Saturday, May 16, 2015

Jones Hole

4.2 miles (easy, one-way)

During our first visit to the Green River, the shop manager at Trout Creek was like, "You girls should really go to Jones Hole. You hike in 4 miles the the confluence of Jones Creek and the Green River. The hike is beautiful, petroglyphs line the canyon walls about two-miles in and the fish are huge." Well, it sounded great but we had just drove 5.5 hours to fish the Green River. Jones Hole would have to wait for another time. Little had we known at the time that we would be back 3-weeks later.

We took advantage of some time off of work and headed down to Jones Hole Hatchery.

The trail starts out at the hatchery, meandering along side rows of rainbow, brown, and brook trout before disappearing into the lush green trees within the canyon. As the trees grew thick around me the snap, crackle and pop of tiny cicadas sang louder in my ears, and the sound of the rolling creek drowned out the sounds of the restz of the world.


One of many Cicada's hanging out in the trees






After a mile an a half, the trail passes by pictographs and petroglyphs left by the Fremont People.





As a I wandered further into the canyon the walls felt as if the were growing taller, and I was slipping further away from civilation into another world that I've only seen in pictures. It was noon and the sun was moving directly overhead. Deer were beding down in the shade for some relief, but the sun didn't seem to bother a small herd of bighorn sheep that grazed lazily alongside the opposite side of the creek.





I made it to the confluence after nearly nearly two hours of easy hiking, where I met up with Cori and Wade who arrived much earlier in the day. We began making our way back downstream, stopping every few feet to fish a new hole. Cori and I traded off the rod and after about an hour I landed a beautiful rainbow. This one was relatively small compared to some of the fish we were seeing but I was proud that I was able to land it.



By 6:30 we were still about three miles away from the car, and daylight was beginning to faded behind the red canyon walls. We packed up our bags and headed down the trail, stopping only occasionally to admire the scenery.




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