Afton Wyoming Elkhorn Arch

Constructed in 1958, this world’s largest arch made of over 3,000 discarded elk antlers stand about 18 feet high and spans 75 feet across Afton’s Main Street.  I read someplace that it contains mostly cow horns and deer antlers.   Yes, even though the sign says "elkhorn arch" it is technically elk antlers.  Antlers are shed every year while horns are permanent.

Periodic Spring Trail

Even though it's not the right time of year to look at it, we decided to visit Periodic Spring.  Periodic Spring is a rare geological feature where a natural spring flows discontinuously, ceasing entirely for a few minutes at regular intervals, behavior thought to be caused by underground siphon activity. Only a very small number of such springs are known in the world, other locations being Gihon Spring in Jerusalem, Dhor Barahi near Pohara in Nepal, Gyechon in South Korea, Fontaine de Fontestorbes in France and Igla in Slovenia.  Afton's periodic spring is thought to be the largest of them all.  Periodic Spring is situated near the edge of the mountains that rise up just east of Afton.  To get to it we first drove four miles on a gravel road which ran close to the creek all the way.

Sometime the road was good...

But a lot of the time it wasn't.

There was still a lot of snow left to melt.

Snowmelt ran down the sides of the mountains in a lot of places.

Finally we made it to the trailhead..

Still accompanied by the creek.

The creek was noisy here with the sound of the rushing water.   Here another creeklet fed the flow.  One of the creeklets that ran into the creek looked like chocolate milk. 

This is an easy trail will little elevation gain and beautiful scenery.

Just another view of the creek.

I took this photo before I knew it was the canyon from which the Periodic Spring flowed.

We walked up until the snow blocked the path.

Nolan just had to have some fun with the snow.

A sign explaining why the spring flow fluctuates.  The flow doesn't fluctuate in early spring because of all the snowmelt.

This is a zoomed in view of the outlet from which the spring flows.

Looking down from the spring, you can see the flow.

Just lifting our heads to take in the view.

View as we headed back down the creek. 

View from along the road.

The creek is dammed to create this small pool.  I assume it is to regulate the flow because there are electric generating stations downstream.
 

Here's the other side of the dam.

A large blue tube ran from the bottom of the pond. 

Notice how the stream is much smaller just downstream from the dam. 

The tube ran alongside the creek to the electric generating station downstream.

Just another look at the wonderful road.

One of three electric generating stations downstream.  You can see the blue tube entering from upstream.

Dinosaur National Park - Harpers Ferry Road

Harper Corner Road is the second entrance we took into Dinosaur National Park.  It's really funny because we started out in Colorado but the road took us back into Utah before ending in Colorado.  Most of the road is not actually in Dinosaur National Park. 

We went clear to the end so we could look out over the confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers on the east side of Steamboat Rock.

On the way north we stopped at an overlook for the Echo Park Road.  Passenger cars are advised not to take this road so we didn't.

The start of Echo Park Road.

The first overlook where we could actually see the Yampa River.

The view to the right of the previous photo.

I wondered how old this juniper tree was. It was sure a twisted mess.

Sound like there was a lot of controversy on whether or not to build a dam in the canyon.

We made it to the end of the road and it was time to walk the trail.  It was a two-mile round trip.

Through the juniper and pinon pine we went.

Another large, dead, twisted tree.

You might have to zoom in (click on the photo) to see the tiny circle of purple flowers.  We saw lots of these at one of the overlooks.  The cow mature provides the fertile spot around which the flowers bloom.

Just another trail view.

We saw this outcropping of rocks ahead of us and wondered if that was where we were headed.   It was except that we didn't get to go quite that far out on the point.

Rafters on the river far below us.  We heard them scream as they went over one rapid.

View of the Green River after it rounded the point.

I was disappointed that we couldn't actually see the confluence of the two rivers once we got to the point.  Steamboat Rock blocks the view.  You can see the Green River off to the left (might have to click to enlarge photo) and the Yampa on the right.  They come together on the other side of Steamboat Rock and you can see the Green River, after the confluence, at the bottom of the photo.  We would have had to drive the Echo Park Road in order to see the confluence.  This is where a Jeep would have come in handy.

Looking back down the trail from the end.  I could see a spot that I thought was the parking lot but failed to bring the binoculars with on this trip so I couldn't verify it.

Another view of the Green River as it heads downstream.

The Green River both before and after the confluence.

I saw this sage bush growing out of a rock along the trail and called it my bonsai tree.

When we got back to the parking lot, I got the binoculars out of the car and checked out the point where we had hiked.  The trail was one mile one way.

We headed back south on Harper Corner Road and stopped to hike this short trail.  I was hoping to find something telling about the origins of the name but I didn't find anything.

A view along Plug Hat Trail.