Today's tough ride from Lyman, Wyoming to Vernal, Utah had the same high mileage as recent tour segments (118 miles) but a lot more climbing (7550 feet). The main reason for the increase in climbing was that a pesky part of the Rocky Mountains called the Uinta Mountains was between our start and finish. We traversed the range on the Flaming Gorge - Uintas Scenic Byway which comes with its own theme: "Wildlife Through the Ages."
After climbing out of the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, we entered the Ashley National Forest which contains the majority of the Uintas. We saw several indications that these National Forest lands are used extensively for Open Range cattle ranching.
Using my personal definition of "real", today's ride provided our first real climb of the tour as well as its first real descent. The climb out of Flaming Gorge and across the Uintas deserves extra credit due to the 20+ mph winds.
It started out mildly enough: riding south from Lyman and Mountain View WY, we caught sight of these dramatic hills which were reminiscent of the Badlands.
Climbing past those, we entered Utah going south. Yesterday we crossed the Utah-Wyoming border going east. So it was a little disorienting that we ran into the border as we did.
It becomes clear when you remember the shape of Utah:
I noticed today that the Uinta Mountain Range which runs east-west corresponds closely to that step out to the east in the state boundary. Coincidence? Or a factor for defining the state as they did?
The morning held some surprises. As I proceeded in advance of the other riders, I saw dozens of very small chipmunks scurrying along and across the road. They were much too fast for me to get a picture; their agility is proved by the fact that there was not one dead on the highway. Luckily we have the web:
That is pretty close to their actual size. They seem to live communally and when they spotted me they would sing out alarm tones that seemed to be something like "oh-shit-oh-shit-shit-shit" then they'd all disappear down the nearest hole. I think they were out having their morning sunbathe to warm up.
The other odd thing was that I was passed twice by convoys of identical trucks:
This part of Wyoming and Utah has a strikingly lovely contrast of very dry hills and verdant valleys
You can tell I was on the Scenic Byway at this point since we started seeing sign posts identifying the roadside geology with a focus on fossils. Here are some more samples over the course of the ride. Some were broken:
There were many many more. It looked like the signage was symmetric on either side of the range. This is, you'd roughly see the signs in the same order whether you drove up from the Wyoming side or the Vernal side. So that would lend credence to the theory that the location of these signs corresponded to where the actual rocks were to be seen. Also lending credence was that the precambrian sign (the oldest geologic time period) was close to the pass through the mountains.
We entered the Flaming Gorge area (pic below was from the exit, but gives you the idea)
After the rest stop the descent continued for all too short a distance then we could see the road make a turn skyward for the start of the day's major climb out of the gorge we had just descended into.
View at start of the climb - a lake is just barely visible the distance.
Sequence of shots during the climb:
For those of you who have done it, this part of the climb was similar in length to the spur from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the top of Mt Mitchell, but involved 200' more in elevation gain than Mitchell. AND DID I MENTION THE WIND WAS HOWLING?
After reaching a plateau of sorts, we saw recreational offerings in the form of off road tracks.
After another 700' climb we reached another crest this time with a view of the daunting Uinta Mountain ridge line. The peaks there are over 10,000'.
It wasn't long before our quiet road merged into US 191 which crosses that dam and climbs the hill to the right of the photo above. While still not too busy, we did keep getting passed by tractor trailers with two trailers hauling what turned out to be ore. US 191 is the route where phosphate ore mined at the Simplot Vernal mine on the south side of the Uintas is carried north to the Simplot fertilizer plant in Rock Creek Wyoming. Thanks to this stupendous vertical integration we can get our cheap McDonald's fries grown by Simplot and fertilized by Simplot.
It was tough to climb another 1000' after lunch but eventually we got there:
At the pass, there was a ski area development that just didn't catch on. You can see the now-disused slope on the hillside:
Even though we had passed the summit, the real descent was withheld from our weary legs for several more miles. The final rest stop was just before the true descent started. My sign of the day was found there:
It sure looks like the logging progress has had its effect as there wasn't a tree in sight!
It went against every bone in my body, dear reader, but for you I stopped during the descent to share this view of a really cool box canyon.
The descent landed us at 5700' elevation. There were a bunch of cool rock formations down there
The dinosaur theme continued in downtown Vernal. I have to wonder what kind of sick message is being conveyed to our children by this mixed-species threesome!
