Freemont Lake Campground; Pinedale, WY

Half Moon Lake; Pinedale, WY

Thu, 8/7/08

Pinedale, WY, to Rock Spring, WY: Hated to leave this pretty campground. Went for a walk this morning and met a nice couple from Casper, WY. Beautiful morning—the lake is as smooth as glass and the vegetation smells so good. There are a lot of old growth pines and aspen in here. Really pretty. But we decided to go ahead and head south. We have a reservation at a KOA there for 4 days. Heading south we left the mountains and the area turned into a vast, flat, arid wasteland of sagebrush. Really desolate. And we followed the historic Oregon Trail for a while. When we got to Rock Spring there were some low buttes and hills, but still arid and dotted with sagebrush. Rock Spring sits at 6200 feet and has a population of 18,000. There is a herd of wild horses in what they call the red desert. There’s a drive you can take through the desert to see them. The KOA here is pretty big and not too bad. No trees, of course. All gravel sites. And we have TV for the first time since June. Didn’t miss much there. And the reason we stopped here was for the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area just south of here. Supposed to be pretty.

Fremont Lake
Our Site

Wed, 8/6/08

Hoback Jct. to Pinedale, WY: The drive to Pinedale was great. We drove along the Hoback River through a beautiful canyon—very rugged. They must have lots of road closures in the winter because of snow slides. The Hoback River is very pretty—as wide as the Snake but pretty shallow. (It’s called Hoback Jct. because that’s where the Hoback flows into the Snake.) Would be great canoeing. The canyon widened and eventually opened up into a vast, arid landscape of low hills and buttes full of sagebrush. Pinedale is at 7700+ with a population of 1400 people. Cute little town. We’re staying at a national forest campground on Fremont Lake—four miles out of town. We turned north out of Pinedale and the barely paved road took us through hills covered with sagebrush and lots of boulders and rocks—left there by a glacier eons ago. Freemont Lake is a glacial lake 600 feet deep. When we got close to the campground we went through a lush forest of pines and aspens. Very pretty. Nice campground with great sites. We went to the Mountain Man Museum after we got set up. Very interesting place. I bought two books—one on Jim Bridger and one on Joe Meeks. The things they endured. After the museum we went into town for dinner and then drove around a little. This area was very popular for the annual rendezvous where the mountain men and Indians got together and traded and raised hell. The Green River valley was perfect for this event since it had plenty of water and lots of grazing for their animals. We drove down there. It’s really lush and pretty. Then we drove up to half moon lake—another glacial lake not quite as big as Fremont. Started raining which is good for the forest fires in the area. You can see the smoke from several of them.