A "Swell" Day

A "Swell" Day

My family and I had a pretty good Saturday, picking up my buddy Holdsworth and spending all day in the desert. The destination: Millsite Reservoir. Another place that my friend hadn't seen yet, we set off with hopes of sunshine and great fishing.


Well, we got sunshine. The fishing was terrible and all of us got skunked with exception to Holdsworth's only catch, a 9 inch hatchery rainbow.

After throwing every lure in the box and every form of bait we had, nothing was working. We fished the dam first and took a break when the wind picked up, enjoying a nice drive up Ferron Canyon.



Kids sure love to mess with unguarded fishing gear!


Just like the other canyons of the Wasatch Plateau, the sandstone boulders have been artistically sculpted by time.


Out of curiosity, I tried to get to Wrigley Springs Reservoir and check its ice status (if any). The road was great until about 1 mile before the lake, where the first of several snow drifts blocked passage. Now a mile isn't really a tough hike, but we turned around knowing that carrying the gear and the kids would be more trouble than we cared to commit to.

So we returned to Millsite after some lunch and finished getting skunked. At least we got skunked trying.


I've said before that getting skunked in such an area would be a pleasure and that still stands.



We left with only sunburns and as the highway rolled under the tires, none of us felt like giving up on the day just yet. Several other lakes were discussed and we tentatively planned on fishing somewhere else to at least catch something for the day.

It was then that we were given a sign. Really, we passed a sign that read, "San Rafael Swell Recreation Access".

There was still quite a bit of sunlight left and a new excitement grew in us as we flipped the Rodeo around and embarked upon a new journey.

As a family, our trips to the San Rafael have been few and limited to the eastern edge near Goblin Valley, where Temple Mountain Road snakes its way in. We've always been entranced by the peculiarities of the region and have wanted to further explore the swell.

Personally, I've spent quite a few camping trips there with friends, in my early 20's. The Temple Mountain area is where I have spent most of my time, but my first experience was a three day adventure in the Buckhorn Wash area, where our current trip was leading us into.

The landscape is spectacular enough, but one of the main attractions at Buckhorn Wash is Pictograph Panel, where the ancient natives left a storyboard of petroglyphs on a huge sandstone wall.















Fun stuff!


As cool as the petroglyphs are, the swell is a big place and full of overwhelming beauty. Please pardon my trigger-happy string of photos from the rest of our drive, but words simply won't suffice! Enjoy.






















It's amazing country and it really saved the day. All of us were thrilled that we took the extra time to go and see this marvelous land.