October - Canyonlands Natl Park

View from Canyonlands "Island in the Sky" Visitor Center

Late getting this one out.  I got use to once a month posting while in Jackson Hole.  Sorry!

We left Jackson, WY in the rain - as usual.  Took two days to travel down to Hill AFB (Ogden/Salt Lake City, UT) where we stayed for a week.  Stocked up - more or less - and took in a few sights in the area. Left Hill AFB Oct 10th and traveled down to Thompson Springs, UT.  Google maps knows where Thompson Springs is located. Garmin does not. Whatever Ford is using for its navigation service does not know where Thompson Springs is located.  Even after the DishTV app located us (to update local TV channels), DishTV knew we were out in the boonies and suggested we call to update local TV channels. (We stayed with the Salt Lake City locals as they give Moab, UT weather.)

In case you're trying to locate us, we're on the north of Arches Natl Park just off I-70.  We're 40 minutes from Moab, UT. We're staying in Ballard Motel & RV Park.

Now for the good stuff.  Arches National Park (NP) has timed-entry for access through Oct 31st.  We have four days reserved via recreation.gov.   We decided to go to Canyonlands NP first on Oct 11th, and then go into Arches NP after 4:00 PM just to check out the visitor center and get a taste of the park.

Pictures below are of Canyonlands NP and include pictures from the Needles area as well as Island In the Sky. David

PS No, we did not plan this for the solar eclipse.  Yes, we experienced it.  No, I did not get any pictures of it.

Island in the Sky

Island in the Sky

Island in the Sky

Horseshoe Arch - The Needles area

Slickrock Trail - The Needles

The Needles

The Needles

All Most Shutdown Sunday

String Lake Loop Trail, GTNP

September went by just as fast as August.  Lucky for us the feds decided to stay open.  Being a retired federal bureaucrat,  I can't believe I was so naive to plan the first week of October staying at a military base's famcamp plus make entry reservations for a national park.  I guess I've been out of it for too long!  I shouldn't get mad at congress, though.  It's not like they had 365 days since October 1, 2022 to get this done.  Oh, wait...they did!

Our summer at the fish hatchery has ended, both as volunteers and weather-wise. The mountains received some dusting of snow at higher elevations last weekend.  Probably receive more this weekend.  Rainy Sunday through Tuesday planned for this area of the country. We leave tomorrow (Monday) if all goes well.  We'll start with a short trip down to Thayne, WY and spend Monday night. Then a week is planned at Hill AFB (Salt Lake City & Ogden, UT).  From there it's off to Thompson Springs, UT for about three weeks to visit Arches & Canyonlands National Parks (and any local state parks or monuments plus Moab, UT).  We'll be out in the middle of nowhere there.  We're thinking we'll take trip or two to Grand Junction, CO while at Thompson Springs. Grand Junction came highly recommended by some hatchery visitors this year.

As always, moving the trailer after setting for so long brings trepidation. While we do exercise the hydraulics, slides and leveling systems each month, it's just that RVs break while moving.  It's not like they don't break while setting, but it's just more frequent while traveling.  While many folks can take it in stride, I'm finding that after 13 years of full-time RVing I'm still trying to accept the fact that these things are nothing more than rolling, fiberglass dumpsters that many times don't even roll.  Consequently, as we start this season of travel I've decided to try a new mantra:

We'll see how many minutes this new "me" last!  Maybe to Thayne?  I know, carry a family-size bag of double-stuffed oreo cookies and try not to eat them all at once.

As we've told many people, we stayed about three weeks longer this year than usual.  Typically, we've just completed the fall maintenance rodeo in Indiana and are traveling to Virginia for doc and friends visits. We tried to take advantage of of the longer stay, and we were rewarded with autumn colors plus a little new snow at the higher elevations. Pics are below and Donna & I hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for dropping by and checking in on us.  More later, David

Sleeping Indian (Sheep Mountain)

East Gro Ventre Butte (west side of hatchery across US 89)

local visitors to the hatchery's fishing pond

Emma Matilda Lake, GTNP

Emma Matilda Lake, GTNP
 

Christian Pond Trail, GTNP

Jenny Lake West Side Trail, GTNP

Spring Lake Trail, GTNP

Happy Labor Day!

Double rainbow over Natl Elk Refuge. Photo courtesy of Skip Hall.

Boy, August flew by fast.  Wet and warm August for us.  Here it is the 2nd of September and our lows remain above freezing.  And there's still water in Colter Bay!

We have another month to go here at the hatchery.  Fish deliveries begin Tuesday.  

We were able to get out and take a couple of hikes in the park. (Taggart lake Loop Trail and Colter Bay's Lakeshore Trail)  Otherwise, it's been a typical month here at the hatchery.  We're fine & appreciate everyone dropping by and checking up on us.  Here's some pictures from our walks this last month.

Taggart Lake, GTNP

Taggart Lake, GTNP

Lake Creek (Phelps Lake outflow), Larry S Rockefeller Preserve, GTNP

Colter Bay Picnic Area, GTNP

Lakeshore Trail, Colter Bay, GTNP

Lakeshore Trail, Colter Bay, GTNP

Leeks Marina, GTNP

Beaver Creek Trail (Taggart Lake Loop Trail), GTNP

 

End of July Update

Pic by Jonathan - all I got was a pic of Jonathan taking a pic of the bear.  Oh, well...

So we finally were out and saw some wildlife.  We've actually gotten out several times since our last post.  We walked some of Paintbrush Canyon, took a tour of the Elk Refuge, visited Colter Bay, and took an ATV ride up Flat Creek & Curtis Canyons in the Bridger-Teton National Forest (the mountain range you see in pictures I take of the hatchery.)  ATV tour courtesy of Calvin.

We've finally gotten warm and to our great amazement, wildfire smoke has continued to elude us.  We do get some haze from time to time, though.  Volunteers here seem to get out as a group more than in past years, so there's been several evening get-togethers and sometimes eating out.

We about two months away from time to leave.  We expect to be out of here by October 2nd.  At least that's the plan.  We have reservations for Utah, Nevada and Arizona to round out the year. 

Lots of pictures below of what we've seen.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next time, David

Our motley volunteer crew plus Mike & Janelle (Jonathan pic)

 

Wild flowers at the hatchery

Paintbrush Canyon - this is as far as we went

Jackson & Leigh Lakes

Heron Pond (Colter Bay)

Colter Bay (Jackson Lake some 92% full)

Colter Bay Picnic Area

Pond on Flat Creek (Flat Creek Canyon)

Flat Creek (Flat Creek Canyon)

View from Curtis Canyon

View from one of the campsites in Curtis Canyon

Our motley ATV tour group (Jonathan pic)

Happy 4th of July!

Sack Fry Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat

We only got about 300,000+ of these little sack fry hanging out at the hatchery.  We have about 120,000 one-year olds that'll leave in September.

Happy 4th.  We're working today (or more appropriately, volunteering).  We're fine though I'm just getting over a bad case on indigestion.  Did it to myself, and it's taking awhile to recover.  We having a wet, cool spring, but that's coming to the end.  We did get a bout of Canadian Wildfire smoke in early June.  It left after a few days.  We're now into wildfire smoke season, and we're told it'll start to arrive in the area later today - just in time for fireworks!

 Not a lot of time to write.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next time, David

Volunteer RV Pads at Jackson Nat'l Fish Hatchery

Happy Father's Day!

Egg Incubator

Just an update from us.  We're hanging out & doing fine. Fish eggs have arrived (about 330,000) & the hatchery is busy.  There's a total of 12 volunteers working here this summer, and they're all busy.  Two new TVs were added inside the hatchery. One TV runs a video dedicated to the Dace (looks like a minnow). The other TV runs a video showing manual spawning at the Auburn Wyoming Fish Hatchery followed by a video showing the release of the cutthroat. Additional traffic exterior signs were added to assist in visitor parking (and they seem to be working).

Visitation seems to be up as well.  Schools are beginning to bring their students out to the hatchery for a field day.  Donna & I managed to get the 180 student tour last week.  It's a great group of kids, but Donna & I were beat when that day was done!

Jackson not as busy as it could be for this time of year.  No long lines of vehicles trying to get into town, yet. Eating out continues to be expensive.  We're staying out of the parks, so not a lot of pictures.  We plan to get out and walk trails from other areas near here.  Just haven't done that so far.

Snow about gone off the Gros Ventre range.  Only a spot or two of snow remains on Snow King Mountain. We keep getting rain - mainly thunderstorms in the afternoon.  It's cool enough that snow remains (and sometimes gets added) at the higher elevations of the Tetons.  It still looks like the range is sugar coated when we walk from the hatchery up to the south entrance sign.

That's about it from here. Sorry the update isn't a lot more interesting.  Thanks for stopping by, though. Enjoy the long weekend.  Until next time, David 

     

Another Day in the Tetons

String Lake

We've gotten a couple of weeks in at the hatchery since we last posted.  We may get fish eggs this coming week.  It's our first time to see the new fish egg incubators in place though the installation is not complete (missing plumbing).  Visitation at the hatchery is picking up.  People are beginning to get out & fish at the fish pond.  Jackson still not crowded though there are times that it gets pretty busy.  We're in a rainy spell.  It's unusual for us while being here.  Light rain on and off with thunderstorms mixed in each day with rain chances exceeding 50% most days.  This coming Monday looks to be a fairly dry day before rain returns on Tuesday.  

We made another trip into the Tetons this past Thursday.  We walked along String Lake (the lake between Leigh Lake and Jenny Lake).  We arrived at the String Lake Picnic parking lot about 9:30 AM, and plenty of parking was still available.  As this is our first "hike" in the park, we chose to walk along String & Leigh Lakes.  It's a good break-in hike - really an easy walk.  We celebrated by eating pizza and breadsticks at Leeks Marina.

Below are some of the pictures we took during our walk along String & Leigh Lakes.  I think this gets everyone up to date on us. Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next time, David

String Lake

Leigh Lake