TR: Ashley National Forest / Colton Guard Station

[Mooseman70]

OK Bogleyites - this is my first trip report posting, so here goes.

Took the family unit out to the Ashley National Forest, north of Vernal, for a 3 day mini-vacation. My kids are big into dinosaurs currently, so they were pretty excited to see all the faux-dinos all over the place in "Dinoland". We saw lots of beautiful country, visited a couple of museums, went to Dinosaur N.M., 3 State Parks, Flaming Gorge N.R.A. and found 23 geocaches for the weekend. Only negative aspect of our trip was me finding a tick burrowed into my left ankle on Saturday evening. Sure hope I don't get sick.

We rented the Colton Guard Station, a rustic USFS cabin built in 1933. The cabin itself is in good condition and has been updated with running water (shower, flush toilet, & sinks), and a propane water heater, stove/oven, and refrigerator. Also recently installed was a large solar panel and lighting fixtures inside and out. It was nice to have the solar lights in what would've otherwise been a pitch-black cabin come nighttime. The interior contents consisted of a table, 4 chairs, a bunk bed and a futon couch/double bed. There is a wood burning stove inside to use for heating purposes, too. A nice variety of pots, pans, cups & utensils are in the cabinets for use. Folks have graciously left other necessities behind if one may have forgotten something. All this for only $40 a night!

While some may say, "That's not camping!", my wife is 34 weeks pregnant, so this was as close to "roughing it" as she was going to let me plan for accomodation-wise. Tent camping will resume once our new baby is old enough to sleep outdoors.

We drove out to Vernal via US-40, up US-191 to the cabin and then we continued north on 191 to Flaming Gorge, back to Manila, into Mountain View, WY up to I-80 and then I-15 home. One big scenic loop!

Thought I'd post some photos of the cabin and other highlights of the trip. Enjoy, and thanks for letting me share. I think this will be the ONLY family trek for the year since baby is not too far off.

[Sombeech]

WOW! gorgeous!

[shaggy125]

Awesome, great first TR!

[stefan]

great report/fotos, thanks for sharing

[accadacca]

Looks like a great trip, full of memories.

[Jaxx]

I have that same axe, home depot FTW!

Very nice TR love the pics.

[Mooseman70]

I have that same axe, home depot FTW!

Very nice TR love the pics.

Actually, the axe belongs to the USFS. It was inside of the wood box on the porch. I have a little handheld Gerber which I use to make kindling. I was happy the larger one was there, as I used it to split some of the extra wood they had on site. Very handy.


Thanks to all for the compliments on my TR and photos! I took several photos of that canyon overlook, which I need to stitch together. I'll see if I can't post that here, too.

[Mooseman70]

OK - I stitched the photos together and here's the finished shot:

[Mooseman70]

Did a bit of research and found that this is overlooking the Big Brush Gorge. Kinda reminds me of Bryce Canyon a bit. Beautiful, all the same!

[DiscGo]

This has to be one of the cutest pictures on this site. That is adorable!

[Mooseman70]

Thanks, DiscGo!

[sparker1]

This is a top-notch report. Looks like you guys had a great time. I must say you have some great looking kids, must have gotten that from your wife.

Anyway, that trip is wonderful for kids, I'd love to take my grand-kids there. At some point, you might consider going to the part of DNM that's in Colorado. No dinosaur stuff, but great scenery and some good hikes. Echo Park is a special place to me.

BTW, is it lyme disease you are concerned about, or something else that occurs out there? I think the first thing you see with lyme is a rash, so don't wait if you get a rash. Antibiotics can do a good job when the disease is caught early.

[Mooseman70]

Thanks, Sparker. Yeah, my kids get the good looks from their Mom!

I don't believe we worry so much about Lyme disease out this way - we worry about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from the wood ticks. So far, no syptoms, which is a good sign. I believe infection can be transmitted by a tick which remains attached for 24 to 48 hours. I don't believe my tick was attached for more than a couple hours at most. We'll see what happens. I've got the tick in a ziploc bag in my cupboard in case I do fall ill, I've got the lil' bastard for the Doctors.