Friday, April 6, 2018

Poison Spider Mesa and a Little Golden Spike.


Get There.

We met up with the rest of the group at the motel where Cheryl and Dennis were staying at the north end of town around 9:00.
From there we drove north out of Moab for about 4 miles where we got onto Potash Road. Potash Road goes west along the north side of the Colorado river.

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Rock Climbers.

The cliffs along this road are very popular with rock climbers.

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About 6 miles down the road we turned onto the Poison Spider Mesa trail.

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This is a very popular trail and there was a lot of traffic today. There were ten jeeps in front of us at the start.

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Trail Gets Rough.

It isn’t long before the trail starts getting rough.

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One thing about the trails in Moab there is always great views.

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The Waterfall.

This spot is called the Waterfall. On the left side is a hole that will turn over your jeep if you fall into it so you have to stay close to the right side and it is a bit tippy.

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The Notch.

The next challenge is called the Notch. It’s not to hard as long as you keep the tires on the walls.

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We all made it up the Notch just fine.

Another Nice View.

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Flowers in the Rocks.

We saw this flower blooming alongside the trail.

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Golden Spike Trail.

After wandering around for a while we turned onto the Golden Spike trail.

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The reason for taking this trail is for one particular challenge called the Launching Pad.

It is very steep on both ends.

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It doesn’t look to bad in the pictures.

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It wasn’t that hard just steep.

Lunch With a View.

After getting past the Launching Pad we headed back to The Poison Spider trail.

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Eventually we got to the overlook.

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We stopped here for lunch.

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Heading Back.

The place where we had lunch is on a loop trail the connects back to the trail we came in on after a few miles.
We headed back along the return leg of  the loop.

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We went around this hill and Patti had me stop so she could take a picture of this rock formation.

It kind of looks like “Jaba The Hut” to me.

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We continued along, going up…

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and down…

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and round and round.

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Speaking of going around , you want to make sure you go around this hole.

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Bouncing along across the slick rock…

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the views are outstanding.

Like this one.

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and this one

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or this.

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That’s what makes all the bouncing worth it.

So, on we go.

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Three Choices.

We eventually come to a place where we have three choices of which route to take.
As you can see here,  there are three routes over the rocks. On the left is the easy way. In the center is a harder route. On the right is where the big rock crawler buggies go.

IMG_3364We decided on the take the middle road.

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It was actually pretty easy as these things go.

Down the Notch

We continue across the bumpy rocks.

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Then things start to get interesting.

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Since we were in the back I couldn’t tell what was going on but this didn’t look good.

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As it turned out there wasn’t a problem we were just approaching the Notch. This time we are going down.

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The Waterfall Again.

After the Notch the trail continues to drop down through a canyon,

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eventually we come back to the Waterfall. It doesn’t look as threatening going down  as coming up.

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Switchbacks Above the River.

After another mile or so we come to the switch backs we came up on the way in.

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In a little while we were in the parking lot airing up the tires.

Dinner at “The Blue Pig”.

We met the group at a barbeque place called the Blue Pig around 5:00.
Patti had a half rack of rib’s and said that they were wonderful.
I had smoked brisket and it was good.

Okay, another ride under our belt and it was good.

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