The Fremont is the trout river of Utah's red-rock heart — the water that threads down out of the Boulder/Thousand Lake high country through Bicknell and on toward the slickrock of Capitol Reef, the only real cold-water fly stream for a long way in any direction. The fishable part is the upper reach, below Mill Meadow, where the river runs cool and clear enough to hold browns and rainbows through meadow runs and willow-lined corners with the Aquarius Plateau standing over your shoulder. It's a working river as much as a fishing river — dams and irrigation shape the flows, and in a dry late summer it can drop and warm to the point where the responsible move is to fish early and leave the fish alone in the heat. But on a good day in a good season it's a quietly lovely freestone with the most spectacular backdrop in the state, and almost nobody on it. Below Bicknell the river warms, silts and turns into desert water — that's where the trout story ends and the scenery one carries on.

• Mixed

• Aquatic life: Impaired
• Recreation: Impaired