05-27-13

As is often the case, today’s trip didn’t turn out quite as we had planned.

The plan was to follow the trail over Geyser Pass that is outlined in our back roads book so we could mark it off.
Then come back to Moab via La Sal Pass, which is the road that Sonny told me about.

We headed out around 9:00 and drove into Moab to the Phillips 66 station to get gas and a couple of Subway sandwiches.
From there we headed south and worked our way east to the La Sal Mountain Loop Road.

  
We followed that road up the mountains

until we got to the Geyser Pass Road where we turned south and continued climbing on the well graded gravel road.

We were beginning to think that maybe we had been on this road before but were possibly mistaken since we hadn’t marked it off in our book. 
The ride was scenic and we drove through several picturesque aspen groves.

As we got higher the road got smaller and we started seeing snow along the sides.

Then we found snow in the middle of the road. By then we were sure we had been here before.

About 2 miles from the pass and at an altitude of 9916 ft we came to a snow drift that effectively ended the road for us.

Fortunately there was a place to turn around at this spot so we did and headed back down the road.

 

We took a turn off to Gold Basin but it ended at a hiking trailhead.

As we were driving back down Geyser Pass Road we realized why we hadn’t crossed this drive off in the book. The last time we attempted this drive we were unable to complete it due to the snow.

On the way down the hill we decided to go south on highway 191 to highway 46, turn east

and try to get over La Sal Pass.
Just passed the small town of La Sal

we came to the La Sal Pass road and took it heading up the mountains  to the north.

We climbed for a long ways driving through Aspen groves

across a nice creek

and past a couple of small lakes.

 

We noticed as we got higher on the mountain that the Aspens hadn’t gotten their leaves yet.

 

We went over the pass at 10,135 ft. and started down the north side of the mountains. After less than a mile we came to a large snow drift that had been driven through but looked a little rough.

I stopped the jeep and walked down the road for a ways. We probably could have gotten through the first drift and maybe the second one but further down the trail it became impassable.
I went back to the jeep, turned it around and we went back to the top of the pass and stopped for lunch.

After lunch we headed back down the mountain.

 

At one point we could see the Rocky Mountains.

Like I said, the trip didn’t work out quite like we had planned but it was fun and scenic just the same.