The Trip to the Wind River Canyon: Day 1

The Wind River Canyon is a six hour drive from Salt Lake.   To break up the drive, Nick and I stopped at the Green River below Fontenelle on the way. 

Fishing nymphs at Weeping Rock we each caught a half dozen white fish providing good entertainment for an hour and a half break.   

During the drive we listened to a book on CD called The Royal Wulff Murders to keep our minds occupied.  After driving through the small Wyoming towns of Lander, Riverton and Shoshone, we reached Boysen Reservoir.  This reservoir was a larger than I expected.  Below the reservoir are two campgrounds called the Upper Wind River Campground and the Lower Wind River Campground.  I was particularly interested in checking out the campgrounds to see if I would want to camp here on other trips.  They seem plenty big and well maintained with easy access to the river. 

After the campgrounds is the start of the Wind River canyon, commencing with three tunnels to drive through.  This is also the start of the river which is on the Wind River Indian Reservation which runs the entire stretch of the canyon.  In addition to a Wyoming Fishing license, a Reservation fishing license ($25 per day, $120 per year for non-resident) and conservation stamp ($5) is required to fish on the reservation.   The canyon is beautiful of course.   

The highway runs right along the river with plenty of pull outs and trails down to the river.   Shortly below the canyon is a boat ramp which is the location of the wedding of the waters where the river’s name changes from Wind River to Big Horn River. 

Nick and I proceeded to head into the town of Thermopolis to check into our hotel, Elk Antler Inn.   Thermopolis is a small town with many vacant buildings.   

There are no four or five star hotels but this hotel did have a microwave, fridge and hot bath/shower.  

Thermopolis is the home of the world’s largest hot spring as indicated in writing on the hill with arrows pointing toward the hot springs.

Downstream from town are lots of Sportsmen’s Access Points.  We explored several of these and fished where we could.  The river was running at 4700cfs instead of the usual 2000cfs so the banks were flooded and access tough.  The river looks promising in these stretches but with the water so high and access to the bank difficult, we weren’t able to catch anything.