SEPTEMBER 16, 2002

SCALER CABIN TO WEEPING ROCK CAMPGROUND, WY

Departed the Cabin this morning at 7:30 a.m. for a forty-five minute 4WD ride to the bottom of a mountain. The first task for the day was to climb, approximately 1,000 feet, to the top of the mountain and meet two Bureau of Land Management staff for a ride down to the Green River where we would begin our canoeing. From the peak we had a magnificent view of the La Borge drainage spotted with clumps of yellow aspen. At the peak we met John Henderson, Zone Fisheries Biologist for the Rock Springs, Kemmerer, and Pinedale BLM field offices covering approximately 9 million acres, and Mike Brown, a public affairs specialist and historian previously from this area but now in Elko, Nevada. John and Mike, later jointed by Martin Hutchinson, Recreation Planner, transferred us from the Forest to BLM administered land and made one stop to view a Wilderness Study Area and discuss the general area issues.

Our decent from 9,000-foot peak to the Green River took us into one of the largest BLM WY natural gas fields. To many I imagine the area, gray sagebrush almost from horizon to horizon dotted heavily with gas drilling and pumping facilities and infrequently broken by strangely eroded rock outcrops, would appear bleak. But to me it has a challenging beauty and incredible space that makes one feel that that can look to the edge of the earth.

At the river we met Chris Pipkin, BLM Recreation Planner from Colorado who would be our guide for the next six days and had trailered out four canoes provided to the Journey by Centennial Canoe Outfitters. Following a picnic lunch, we were given a canoe briefing and then slid our canoes into the water.

The Green River at our point of departure is shallow, clear and green. For the next hour and a half we paddled down 6-1/2 miles of smooth river periodically broken by shallow rapids. What fun!

The John, Mike and the Support Team met us about 20 miles from camp. While Chris and the Support Team drove on to camp John and Mike took the Trek Team down to the Green River dam. On the way we passed a pronghorn right beside the road that allowed us to take numerous pictures and then just went back to grazing.

Weeping Rock BLM campground is on a bend in the Green River directly across from limestone cliffs with springs “weeping” into the river. It was hot when we arrived at the camp and after helping to unload the trailers, set up my tent on the sandy beach of the river, put on my bathing suit and took a very QUICK swim. As dinner was being prepared the sky clouded over and it started to blow. And it kept blowing harder and harder. In the end we repacked up the trailers and all drove in, 40 miles, to Kremmerer for dinner and then back out to camp.

During dinner Mike Brown entranced us with stories taken from the journals of pioneers crossing Wyoming for Utah, California, and Oregon. Some were funny, others tragic but all brought history to life. I wonder what our grandchildren and great-great grandchildren will think of our Journey’s journals? From the Journey, dana