Big Trip - 2001 - Page 9
Uintah Basin

After laying over at Dinosaur, we started down the river across the Uintah Basin.  We went through the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge and the Ouray and Uintah Indian Reservation.  The reservation is for members of the Ute tribe.  Ouray is one of the few named places you will come across as you head down to Sand Wash (the typical put in for Desolation and Gray), but it is decidedly not a town.  There is no convenience store in walking distance and definitely no motel.  All we found there was some very bad attitude by the local drunks.  It was frightening and we got the hell out of there as quickly as we could.  The tree in the photo here contains Great Blue Herons and Double-crested Cormorants.

During this time we began our "island living" phase.  The mosquitoes were just awful along the shores and one of our guide books had said that life could be bearable on sandbars as the water lowered.  The first few times we camped out on the sandbars, I was nervous.  We knew the water was getting lower and lower but it seemed that a strong storm north of us could have flooded us out at night.  But all my worry was for naught. 

It was also during this time that the temperature really started to increase.  And unfortunately, we had two days we had to spend as layovers.  During the layover days we tried like hell to keep out of the sun and to keep cool.  But those things were mutually exclusive.  See given our sandbar lifestyle, we had no cliffs or trees to keep us shaded and cool.  We used the tent to keep us shaded but even with as much mesh as it had, the tent broiled in the sun.  Alternatively, we could get out of the tent and the sun would beat down on us.  Not much of a pleasant choice.  Angie came up with the smart idea of pouring cool water under the tent.  I dried before too long but provided coolness in the meantime.  We referred to the days in the tent as being in the sweat lodge.