cowboy Bar, reputed to have been frequented by Butch Cassidy and other notorious characters during the joint's formative years.  A local band, 9 O'Clock, played some solid rock-and-roll for a rowdy crowd.  We loved it.  Fly-fishing time will come again, when it can.  My near-term plans are fluid.