Desert Expedition II, Moab Trip Report

[gwittman]

Martin, I hope it is not too serious. I have been though a lot of hospital time with my wife due to breast cancer but she has gotten through it and is healthy now. Hoping for the best for your wife.

BTW, I got your pictures and have not had a chance to look at all of them yet. I still have not started on copying my pictures but will get them to you eventually.

[mjmcdowell]

Martin, I hope and pray that your wife is out of the hospital soon and that everything is good, thinking of you in my prayers. Stay safe. Michael

[Funrover]

Looks like a great time was had!

[Tbars]

...Martin...I just saw your post for your wife...Hopefully it is nothing major but we wish the best..

[Martinjmpr]

Wife's back home now so hopefully the updates can resume. We had to cancel our planned Memorial Day getaway so that should give me some time, too.

[Tbars]

...Glad to hear this and hopefully all is well for the wife's...

[mjmcdowell]

...Glad to hear this and hopefully all is well for the wife's...

Martin, Same goes for me. Michael

[Martinjmpr]

Day 5, Saturday, April 21st:

After a windy night, we woke up and had breakfast (yummy chorizo burritos!) and then packed up. Our plan was to hit Arches NP and see what we could find. We drove along Salt Valley until we hit the park boundary, where we all stopped for pictures.





When I tried to start my truck again, it wouldn’t start. No clicks or groans, just nothing when I turned the key. I’d had this problem a few times before when running the Scangauge and couldn’t figure it out. I popped the hood open to look and that’s when Ted noticed the huge buildup of white gunk on my battery terminals. I disconnected the Scangauge tried to tighten down the battery terminal, and then tried to start the truck again – it fired right up.

We headed into the park until we got to the turnoff for Tower Arch. We took the road until it hit the rock ledge and then, after some discussion, decided not to risk it, as we didn’t think some of the vehicles would be able to get up over the ledges. We then went on into the park to the Devil’s Garden parking area. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that this was the beginning of “National Park Week” and in addition to being a nice, sunny, warm day, the park was offering free admission. As a result, the parking lot was a zoo and the Devil’s Garden area looked like Grand Central Station.

This was one of the less crowded parking lots!



As usual, Harley was curious about everything around us:



We did get out and hike around a bit at some of the huge arches and other weird rock formations, though. The kids seemed to love this area, it looked like a huge sandbox to them!





After deciding we didn’t want to deal with the crowds, we headed out and explored a couple of other arches before stopping for lunch near the Delicate Arch viewpoint.

Delicate Arch, as featured on just about every billboard in the Moab area, along with the UT license plate:



Our parking area, down a dirt road, gave us a little bit of a break from the crowds (look straight above Brian's truck on the left side of the picture and you can see Delicate Arch in the background):



Following that, we headed out to the Visitor Center where we stopped to cool off and discuss where we wanted to go next. Scott, Laura, Michael and I decided we would go back to our previous campsite in the Salt Valley Road area while Ted, Brian, Jim and Sib went on to explore Hurrah Pass and Chicken Corners.

One thing to point out, for anyone visiting Arches NP, is that the visitor center has a “water station” outside where visitors are encouraged to refill their water containers. They can even accommodate large, multi-gallon containers.

Scott, Laura, Michael and I then headed back to our same campsite up along Salt Valley road. We only got one “visitor” on Saturday night, a late model Pathfinder that actually drove into the middle of the camp while we were eating, then,without anyone getting out or even rolling down a window, the Pathy turned around and drove out. However, it was even windier on Saturday night than it was on Friday. Michael had set up his home-built awning to give himself shelter from the brutal sun, and left it up at night. At 5am, after the flapping woke him up (and me, too!), Michael got up and disassembled the awning.



TO BE CONTINUED...

[Martinjmpr]

Day 6, Sunday, April 22nd:

We decided we wanted to see the Devil’s Garden area but didn’t want to have to work our way through a huge crowd, so we made a plan to be out of our campsite by 8am.

On the way in, Scott had a scary incident on the washboard road and nearly flipped his Ranger, but as I wasn’t there I’ll let him tell you about that.

We got to Devil’s Garden by 9 and the contrast could not have been greater from the day before: Where Saturday had been hot and crowded, Sunday morning the parking lot was nearly deserted and cool. Scott, Laura and I hiked in to see Landscape Arch (the longest arch in the park at about 325’) while Michael stayed in the parking area.





Landscape Arch is amazing and well worth the .8 mile hike!





We spent roughly an hour hiking and taking photos, and the park was beginning to ‘crowd up’ (and heat up!) by the time we got back to the parking lot. So, since we had seen most of the arches the day before, we went straight to the Visitor Center to fill our water jugs and then into Moab, where the plan was to spend the morning shopping for souveniers and restocking on groceries and gas, and then to meet at 3pm to head South and find a campsite for the night.

We had lunch at a nice restaurant in town and then split up to do our shopping and sightseeing, with a rendezvous time of 3pm at City Market. I managed to swing by the local drug store, too, to pick up extra socks and a towel (which I’d forgotten to pack!) After that, I headed straight to City Market to restock with ice and water. To my dismay, my ice, which I had just replenished on Friday, was nearly gone again. This time I decided I would get a block even if it meant I had to move some things like beer and soda out of the cooler.

We reassembled at the City Market (which was becoming like a 2nd home to us) and headed South. Brian thought he knew of some nice (free) BLM campsites. We headed South on US 191 until we got to the turn-off for Behind the Rocks, just before the Hole-in-the-rock rest area. There are a number of BLM campsites in this area, free to use for the first person to get to them. Many of the ones close to the pavement were occupied, often by groups of RVs with dirt bikes and ATVs. After checking out a few of the empty sites, we ultimately selected one that was in a relatively open (but also relatively flat) area and made our camp there.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Martinjmpr]

Day 7, Monday, April 23rd:

After a surprisingly calm night (no wind at all, even though we were camped in a pretty exposed area) we enjoyed a great pancake breakfast. Ted showed us his very cool Cadac Safari Grill and used it for the pancakes as well as the bacon.

We were scheduled to meet Gary, our last group member, in Monticello this morning at 10, so we all made sure we were ready to roll by 9am. Once we rolled into the small town, we started looking around, and I spotted Gary’s bright-red FX-4 Ranger with its distinctive Wildernest topper at the local visitor’s center. We pulled into the parking lot to meet with Gary and discuss our plans, and I took this opportunity to take a short trip over to the local grocery store since I was on the last sputtering bits of fuel in my last propane tank (I had tried to buy fuel in Moab but every place I went to was out of the small 1 gallon propane cans.) Fortunately, the little store had some propane and I got water and sun block as well, and then headed back to join the group, still exploring the little visitor’s center/museum and talking with Gary.

Finally we reassembled and headed out of Monticello. We were headed to a trail that Brian was familiar with that would take us out of the hot, dry desert and into the cool mountains on our way to Comb Ridge. We went a few miles on the pavement as the road ascended sharply up into the Abajo Mountain range. Finally, we turned onto a Forest Service road and as the road continued to climb, we started encountering more and more snow on the side of the road and mud in the middle.



It was quite a switch from the hot and dusty desert driving we’d done around Canyonlands and Arches! As the road continued to climb, I noticed that my GPS showed our elevation going above 9,000’. At this point there was at least 1’ of snow on either side of the road, and many parts of the road bed that were in shadow from the pine trees also had snow as well as deep mud. The higher the road climbed, the deeper it went into the forest and the more prevalent the snow and mud was. Finally, we stopped. I walked up ahead to where Brian and Jim were and I could see he had stopped at the point where the only tracks penetrating the snowy road were obviously quite old.









We held a quick conference and reviewed the map – we were around 9100’ in elevation and the road topped out at a little over 10,000 several miles down the road. Furthermore, the way the road wound through the hills there would obviously be quite a few shady spots that might have even more snow than the 1’ that was on the road in front of Brian. Based on the fact that it didn’t look like the road had been run recently, we reluctantly turned around and headed back down. It was lunchtime so we enjoyed a cool, shady lunch break at the Forest Service parking area just off the paved road. I was a little bit impressed with how much mud I’d managed to throw on the side of my 4runner on a ‘desert’ trip!



Heading back down towards Monticello we descended about 3,000', and got a very impressive view of the valley to the East:



After lunch we headed back to Monticello and then took US 191 down to Blanding, then turned off on UT highway 95 to get to Comb Ridge. As we were running the West side of Comb Ridge today, we ascended up the top of the ridge and then down the other side, always a dramatic drive. Just on the other side we turned off onto the dirt road of Comb Wash and pulled into a parking area to air down. After our little mountain excursion, it sure felt hot down there, probably over 80.

This is where the paved road (UT 95) crosses Comb Ridge (sorry for the fuzzy pic, I obviously need to learn how to use my fancy camera better!):



As soon as we aired down, we started down the road. The Comb Wash road is, for the most part, a wide, sandy road that offers tremendous views of Comb Ridge to the east and the rising plateau to the West. We took about an hour to traverse the ~22 miles of Comb Wash, stopping a few times for pictures.







A nice long view of Comb Ridge looking southward (our direction of travel.)





By the time we got to the end of the wash, where it intersected with US 163, it was nearly 4pm and we had to figure out where to go for the night. Brian had a great book with lots of interesting places, so he suggested we cross 163 and continue to the South, towards the San Juan river, which was only about 5 miles from where we stood.

The road to the south, which I’ve seen called “San Juan hill”, was one of the most fun parts of the entire trip! It starts as a meandering dirt road that wanders in and out of the bed of the wash (which was bone dry), but then goes up a couple of steep climbs. Near the end, it loops around and goes over a truly spectacular rock ledge and steep climb that requires both 4wd and low range. We stopped there to assess the road, but decided pretty quickly that we could get over it without any trouble, even Michael, who has no lift and a bull bar that cuts into his approach angle somewhat.

Michael going up San Juan hill:




After that short climb, we meandered a bit, crossed the very end of Comb Ridge again and dropped into a nice little flat spot near the river that had a fenced-off historical site called “The Rincone” (the corners.) This is the remains of an old trading post from the 19th century, situated at a site that was then a popular crossing site on the San Juan River that marks the Northern boundary of the Navajo reservation.



This was an odd formation. Looks like someone took a giant ice cream scoop and scooped out a portion of the rock!



The San Juan River marks the northern edge of the Navajo Reservation in this part of Utah. The river was very low, sadly, due to the lack of moisture we've had in the mountains this Winter:



We got out, walked around, and took pictures. It was after 5 and we still needed to find a place to camp for the night. Then we thought “why not just camp here?” At first the question was asked “are we allowed to camp here?” but then we realized that it was nearly 6 pm on a Monday night, and we were in an area that was only accessible by a 4wd vehicle – and there was nothing that said we couldn’t camp there, so we thought “what the hell?” Since this area had large expanses of flat, dry rock, I took the opportunity to set myself up in an area where I wouldn’t have to set things down in the dirt, which was nice.

We saw a lot of these little guys running around. Some were quite large.



And some of the desert flowers were in bloom, too, which added a nice splash of vivid color:



After I set up my camp, I started wandering by some of the rocks and I saw one with what appeared to be a squiggly line on the top of it. I assumed it was just a natural characteristic of the rock itself but thought “wouldn’t it be funny if that turned out to be a petroglyph?”

Well, guess what. It was a petroglyph. And as I got closer I could see there were more on the rock, faintly visible in the dying sunlight.



The rock with the petroglyph is the vertical face that you can see the side of in this picture. Notice how close it was to where I camped!



Brian and Ted had walked further down the trail and said there was an old Anasazi cliff dwelling down there, and since it was getting late, we figured we’d check it out in the morning.

TO BE CONTINUED...