Flaming Gorge Dam and Little Hole Trail

Yesterday we visited the Flaming Gorge Dam and Visitor Center and hiked the Little Hole trail. Since we volunteered at Bonneville Dam last year it is always interesting to see another one. This is from the reservoir side.

 

This dam is smaller than Bonneville, and they did not put in any bypasses or fish ladders, so most of the native species died off when the Green River was dammed here in the early 1960’s. They do stock the cold, clear river with various species of trout, so it is very popular with fishermen.

The Little Hole trail is a 7 mile hiking/fishing access trail along the Green River, beginning at the spillway. The water is so clear you can see the trout, but it appeared the trout could see the fly fishermen, too, as they were not biting the lures.

 

This was one of the prettiest trails we’ve been on, and we walked for a couple hours enjoying the sound of the water. The quiet was only interrupted a few times by rafters full of families with screeching kids (our favorite sound)!  But we only saw 2 other hikers on the trail.

  

There are lots of other forest service campgrounds in the area, and we drove into a bunch of them to see what we missed. Luckily we picked the nicest one by taking the advice of this online Forest Campground guide. They have done a great job of sorting them all out in an easy to use website, much better than trying to access the USFS site.

We are staying a couple more nights since we have such good neighbors, and very few of the human persuasion.