Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Flaming Gorge Reservoir is a 91-mile long lake that was created by damming the Green River. It is surrounded by spectacular scenery—fiery red canyons and mountain ranges. Although the majority of the lake is in Wyoming, most of the campgrounds and facilities are in the Utah section of the lake.

The reservoir is popular for boating, swimming, and fishing. Fishing is especially good on the section of the river below the dam.

A little more than an hour away from Dinosaur National Monument, we came across Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, another beauty that I had known nothing about. That was two in a row—first Dinosaur N.M. and now this. I was getting a little down about my trip planning skills. I think the problem was that I was relying too much on just National Parks, not realizing that there was so much more within the National Park System, like National Monuments, National Recreation Areas, National Forests, Bureau of Land Management lands, etc. I would have to buy more books.

We arrived at the Visitor Center near the dam and got our first glimpse of the stunningly beautiful Flaming Gorge Reservoir. West of the dam was the lake, surrounded by fiery red canyons and mountain ranges. East of the dam were rafts happily floating down a portion of the Green River, which we later found out was one of the best trout fishing areas in the country. Herb looked at me with that “Why didn’t you know about this?” look. We toyed with the idea of putting the raft in, but we still had 5 hours of driving to get to our reserved campsite on Antelope Island and we didn’t know enough about the logistics of put in and take out points on the river. Instead, we picked up some information at the visitor center and vowed to come back here some day to raft the river.

We continued on and stopped at the Red Canyon Overlook, where we walked out onto a rock overlooking the Reservoir. The view was breathtaking and we recognized it as the classic picture you see of Flaming Gorge—sheer red cliffs dropping 1,300 feet down to the lake below. Being boaters ourselves, we gazed in envy at the powerboats skimming across the waters in the canyons below. We’d be back.