PROLOGUE

Lucy and I had planned to participate in what would be my sixth Earthwatch and her first: Conserving Wild Bees and Other Pollinators of Costa Rica June 3rd through 10th. However my back was acting up and I got a virus (not Covid, thankfully), so in early March decided that I was not in good enough shape to participate. All of my fees were returned, with the exception of the $300 that Lucy and I had each contributed to this scientific research. This did not bite too hard as I was glad to support such research.

We were both disappointed, however, so we planned another adventure together: A spring camping/fishing/happy 81st birthday expedition in northwestern Utah's Flaming Gorge. 

Lucy flew to Salt Lake City on May 18th. Jessica picked her up at the SLC airport and the two had a brief Sistah time before Jeff and I drove to Jessica’s in Mill Creek that evening (about 20 minutes from us) and enjoyed portabella burgers, and other goodies with our two daughters.

Before dinner, Jeff gave each of his women a birthday book: Lucy’s birthday is in April, mine in May, and Jessica’s in June. I was given McCollister’s The Baseball Book of Why, Lucy received Kate Parker’s Deadly Scandal, and Jessica was given The New Yorker Cartoon Notepad: CATS. Each of our gifts was wrapped in brown paper with Jeff’s famous cat cartoon greeting on the paper. My book was given to me because Jeff and I watch the Yankees games and I am always asking “Why?” i.e., “Why can the third base runner score a run when the ball is caught?” Ans: Sacrifice fly.

After dinner, Lucy and I looked over Jessica’s extensive outdoor gear and toted back to Sandy Jessica’s  kitchen box, camp stove, Kelty camp chairs, sand-free mat, and handwashing station. I was puzzled by the sand-free mat at first. It is a large, layered mesh material that sifts the sand and debris that one’s feet bring onto it down below it. We placed it on the floor of the tent so the the tent floor was clean and spotless. It is also used on beaches, outside the tent, etc. We simply swept and shook out the sand when packing up the tent after our adventure.

That evening back in Sandy, Lucy—who’d had a very long day—rested and relaxed, enjoying a brief father/daughter time with Jeff.

DAY 1 May 18, 2023

The next morning Lucy and I packed the car with what we had borrowed from Jessica and with two inexpensive spin rods/lures, my fly rod, my fly vest with all the necessary things in its pockets, all of our food stuff, two folding camp chairs, my little cabin tent, two folding camp cots (glamping you know for my aging back), our backpacks, sleeping bags, etc. etc. and off we went on the approximately four-hour drive to our campsite in Flaming Gorge.

We came upon the sign above on our first rest stop on I-80 past Park City

During our stay in the Gorge, we encountered five snakes, none of them poisonous . . . we think. Each was slender, pale brown and with a non-venomous head. I have spent some time on the Internet trying to track down the species but have come up empty. The Yellow-bellied racer and striped whipsnake seem closest but the slim brown snakes we were seeing had no distinctive markings. One snake that Lucy nearly stepped on in the woods near a runoff stream, entered the stream, swam against the current, and disappeared under the bank . . . but my research tells me that there are no water snakes in Utah—only common garter snakes.The snakes we saw fit none of the garter snake descriptions. Mystery.

On the way to the Greens Lake campground I had reserved, we checked out Carmel Campground that Lucy thought might be good. It was a small campground on Geological Loop Road in tall pines. The sites were right on Sheep Creek beneath towering cliffs. Most sites were filled and the creek was running very fast and high—not suitable for fishing--so we decided to move on and check out the Greens Lake campground I had reserved. 

Before leaving, we explored along the edges of the creek, hoping to find some morels (left) but with no luck. Lucy and her partner, Laura, are exceptional morel and other mushroom hunters. On last year's birthday jaunt to southern Utah, Lucy and I found a goldmine of morels along a little stream, so we carefully scoured every stream we encountered in Flaming Gorge . . . with no success. 

Curious about the geology of the area, I consulted Roadside Geology of Utah when I got home and found that "when the Uinta Mountains began to rise about 65 million years ago in what is now Utah, the upward faulting broke through a host of other ancient rock formations, several of which are dramatically exposed along Sheep Creek."

At Carmel campground we met a fisherman who gave us fishing advice, a small jar of floating stink bait, and told us that people were lining the docks and pulling trout out of the Sheep Creek Bay Marina nearby. A female ranger at Carmel joined our conversation and gave us a map of the area.

We drove to the Sheep Creek Bay Marina, saw no one fishing, and wanted to check out our reserved site at Greens Lake, so decided to continue to Greens Lake and to try the marina another day. 

We were pleased when we got to the Greens Lake campground. There were only two other campers there: One in a small RV two sites away from us and the other out of sight on the other side of the campground loop . . . which paved road, btw, was full of deep potholes and required attentive driving. The road was flooded at its beginning and in it swam a mallard duck! Spring runoff water gurgled and ran everywhere through the woods and we could tell that it had once been at our site.

Greens Lake campsite similar to ours

I had reserved site #1 “site” unseen but it turned out to be unshaded and in a field at the entrance. It was too early for any campground host, so Lucy dialed up the national park registration people and we got permission to move our reservation from unshaded, open Site #1 to lovely Site #6 with mature pines and right on the lake.

"Greens Lake Campground is located next to its scenic namesake along Red Canyon Road at an elevation of 7,400 feet." We were told that visitors could enjoy canoeing and fishing on the lake and exploring the Red Canyon Rim Trail . . . all of which we did. What we were not told was that the lake was catch & release only. Nor were we told that the fish in the lake had whirling disease, a parasitic disease not harmful to humans but infecting trout and salmon.

When we parked at site #6 and began unloading, we had to be careful not to step on moose droppings. Seems that a moose had been dining on the new spring buds and leaves of the tall bushes near the site.

Lucy is an organizational mastermind, so it was not long after we arrived that our tent was up, sand mat on its floor, cots arranged head to foot on either side of the tent, stove and hand washing station set up, and water on to boil for coffee. She even hung the hammock between two trees. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

The green cloth on the floor of the tent is the sand-cloth we borrowed from Jess.

It is a good thing that Lucy is so organized because it started to rain not long after we got set up. By this time it was mid afternoon, so we ate our first meal of the day in the tent at around 3:30! Chicken legs that Jeff had baked and ample helpings of raw veggies dipped in a lactose-free cottage cheese dip.

Lucy snug in the tent eating our first day's meal, a chicken leg and veggies at about 3:30.

After our chicken break it had stopped raining, so we assembled our little spin rods and set out to explore the area, wearing our boots, taking our fishing poles, and walking carefully over the marshy bits and along a trail to a rock outcrop on our side of the lake that we could see from our tent site. There were large crayfish in the lake near the outcrop. There were also signs tacked to the trees: CATCH AND RELEASE ONLY. Also prohibited was the use of  crawfish or any other live bait. We found the live bait restriction at several other sites we fished later on, so it was a good thing that we were fishing with flies and lures. But, "catch and release" meant that there would be no camp dinners of fresh fish from Greens Lake. 

Lucy casting from the shore of Greens Lake

We threw a few casts and though Lucy got a bite, we came up empty. Nearby, a small plank bridge spanned a runoff creek and connected what seemed to be a trail continuing on. We later learned that the Greens Lake and Skull Creek campgrounds were connected by this 3.5 mile trail. 

The rocky area where we fished on our first day

We explored the area, much of it soggy with high mountain snow runoff--little creeks and larger creating wetlands and streaming and gurgling through the forests, taking the easiest paths downhill. We got used to walking on the somewhat solid clumps of grass and debris above the marsh. A lot of our woods walking required rubber boots or waterproof shoes which, thankfully, we had brought along.

The two of us searched in vain for morels along these streams but by the end of our stay Lucy, a keen morel hunter who knows the areas and conditions that produce morels, realized that it was too early this high. The aspens were just starting to leaf out. So, unlike our 80/50  birthday celebration of last year in the warmer, lower elevations of southern Utah, this year we did not find a goldmine of morels. Bah!

Note the two runoff streams upper left joining this stream which has
rounded a bend and is running off top right.

 I used the "Picture This" app on my cell to take photos of and identify several flowering plants on the forest floor. I cannot figure out how to download those pix from the app or if it is even possible, so the pix below are of the plants I photographed and identified but are from the internet.

1) cup fungi, 2) scurfy twiglet (Tubaria furfuracea), 3) false morel, 4) sagebrush buttercup,
5) bearberry, 6) field pussytoes, 7) carpet phlox, 8) dwarf fireweed, 9) [incorrectly labeled 1]
creeping barberry, 10) elkweed, 11) giant red Indian paintbrush

A note about Elkweed: The plants we saw and the one pictured here were small. They reach maturity in July. From the Internet: "Elkweed Frasera speciosa is a species of flowering plant in the gentian family (Gentianaceae) known by the common names elkweed, deer's ears, and monument plant. The elkweed plant can grow to 8 feet. It produces flowers only once in its lifetime of 20 to 80 years and then dies. It is thus called a monocarpic plant, i.e., one that grows many years, flowers once, and then dies."

Oops. Forgot to add my favorite, too: Cladoniaceae Fungi. I can just imagine small fantasy creatures living in this cupped forest.

When we got back to camp, a marmot scurried from the site to its den, which happened to be across the camp road. Lucy got a couple of pix of it the next day and we began feeding it some of our nutty trail mix and some of our green grapes. It seemed to be habituated to campers and wasn't very shy. We enjoyed feeding and fussing over Mr. Marmot (a large ground squirrel) for the remainder of our stay. We also laid out nuts and fruit on a flat rock near our site for Mr. Marmot's cousin, a Uinta ground squirrel, but it got only one taste of it before Mr. Marmot found our offering and scarfed it up.

The photo Lucy took of Mr. Marmot sunning before his den 

When we returned to the campsite, we snacked on Triscuits and lactose-free sharp cheese, green grapes, and our veggies & dip. We had no wood for a fire, it started to rain again, and we were both tired from the excitement, the long drive, and the hassle of packing, sorting, unloading, set-up, and our explore. We were also cold and wearing our down jackets, so we went to bed early. 

In addition to our 0-degree mummy bags, we had two additional mid-weight sleeping bags, two small down puffy blankets, and two soft flannel blankets. We needed all of them. Also I had brought along a quilt and a large mover's quilt/blanket. We folded one of these on each of our cots under our sleeping bags to prevent the cold under the cot from seeping up.

I slept on the cot that we had padded with the mover's quilt. I wore socks, light p.j. bottoms, a long-sleeved jersey and a sweatshirt inside my 0-degree mummy that was inside a mid-weight sleeping bag. I had forgotten to pack my knit hat, so wrapped one of the flannel blankets around my head. 

The Susan pupa in her cocoon

I should have been as cozy as a bug in a rug, but I FROZE all night and had to get up multiple times for the bathroom. Zip . . . , zip. . . , zip . . . and I emerged each time like a butterfly from its cocoon. At night, the bathroom for me was an odorless camp toilet inside the tent. Lucy could manage to unzip the tent door and relieve herself in the woods. Temps dipped into the mid to high twenties low thirties each night. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

DAY 2, THURSDAY, MAY 19

We awoke this morning stiff with cold and unrested. But, Lucy soon fixed a breakfast of coffee and scrambled egg beaters, cheese, tomatoes and salami bits rolled in a tortilla.

After breakfast we decided to hike the Skull Creek trail, so drove to the Skull Creek campground about four miles away. Skull Creek CG lies on a hillside forested with ponderosa pines and aspens near Flaming Gorge Reservoir. While we did not hike the trail from its beginning at Skull Creek CG to our campground at Greens Lake (7-mile round trip), we explored the campground and walked about two miles of the trail, stopping and turning around when the trail became impassable with melt runoff.  At the end of the day, my cell pedometer said we'd walked a little over six miles. 

Below are several photos I took on or beside the trail. My aim was to show how watery and wet the forest floor was, but in most of the pix the water is not evident.

It was on this explore that Lucy found some false  morel mushrooms. Though inedible, these false morels gave her hope that we would find the real thing in the area, so we spent a good deal of time searching, taking pix of the flowers and runoff and other mushrooms in the area. There must have been a fire in the area. There were many burned, downed trees.

After our hike, we returned to our campsite,

snacked on our foodstuffs, and I took a half-hour nap in what was now a warm and cozy tent.

When I awoke, we decided to drive to nearby Fireman's Memorial Campground—a campground that serves as a memorial to three firefighters who lost their lives in the 1977 Cart Creek Fire—where we were told there was wood and showers. But the gate to the campground was closed. So, we drove to Dutch John, about 7 miles farther along 191. If you are as curious as I about the odd name of this town, here’s a bit from the Internet: “The town of Dutch John is named after an early resident, John Honselena, a horse trader who supplied emigrants and the railroad with horses in the 1860s. People called him Dutch John because of his thick accent, even though he was actually German, not Dutch.”

In Dutch John we asked about showers and bought gas, two small bundles of firewood, ice, and snacks at a convenience store that called itself Dutch John Resort—perhaps because it had showers and a Sporting goods section? 

This convenience store—and the two young people at its register—was impossible. The gas came out of the nozzle in drips causing Lucy to stand at the pump forever to fill the tank with only about a dollar's worth of gas. We told the two inside the situation and they advised us to move to Pump #2. We did. Same s-l-o-w problem. Another vehicle pulled  up to the next pump island and could get no gas. The three of us presented the problem to the young ninnies inside. They got their manager who did something to alleviate the other's driver's problem and to speed up our pump . . . but it still pumped at a snail's pace so the other driver drove off and we gave up after very slowly filling the tank only three-quarters full.

Back at the campsite, we unloaded the wood, decided to have shish-ka-bobs for dinner and then drove to the other side of the lake and the Red Canyon Lodge to enquire about renting a canoe. 

Red Canyon Lodge opposite our campsite on Greens Lake

Lodge porch where we ate birthday dinner on our last night

At the Lodge, Lucy bought a tee shirt, I bought some Tylenol—at Lucy's suggestion as my back was acting up again—and we talked to the woman in the gift shop about renting a canoe ($12 hour). I was wearing my Uff da! hat and the gift shop woman asked if I was Scandinavian. Turned out she was Norwegian and familiar with the expression. My Uff da! hat came up again in the sporting goods section of the Dutch John convenience store where we were buying a lure recommended to us by a successful fisherman. This saleswoman also asked me about the words Uff da! on my hat, saying that she used the expression every day. While our family had spent 1988/89 in Norway, I had actually bought the hat in Astoria, Oregon while on a cross-country bicycle ride. Astoria was celebrating their yearly Scandinavian Midsummer Festival.

At the Lodge, Lucy also asked about sweets to celebrate my 81st birthday the following evening. Yes, they had a super pastry chef and a great selection. We were all set.

Red Canyon Lodge is only 1.5 miles from the Canyon Rim Overlook and Canyon Rim Trail, so we decided to walk to it. The trail behind the Lodge's log cabins, led us through the woods to a lookout at the very edge of the canyon. Gorgeous but scary for height wienie moi.

After our hike to and along Red Canyon rim, we returned to the campsite where Lucy made an excellent fire and I lazed in the hammock. 

That evening we enjoyed the shish kabobs that had been on ice for the past day. Pretty tough and chewy. We should have marinated them. But they were tasty after such a long day anyway. However four kabobs--two each--was way too much. so we placed the steak, peppers, and onions in a plastic container and tucked the container back into the cooler ice.

This night we prepared better for the cold and had a better night's sleep.

DAY 3, Friday, MAY 20

We woke in the morning to a dew covered and wet campsite but to no rain. It was COLD, so we bundled up in our sweats and down jackets. Lucy soon had the coffee water heating. I think I had a bowl of oatmeal with maple sugar but cannot now remember Lucy's breakfast. Warmed by breakfast, we shed some clothing and planned our day,

This day we decided to fish the Flaming Gorge Dam spillway that a fisherman had told us was a good spot.

On arrival at the dam, high above the canyon, we paid a daily fee ($5 I think) and were told that we could drive the car down to the boat launch and river on switchback Flaming Gorge Boat Launch Road, but had to drop off our gear and then drive the car back up to the rim and parking. 

The kicker? To get down to the Green River again after parking, one had to navigate a sheer trail down the cliffside. Lucy dropped height-wienie me off at the bottom and then drove the car back up and parked it. Then she navigated the steep trail, which was no fun and so steep that she said that at times she could look through holes and crevices in the rocks and see the river far below.

The place was jumping with private pickups, other vehicles, and river guides/clients launching their boats. We unloaded our equipment, and Lucy drove the car back up. While waiting for her, I used the restroom and then assembled my fly rod and reel. When I could not fit one piece of the rod together, I asked a young guy near me for help. Daniel and his brother Darian were glad to help and gave me some pointers.

In the course of our conversation we learned that we were all from Schenectady, New York 2100 miles away! Well, I am now living in Utah but I grew up in Schenectady where my father and grandfather had worked for General Electric and my mother had worked at Union College in the Admissions Office. What are the odds?

Though Schenectady is beginning to make a comeback, we discussed how sad Schenectady is today with the loss of General Electric. In its heyday, Schenectady GE employed roughly 20,000. Today, according to the Internet, it now employs a mere 3,000 to 4,000. 

These two men were young enough to have attended Schenectady High School. In 1992, when GE pulled out and the city's population shrank, the city's two high schools—Linton that I attended and Mount Pleasant our rivals—merged to become Schenectady High School. Because of my gray hair, the boys knew that I had attended Linton High School from which I graduated in 1960.

Finally Lucy appeared, legs shaky and eyes wide after her steep climb down to the boat launch.

The end--or the beginning--of the steep climb
to and from the parking lot at the canyon rim

We said good bye to Daniel and Darien and wished them luck, gathered our gear, and then walked a narrow trail under the cliffs along the edge of the fast flowing river until we found a good notch into which the fish could come from the rapids to rest. Though the trail followed the river for about three miles, we were only about a quarter mile from the boat launch site and that presented problems. There must have been thirty or forty boats launched into the river that morning (not an exaggeration). Several of them were privately owned, but many were tourist fishermen like Daniel and Darien who had hired a river guide and boat. Unfortunately for us, several of these boats did not respect our area but cast right over or near our lines or entered our calm fishing area. 

The Green River below the dam

Lucy fishing the Green River from the shore below the dam

One of many boats that put in on the spillway boat ramp 

Though we saw three fishermen in the boats endlessly passing by catch a fish, when we had fished unsuccessfully for several hours, we packed up our gear and Lucy climbed back up the steep trail to the parking lot and car. We decided to try our luck at Antelope Flats in the Gorge.

We drove a long, steep, curvy dirt road that eventually became briefly paved and ended at the Antelope Flats parking lot/boat ramp area. We were still high above the water and though there were restrooms at the parking lot, they were locked, so we used the Green Door and then snacked from our coolers and foodstuff.

I know why it is called Antelope Flats because though we didn't see any at this location, the Internet is filled with photos of "antelope" in this area. Really Pronghorns. (See Internet photo below.).Why the area is called Flats we did not learn until we had walked a trail down to the water.

Right near the parking lot, atop a tall nest pole, was an osprey nest with two adults in it. These birds fished the flats at the same time we fished it. On our way back up to the car three of them were fishing the area. We decided that one was the immature of the pair.

To fish, we sat on the edge of the bay you can see behind Lucy in the photo left. It was sand and gravel that kept caving onto a narrow ledge in the water. I imagined myself standing atop the rim of a canyon that dropped off many feet to the bottom because Flaming Gorge Reservoir has a total area of over 65 square miles and is 430 feet deep at its deepest.

At the Flats we again unsuccessfully fished, but we did not see the ospreys or any of the other fishermen on the Flats catch a fish either. I believe it was too close to mid-day for fishing.

After an hour or two we packed up and decided to try Mustang Ridge. 

Mustang ridge was a hoot. Great rocky shoreline, cooling breezes, few people in the area we fished. Across the bay, however, were some paddleboarders who had climbed the cliffs and were jumping into the bay from great heights.

The rocks from which the paddleboarders were jumping;
don't know why I did not get a shot of them. After a bit they paddled off. 
 I must have taken this pic after that.

Kayakers, presumably from Mustang Flats campground that was just around the outcropping

We found a rock chair at water's edge and I sat my weary bones down to fish from it. Farther along the shoreline, Lucy built another chair and we fished in comfort. A lone Western Grebe swam not far from where our casts would land. I was afraid that it would mistake our minnow lure for the real thing. But, though it dived and dived, fortunately it avoided our lures.

The persistent Western Grebe--It did not catch any fish either despite many dives

 After a couple of very pleasant hours but no bites, we returned to the campsite. Here we played "find the nuts" with Mr. Marmot who was just scurrying away from the rock on which we'd left cousin Uinta ground squirrel a treat. We replenished the treats and then ate dinner from our coolers, played Quiddler, and about 7:00 drove to Red Canyon Lodge and rented a canoe. We thought that the fishing would be much better in the evening, and at dusk.

Goofy faced me at the game table.

The woman at the desk found us some appropriate paddles. She was was going off duty at 8:00 so told us where to put the paddles on our return and also told us that if we were out longer there would be no charge. We walked to lake edge and a young guy saw us and hauled our canoe to the water. We donned life vests. Then the trick was getting ourselves and gear into the canoe without tipping it over. This accomplished, we paddled and fished, crossing the lake to the shore near our campsite.

The fishing was much better at dusk. Fish were jumping everywhere. I hooked a large rainbow trout, but had trouble reeling it to the canoe because I'd set my reel incorrectly. In her excitement, Lucy dragged the line in by hand, netted the fish, and promptly threw the netted fish onto my raincoat on the center seat. What a laugh.

After having some difficulty removing the hook, Lucy released my beautiful trout. It lay on its side for a moment but then righted itself and swam off. Remember: Greens Lake is Catch and Release. Both of us were exhilarated at this first catch of our adventure. Of course we have no photo of the fish as we'd cautiously left our cell phones in the car, not wanting to get them wet. Lucy said the fish was longer than the net. Below is an internet fish from the area of what we think is an appropriate look alike:

When we got back to the dock, I had great difficulty getting out of the canoe. Finally I was on the dock, lying prone on my face! After a serious talk with my back and hips, I managed to slowly, with Lucy's help, pull myself to a standing position. Very embarrassing and probably should not even recount this difficulty here. As they say, aging is not for the faint hearted!

day 4 May 21, 2023--my 81st birthday

Remember Sheep Creek Bay Marina that we'd passed up on our first day eager to get to Greens Lake? After breakfast this day we returned to the marina and fished it and along the bay. Despite reports of people lining the docks and pulling out trout, the marina was quiet and there were few people around when we arrived.

The red cliffs on the other side of the bay. This area was extraordinarily beautiful though the soil made the water rust colored--first such colored water we'd encountered.

Lucy fishing from a dilapidated dock at Sheep Creek Bay Marina

After fishing Sheep Creek Marina unsuccessfully, we turned our attention to Moose Pond near our campsite. It had been recommended to us by many and we should have fished it sooner. When we first arrived, no one was at the pond, which is visible from the road. There were several bump outs ringed with stone "seats" from which to fish. Lucy fished from one and I walked down the shore to another. At her spot, Lucy hooked a very large trout which took her whole lure, she thinks because she had not tied it correctly.

Moose Pond from the bump out we fished from

Moose Pond. Note the ripple of a fish that surfaced.

I got caught up watching an osprey circle the pond and dive for fish. Then it would sit in the very top of a lakeside pine, preening but keenly watching the water below. On its third dive, it came up with a fish, but the bird dropped the fish before returning to its perch. This osprey was very persistent--as were we--but came up with no lunch while we were there. 

We also came up with no lunch, but we talked to a couple of young guys who had arrived and were successfully fishing. The two each caught a good sized trout. I went to the car and returned with the cooler so that Lucy and I could have a snack lunch while fishing. On the way back, I stopped at their fishing spot and asked what lures they were using. One of them showed me his lure, which looked like a small rainbow trout. Then he walked down to where Lucy and I were fishing and gave us a few casting lessons, telling us to take the bobbers off our lines. He also let us hold and cast with his rod, an open reel affair and much more expensive and stronger than our little Walmart rigs. A helpful guy.

Since we were going to the lodge for a birthday treat that evening, when we got back to camp we decided to drive to Dutch John for showers and also to buy lures like the Moose Pond guys had caught their fish on. Lucy was determined to catch a fish.

After three days of bare bones washing, the shower was wonderful. Ironically the showers were in a business next to the same lodge/convenience store where we'd had our time getting gas from the pumps. We were told to go there for our lures. The two ninnies were not working, however, so we did not have to put up with them. At their Sporting Goods section, we did buy the lure the Moose Pond guy recommended, or at least Lucy did. I bought a similar but different one.

We again took a pic of the fishing fly sculpture:

After returning to the campsite, we got things ready for a franks 'n' beans meal but decided to go to the Red Canyon Lodge for our birthday dessert treat first. So, clean but still wearing our grungy camp clothes, we returned to the Red Canyon Lodge. However, the menu items looked so temptingly delicious that we ended up with full trout dinners and shared desserts of apple pie and blueberry cobbler. Lucy insisted on buying this delicious birthday treat. Thank you Lucy!

We sat out on the Lodge deck under an umbrella and watched the birds come to the hummingbird and pole feeders. Black chinned hummers came to a feeder that was less than three feet from Lucy. At the pole feeders were primarily male and female house finches and red-winged blackbirds. And . . . in a pine near a water garden-type pond stocked with trout, was another osprey. The pond was perhaps twenty feet from our table on the deck.

The osprey would make an unsuccessful dive, return to its pine tree perch, shake out its wet feathers (by this time it looked like it was wearing a Mohawk) and preen, all the while keeping a sharp eye on the pond. Then it would dive again. I never knew osprey were as inept fishers as we. It probably dived four or five times but never caught a fish. Just as well because the management did not like this bird poaching his water pond.

That evening we made a final explore of the area before sitting cozily around our final campsite fire and playing games. We decided to pack the car as much as possible so that we could break camp in the morning and get to Moose Pond in the early hours to fish with our new lures one last time before heading home.
 

DAY 5--MAY 22, 2023

We were up at dawn. It did not take us long to eat a scant breakfast and to pack up the tent, cots, chairs, and the rest of our gear. We said a final good-bye to Mr. Marmot and off we went to Moose Pond, which was just down Hwy 44 on our way home. No one was at the pond when we arrived. We fished unsuccessfully from our same spot but when after a bit we had caught no fish, we explored the beautiful area around the lake, startling a great blue heron that was fishing. All--as in our woods and area--was marshy, melt-water running in all directions toward the lake. Returning to our site, we threw a few more casts . . . and the new lure worked! Lucy pulled in a large rainbow trout!!!

So eager were we to remove the hook from its mouth and to put it out of its misery, that once again we got no photo of it, but it was a large rainbow. In severing its spine I cut its head off--its head was a good 4 or 5 inches alone--and we gutted the trout and put it on ice for the trip home. 

The laugh? We had killed and cleaned the fish on the rock on which I'd laid my raincoat so again got some blood and fishy stuff on it. When I get home I will have to check to see whether washing the coat will remove its waterproofing.

 Lucy's trout on our kitchen counter that afternoon

Here is what Lucy's trout would have looked like fresh caught:

Finally, on the final day of our adventure we had both caught a fish! Had we more time, I suspect we would have become more knowledgeable of not only where the fish were but of better local fishing methods.

On the way home we stopped at a rest area off I-80 and came upon many ground squirrels.  We first saw two under the trash bins and thought they were rats. But they were Uinta ground squirrels, Many Uinta ground squirrels! The area near the parking lot was dotted with their burrows. They seemed unafraid of humans and came toward us, seemingly expecting to be fed.

Before we left, we threw some of our veggies in their direction.They were immediately grateful.

Ground Squirrel with baby carrot we'd thrown to it

Here is a list of the animals we saw:

Three marmots, including Mr. Marmot near our campsite

      Many Uinta ground squirrels, including Mr Marmot’s cousin at our campsite. Most of these ground squirrels were seen in the Coalville Rest Stop off Utah Interstate 80 on our way home.

      Several groups of mule deer in the roadside forests. The last batch crossed the road in front of us on our exit from the campsite.

      Group of pronghorns climbing out of the banks of ?????
Note: Pronghorns are not antelope. Pronghorns shed their horns annually, while antelope keep theirs for life. North America is the only place where pronghorns live. The majority of antelope live in Africa, but small populations also dwell in parts of the Middle East and Asia. (Internet)   

      A female moose that ran across the road in front of us

      A black cat with white paws that the people in a nearby RV walked on a leash each day

      A winsome dog at our campsite twitching its nose because it smelled the chicken bones in our hanging trash bag

      Five osprey—three at Antelope Flats. One at Moose Lake and one at Red Canyon Lodge

      A Bald Eagle flying over the Gorge Reservoir

      A black-chinned hummingbird that came to the picnic table and landed on the edges of our red and orange drink cups and several black-chinned hummingbirds at the Red Canyon Lodge feeders

      Five thin, brown snakes species unknown     

      A huge rabbit and other birds of note: Great blue herons, sapsuckers, mallards, red-winged blackbirds, mountain bluebirds, etc.