Water for the Thirsty American West

A side trip to Flaming Gorge dam

For some reason, my brain keeps skipping over half a line on this sign, and I read it as “DO NOT THROW CHILDREN.” Good advice anywhere, unless you’re tossing them gently into a pile of pillows while they giggle with delight, but probably a bad idea at Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Unless they are three years old. If the niblings have taught me anything, it’s that three is my least favorite age. Although teeth-gritting tolerance is a better option so that they survive to become civilized and hold a decent conversation. They do, after all, share genetic material with me.

Yes, Red Canyon is a bad spot to go throwing things or people Where I stop, at the Red Canyon Overlook, it’s 1,700 feet deep and 4,000 feet wide.

While I stick to the trails and stay behind the fences, I see the worn paths made by those braver and more adventurous than me. Still, I find no reports of anyone falling from its rocks.

The water below, though, has taken life. Flaming Gorge Reservoir runs 91 miles, starting just below Green River, Wyoming, and dipping into Utah, before meandering into Colorado and back on its way down to Lake Powell.

I’ve read there are legends of “hungry rivers” that every so often demand a human life. Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area is a haven for boating and fishing. Occasionally someone drowns, or falls through the ice come winter.

The rivers might be hungry for us, but the West is thirsty for them, a million straws sipping to supply the towns, cities, and agriculture. Reservoirs like Flaming Gorge, capturing the water that trickled down from mountain snowpack, are what make the life we know possible out here.

The road around the gorge is a big “U” with one end in Rock Springs and one in Green River, the dam itself anchoring the bottom. Both sides are marked as scenic routes, but I’ve found the west side to have more to recommend it, so that’s the way I go.

Plus, I crashed on a friend’s couch in Green River the night before. The kind of thing that makes me feel young again. I used to say I was a little old lady trapped in a 50-something body, but every day on this journey, I feel younger.

The first stretch on either side runs through flat, scrubby land where you’d best be laser-focused for deer and antelope until you get to the steep and winding road through the forest.

At the bottom, U.S. 191 drops down to Vernal, where I’m eventually heading, but I keep going east to see the dam itself. It’s along that road I take a side trip to the Red Canyon overlook, where I was reminded not to throw children.

The dam is worth a look, and a drive across just to drive across it. I work in words, not concrete, so I have a hard time wrapping my head around how you build such a thing. As they say, a marvel of engineering. I would say you have to love those engineers, but since I’m currently divorcing one, I’m not so sure about that.

Flaming Gorge was on day two of a three-day drive from the Bighorn Mountains down to Mesa, Arizona, where I’m planning on moving at the end of the year. Seeing the mountains again made me question that life decision, but the pull of family is strong.

It would have only taken me two days driving if I had been on a mission to get here, but I am not on a mission these days. I want to see what is along the way, stay on back roads, meander through the beauty of the West. This trip also took me through Tensleep and Wind River canyons, down the scenic stretch from Rangely to Loma across Baxter and Douglas passes, down the red rock canyon where the Colorado River runs northeast of Moab, and through Monument Valley and the Mazatlan Mountains. If I had stopped everywhere I wanted to, it could have taken me a month.

Stories for another day. Stay tuned.