Friday, March 28, 2014

Poison Spider Mesa 03-28-14

Another interesting ride.

We met the group at the north end of town and headed north on 191 to Potash Road where we turned west and followed the north shore of the Colorado River.

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We turned right onto the Poison Spider trail.

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The first part of the trail was pretty easy.

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But that didn’t last long.

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Near the top of the switchbacks we came to the first rough spot.

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A little further on there is a challenging obstacle on the left. The ones with front lockers took the challenge.

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Those of us without front lockers went around.
A ways further on there was another optional challenge on the right. Once again the jeeps with front lockers took the challenge.

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I watched them struggle to get up the ledge and decided to go around.
The next obstacle is called the waterfall it looked pretty tough

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but turned out not to be too bad.

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The trail continued along over a mixture of slick rock,

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steep ledges,

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very bumpy stretches,

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and more steep ledges.

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Going over the top of one steep climb we were treated to a beautiful view of the La Sal Mountains with the red rock crags in the foreground.

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The next challenge is called the Wedgy. It looked a bit scary from the bottom.

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But turned out to be a piece of cake.

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The trail continued to climb over steep ledges.

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Every now and then we were treated to another beautiful view.

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We watched these guys in the Rock Crawlers climb some of the most challenging obstacles with ease.

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We left them to play on the rocks and continued our travels.

The next thing we came to was a steep sand dune.

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We all made it through without having to be towed.
Then it was back to the rocks.

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Eventually we came to our lunch stop on the ledge overlooking  Moab.

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We lined up along the cliff and had lunch.

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From here we could not only see Moab but also some of Arches NP.

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After lunch we got back on the trail.

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We passed this deep pot hole.

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Traveling along we eventually came to an arch that if you walk down a steep hill you can look through the arch and view the Colorado River, the highway on the south bank and the parking lot for the Moab Rim Trail.

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Patti actually climbed down there to take the picture. I was so proud of her. It was a long steep climb.

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After hanging around there for a while we continued on along the trail. At one spot we went through a tunnel of juniper trees.

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A little further on we passed Pig Rock.

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We came to another optional challenge.

After a few tries Reni made it with his heavily modified 4 door Rubicon.

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Of course Dennis M made it in his white jeep once he got his front lockers engaged.

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Dennis K tried it several times but just couldn’t get enough traction to get up the rock.

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The rest of us went around.

After traveling for a while longer we found ourselves back at the Wedgy going down hill.

We all lined up and went down one at a time. It looks more impressive from the bottom.

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A little farther down the trail we saw this unfortunate ATV’er being towed out by his friend.

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We easily got passed the waterfall and continued along.

Eventually we came to the switchbacks

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and one last obstacle.

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It looks kind of bad but was actually pretty easy.

A few more bumps,

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a couple of turns and we were back at the beginning.

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It was a fun trip but Patti and I are really beat.

Tomorrow will be another long day. We are leading the group on the Dome Plateau trail.

On another subject; We bought some mouse traps yesterday. I bated one with peanut butter and set it between the couch and sink. So far the mouse hasn’t returned.

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