Steinaker Lake State Park, Vernal Utah

At Steinaker Lake State Park near Vernal Utah

Steinaker Reservoir has a capacity of over 38,000 acre-feet…it currently is around 3,800 acre-feet.  NOW THAT’S A DROUGHT!  (not really…will explain later)

We left Lake Jordanelle around 10 am, after a stop at the station to dump our grey and black tanks.  We headed east, and then after a stop for gas in Heber City, we continued east along US-40, passing Strawberry Reservoir (above) after a 15 minute wait due to construction on the highway.

Soon after passing Strawberry, we saw some of the effects of the Dollar Ridge Fire (above) which started on July 1st, and passed along this small portion of US-40 on July 4th and 5th. 

  

A bit further we pass through Starvation Reservoir (above), which is on both sides of US-40…I got the picture on the left, Marcia the picture on the right (she also got the picture of Strawberry Reservoir and the burned trees)

As we get further east, closer to Vernal Utah, the trees disappear, and the Utah Desert takes hold.  Last year we stayed at Steinaker Lake State Park on our way to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.  It is 150 miles from Lake Jordanelle, and that is where I decided we would stay for two nights.

When I checked out the state park website last night, I discovered that the lake was down…did not realize it was down to 10% capacity!

Can’t you just see the look on its face…”I WANT MY WATER BACK!!!!"

What it was looking at was the other side of the reservoir, over at the dam…

 

  

…where machinery was hard at work shoring up the structure of the dam.  Back in 2014 it was reported that the Steinaker Dam had a 400-foot-long area of slippage of the riprap on the reservoir face of the dam.  They had scheduled the repair for last year, but they did not have enough soil samples to determine the proper amount and type of material to use to shore up the dam.  So this year they let the water out…they still need to let out another 3,000 acre feet or more, and they expect that by the fall of 2019 they will be able to allow the reservoir to start to fill again.  Meanwhile, they are pulling huge fish out of the lake…some taken by fishermen, others taken by the state wildlife and transferred up to Red Fleet Reservoir about 8 miles away.  “They will probably be pulling out record bass at Red Fleet next year” said the ranger.

The fish that don’t die from the extreme heat this summer and fall, will die from the frozen water this winter…so they are letting fish be caught, and trying to transfer as many as they can catch through electric shock.

   

Here at the State Park you have three choices of campgrounds…full hookups for $28, Electric only (you can fill water tanks from various outlets throughout the park) for $23, or no hookups (can fill water tanks) for $15.  With either option, you can use the dump station…although with full hookups you don’t need to.  For us the decision was which site had the best Cell Signal, and site 7, a full hookup site, was the winner.  We had all but 5 sites to choose from, one has the camp hosts, the other four have reservations for tomorrow. 

  

For tonight, we “could” be the only campers in the park…as for 5:00 pm it appears that we are…out side of the camp host, of course.

And the views from in and around the park entrance aren’t bad at all…just smoke from the vast numbers of fires in Oregon, California and Utah.

Just Past Vernal Utah to Steinaker Lake State Park

   

The drive from the Fairgrounds in Hotchkiss Colorado to Steinaker Lake State Park was 200 miles in length, but felt more like 400.  First, let me say, the night’s sleep at the Fairground in Hotchkiss was fabulous for both of us…me, I slept for over 6 hours straight…wow, that felt great.  We left at 6:30 in the morning…I wanted to get to Grand Junction before 8 am because I wanted our tires rotated at Discount Tire.  WOW, were they busy when the opened…but we got things done and out of there by 9:30.  Then a trip to Walmart and to Sam’s Club, got some gas and off we went.

  

Leaving Grand Junction we travel west on I-70 for a short time, and then we turned north on highway 139.  I probably should have looked into the route a bit more…essentially it is remote, sparse, no towns for the entire 72 miles, and goes over the Book Cliff Mountains at Douglas Pass at an elevation of 8,268 feet.  Above are pictures of some of the desert mountains and cliffs of the Book Cliff Mountains we passed through…this mountain range is located in western Colorado and eastern Utah.

 

As we near the 8,200 foot mark there is a nice pullout where one can get a great view of the mountains (panoramic shot above top) and also a view of the winding roadway we just traversed (picture above bottom).  Unfortunately the higher elevation gives Marcia a splitting headache…so getting to Rangely and over to US 40 and on to Vernal is a must…but the terrain does not allow for fast driving.

So I get back into the motorhome and off we go (picture of the motorhome at the pullout to the left).  We are not at the top yet, and this is a very steep road.  I take a picture of the dash on the motorhome…first gear, 15 mph, 2200 RPM, and all the gauges are looking great,  No traffic behind us, so I just slowly cruise the final few hundred of feet up until we get to the top of the pass.

As we get closer to Rangely, Marcia says, “you know, with this wind…if this stuff catches on fire it is really going to burn.  We take a few more corners and I say, “Look, that looks like smoke up there…”  Sure enough, there are two fires near Rangely…between Rangely and US 40.  They don’t affect us at all, we can see the smoke, but the winds, gusting up to 70 mph, sure play havoc on the fire.  To the left is a picture I got from the 9News, KUSA TV out of Denver.  Now we did not see flames, but we sure could see all the smoke.

As we near the town of Jensen, near Vernal, US 40 passes over the Green River…and is it ever high.  Down stream it will travel down through Canyonlands National Park and merge with the nearly equally sized Colorado River.  Did you know that the Grand River, which was the river that the Colorado and Green River’s merger formed, was renamed by an act of Congress to the Colorado River?  That was new to me…not even a twinkle in my momma's eye back then.

Originally I had intended to move on further along the road…but I also knew that Steinaker Lake State Park was a possible place to stay.  So we pulled in with our fingers cross that we would find a spot, and as it turned out, the park was not even half full…now the weekends it is full of fishermen…but weekdays you can probably find a spot.  As I set up, Marcia got to fixing up a brew of Greek Coffee, along with a Tylenol and an Aspirin to end her headache..works again in less than 30 minutes.  Of the 28 or so RV spots, 8 are full hookups, 8 are electric only, and the other 12 are dry camping, with prices of $28 for full hookups, $23 for just electric hookups (there is water to fill you tanks and a dump station), and I think it was $14 for no hookups.  We got an electric site…but the weak Internet signal was just too poor to publish a blog.  So here we are at our secret four day location, and I am publishing this now.  Our next post will reveal our final canyon of the summer…of course, some of you have already guessed it…