Mud Ranch’s Real Dirt

Hubby, Annie and I took a drive up to a favorite spot in our favorite wilderness area, Mountain Meadow.  It is about a 40 minute drive to a town north of us then another 40 minute drive on a very bouncy dirt road up in to the wilderness area.

The drive is gorgeous, lush forests with granite boulders and clear, cool streams winding down the canyon.  I am constantly keeping my eyes peeled for wild life though only saw some deer.

There are a lot of trail heads that start off from the road and we saw quite a few trucks with large stock trailers for packing companies.  We have quite a few packing companies around here, with horses and mule strings to carry in your equipment for hunters or just people who want to take in the sites on horseback.

Up at Mountain Meadow there is a resort (small) and a few houses.  Hubby and I like to imagine ourselves living up there, with solar energy and self-sustaining.  Keep in mind, though there are buildings is really is up in the middle of nowhere with private property surrounded by wilderness.  It is so peaceful and so neat. 

Our destination was at the campground where we want to go camp someday soon (hopefully!)  The campground is actually situated in the county to the north of us and the really neat part about it is, the only vehicle access to this spot of the county is through the one we live in.  It is a very remote spot.  I am excited about these corrals that are available to the public right on the edge of a meadow tucked in the fir trees.  They were constructed and donated by the Back Country Horsemen.

Right next to the Public Corrals is a beautiful open meadow, conveniently fenced with some nice grasses.  Unfortunately for the public, there’s also this sign on the corner tree next to the gate.  I got a kick out of the sign, for some reason.

Here is the “Not Public Pasture” with the small cottage over looking it.  Hubby and I felt quite a bit of jealousy when we saw this.

At first we headed down a little path between two fences, a public access to the trails.  We were searching for a spot to go fishing, and the river was down the bank to the left.  We thought we could find a spot by going this way.

One of the springs had carved it’s way over and through this granite rock.  This is one of the many water sources that kept the meadow fairly green.

There were multiple wild flowers to be found, as you all well know by now, this is a favorite subject of mine.  I believe this is a wild aster of some sort.

Annie also had a lot of fun picking the wildflowers, thankfully she picked on the daisies as they were very abundant.

A big favorite of mine is the groves of aspen trees.  I would imagine they’ll be changing color this next month and will go from vibrant spring green to a golden yellow.  I adore these trees!

Once we got to the end of that meadow, we had to turn around and head back as there wasn’t an easy access to the water for fishing.  If it was just Hubby and I, it wouldn’t be that difficult, but dragging our daughter along is another story.  We have more important things to think about now.

We tried heading down another trail that actually ended up being a game trail because the willows at the bottom of the hillside meadow were more than thick.  Back up we went.

We headed back to the trail head we personally knew and continued to the river there.  We had to ford it before when we would do a 30 mile backpacking adventure. 

We had taken the Caribou Lakes trail a couple times before which was more than fun — we both have very fond memories of our packing adventures going that direction, but this time we wandered up stream to hunt for small fish.

It doesn’t look like a whole lot of water here, and if I remember right, when we had to pick out way across it in our hiking boots there was a lot more and it was quite a bit deeper.  But, this was just enough water to have fun fishing.  The trick about this type of fishing is that you have to be very sneaky, the fish spook very easily.

Annie watching her dad fish from up on a boulder.

A tree growing inside a tree stump.

Levi, enjoying the cool water.

Here’s a funny picture for you.  The water is so clear, and the angle so fun that it looks like it shrunk my dog and turned him in to a corgi.  Our dogs had a blast wading in the water, but perhaps a little too much fun.  They kept wanting to go ahead of us and Oliver, being deaf, couldn’t hear us yelling at him to stay out while we fished.  They were more than welcome to wade behind us where we had already fished, but they did go ahead a few times to spoil our fishing in some holes.

Here is one of two fish we actually brought in.  They are gorgeous and very small but a lot of fun to catch because of the challenge.  Of course, they were released back into the stream.  We would have had a lot more success if we had 4 pound test on our poles rather than 6 and 8 (the heavier the test poundage, the thicker the line and the easier for the fish to see.)

Annie really enjoyed wading in the water and throwing rocks in.  We would tell her to move up stream as we slowly walked, casting as we went.  She would be content sitting in one spot so would ask, “Why?!”  We’d have to go and grab her hand to lead her to the next spot.

She eventually got a bit tired so sat in the backpack for a while to take a rest.  I had thought she would take a small siesta but she actually kept herself awake and alert.  After a bit she wanted down so she could resume throwing rocks and picking daisies.

Here’s an interesting rock that Hubby found as he hiked up the water.

This was a favorite hole for both of us, it was a bend in the stream and we stood on the shore casting in around the boulders.  The fish, surprisingly kept chasing our lures though we kept casting.  Most of the time you have two casts in to one hole and they’re done with you, this hole they were extra curious.

Where’s Waldo the Fish?

Where’s Waldo the Dog?

One of many butterflies we came across — and here I thought this would be the only one, until I found a very big bull thistle that was covered in them.

We were going to head back down the stream and fish as we went back but decided to take the wooded trail along side instead.  Annie was about done and needed a nap so we decided to get to the truck a bit quicker than we planned.

This is one of my favorite shots of the day — the butterflies in the wilderness were less bashful than the ones at my home!

Our future camp site.

I have more for tomorrow, but I think I’ll stop here since this post already has 30+ pictures!  I have a lot of pictures of the little things that caught my eye and of Simon’s other fishing spot he got to enjoy while Annie slept.

Annie wants you to know, before I finish, that Bubby made the trip with us and enjoyed his view from the top of the pack.