34th Stop - Flaming Gorge (UT)
Blog Post #45 - Written December 7, 2025
Stay: July 28 - August 1, 2025
Almost a year before our trip, I planned a Butler Siblings Family Reunion camping trip to Flaming Gorge. Starting in 2020, my brothers have planned a backpacking trip each summer to get away from the busy hubbub and reconnect with each other and with Mother Nature. A few of us weren't able to make it last year, and I knew my sisters and some of our wives and kids felt left out, so we planned a family campout for 2025. Unfortunately, my parents couldn't make it because they're serving a church mission in Tempe, AZ.
This was our only fixed/set plan that we had to schedule the rest of our RV trip around, which influenced our route and speed. But we made it! Which was a miracle, because the road into Flaming Gorge from Rawlins is treacherous with a trailer. It was very up-and-down and pretty windy and steep in many places. After we got there, I immediately dreaded having to leave, but more on that later haha. I just dismissed those fears for the week so I could enjoy the family time and worry about our exit strategy when the time came.
TL;DR we had an awesome time camping, kayaking, swimming, and cliff jumping with my siblings and their families - my brother Richard made this sweet photo montage video with several drone videos of our campsite
Our first adventure upon arriving at the group campsite was getting water. It was mainly a tent campsite, so it was a bit tight for our massive trailer. And when we got there, the water spigots weren't working. So I had to complete a 13-point turn to get the trailer back out and drive a few minutes down the road to another campground to fill up our fresh water tank. Then back to the campsite and we got all settled. We were providing dinner that first night and Megan made some delicious chicken tandoori / curry. And we all prayed that my brother Matt would stay awake as he drove in. In famous Matt-fashion, they were still driving and going to get in late. Very late. More like early. Like 2am early in the morning driving up the winding mountain roads towing a trailer with their mini-van 😱🙈. But they also made it safely.
Our first day we went to Sunny Cove for a day playing in the reservoir. It's amazing how much planning, packing, and set-up is required to move 7 families with 18 kids to the lake for a beach day haha. But it was well worth it. The day was sunny, the water clear, and the rocks just perfect for jumping! We had a bunch of kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, and my brother's big raft he brought all the way from northern CA. Everyone had a blast paddling around, swimming, playing in the sand, chatting, and cliff jumping. I'm a big fan of cliff jumping. It's taken me many years to figure out how to overcome my fear of heights, but I love the thrill! It used to take me like 10-15 loooong minutes to build up the courage to jump (with my very patient brothers encouraging me), until I discovered that the longer you wait the more you psych yourself out. The key is to just jump quick without thinking! Oh man, it was way too fun.
1st Day of Cliff Jumping Videos:
- My brother David, in slo-mo - this is from the first group of jump sites at the end (right side) of Sunny Cove. Perfect spot for cliff jumping. Water is plenty deep and there are lots of good spots for all thrill levels, ranging from 1 foot to 40 feet high. This one was about 25-30'.
- Lil' Q sheepishly...not jumping haha. Very anti-cliffmactic.
- Megan narrowly avoid certain death on this ruck jutting out ;)
- My brother Richard jumping
Uncle John putting on the turbo!
Z and his cousin F were merciless pirates and had an absolute blast stealing this raft and trying to oar it around
More pirate shenanigans from Z and F, spraying innocent bystanders all around
The second day was our river float day. Once again, the effort required to get 32 people ready, down to the river, and ready again is staggering. Props to all of my siblings and parents everywhere for making the investment of time and effort to make fun adventurous memories like these with their kids. It ain't easy!
The float was great. Nice and relaxing most of the time, with a few fun little/medium rapids to spice things up. Z even figured out how to "surf" through some of the rapids, by standing up in the front of my kayak. And the water was so clear we could easily see fish all the way down. The reservoir and river are just beautiful.
River Float Videos:
- Going down some rapids. Sorry the view is mostly of my lap and the front of my kayak haha, I had the camera strapped to my life jacket.
- If you want to feel like you're on a roller coaster, watch this one. Disclaimer: I will not be held liable if you barf on your computer.
The third day we went back to Sunny Cove for another day of cliff jumping and kayaking. This time went out on a longer kayaking excursion to an island in the middle of the reservoir, and then to the bridge on the other side, and up the inlet past the bridge. It was about 2 miles of kayaking one-way. Our arms and backs were dead haha. And a couple of my young nephews (8 and 14) made it all the way! But man was it gorgeous! We found this huge osprey nest on the island with 4 big osprey flying around it. And the views are just incredible. Plus, we found a few more awesome cliff jumping spots, including one that's ascent started 100-yards around the corner from the actual jump spot, so my brother carried his kayak up and over and chucked it off the cliff before jumping in after it, so he wouldn't have to swim back around to get it haha. Video: me jumping over the cliff's edge into the beautiful abyss.
Video: probably my favorite video of the highest cliff we jumped off. Had to have been 40-50 feet high.
The fourth day, my two brothers with off-roading capable vehicles took me and another brother out for a little trail drive. I even got to take a turn driving, it was pretty fun! And once again, spectacular views :)
At this point, a few of my siblings had had to leave, but with my two brothers that remained, we went back down to the reservoir and put in near the bridge, then kayaked/swam up the inlet and played around in the water, jumping and having a good time.
Matt and John decided they need to deflate their tires a bit before this next climb. Manly stuff. grunt grunt ;)
Righteous! Righteous!
This climb was pretty gnarly.
John let me drive most of the way back down, too trusting he is, haha
John, Richard, and Nancy were kind enough to ferry us around today since we were too lazy to inflate our kayaks again :)
The one time we relaxed this entire trip ;)
D loves her aunts and uncles with SUPs!
Found this neat little spot for the boys to jump from
Video of Z jumping - he always lands on his knees for some reason haha
Our last morning all of the kids woke up early and left the trailer. By the time we got up and out, they had successfully built their own campfire haha! I'd never been so proud :)
In between all of the reservoir/river trips, we had a fun time at the campground. Teaching the kids how to chop wood with an axe (thanks Uncle John!) and build fires, shoot slingshots and BB runs, decorate t-shirts, make delicious dutch oven cobblers (thanks Angela!), enjoying the beautiful sunsets and watching the meteor showers, and all of the other normal fun camping stuff. Megan and I felt bad for everyone else in a tent during the windy, windy nights haha and we wondered if we'll ever be able to go back to primitive camping haha. And several mornings these annoying camp robbers / jays would wake us up at like 5am. It was driving me insane, so one morning I got my BB gun and hid by our front door when they woke me up again. I stealthily opened our front door and popped one of them mid-cry. I winged him for sure, but he got away running/flapping through the underbrush. Since we celebrated the birthday of one of my nieces during the campout, I was able to gift her an entire trash bag full of stuffed animals that we no longer had room for haha. My sister (her mom) was thrilled ;)
Lord of the Flame, with his "flame-thrower" (a Ryobi drill with a inflation pump attachment). You can't argue with results!
Funcle Richy Rich earning his stripes with endless games of Sleepless Queens demanded by the 5-8 yo crowd
We had 3-4 hammocks set up and they got used an abused the entire time. Kids loves hammocks haha
Z and F, best buds just hanging out
Funcle Richard, doing his duty to entertain the munchkins again
D loves her Uncle John
The bug of choice at this campsite were carnivorous wasps. Luckily they just ate our food, not us!
One of the sunsets we drove to see. The kids (below) brought cards to play while the grown-ups were being boring haha
On our way home, we had a very stressful drive to my brother's house in Woods Cross, UT. We took a different route out of their and it was fairly steep going up to the pass, and there was a large motorcycle gang behind us. We didn't see any pull-offs for several miles and they wouldn't pass us when they had the chance though, so I figured they were just pleasure cruising and fine going slow. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. Apparently they weren't passing us because they all wanted to stick together and there were like 300 of them. Their leader pulled in front of our truck as we started up the biggest hill and slowed down in front of us, until he was within 5 feet of our bumper. I obviously didn't want to stop because I'd lose all momentum and I wasn't sure our truck would make it up the hill. He didn't care. He and his female passenger started cussing us out and flipping us the bird and I still feel the anxiety/stress as I type this 5 months later. After they all passed us and we finally, thankfully made it up the hill, there was a pull-off right there at the top of the hill. I pulled off to calm down. If they had just waited 2 more minutes, I could've pulled off to let them by. Not a great start to our UT stay. Then came the incredibly steep downhill portion that practically melted our brakes and I thought we were going to fly off the mountain road and die. Really bad start to UT. Probably tied for our worst drive day ever (the other was a couple months later through the CA mountains).
The views were as beautiful as the downhill grade was steep.
But we made it. Thanks to God, we made it.
Most of these photos are ours, but I do need to give phot credit to my sister-in-law AshKitch for a couple :)
And thanks again to Rich for his video compilation.
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