05-17-10

Today we started on our ride at around 10:00.
We wanted to check out Tusher Tunnel so we headed north on 191 and turned off on "Old Mill Canyon road".
Once again we were following the directions in our Moab back roads book.
We had no trouble finding the parking area.

The tunnel was up a short steep trail and had a large entrance.

It narrows as you move along but is still tall enough that one can walk upright.

At the exit is a view of a beautiful "slick rock" area.

We walked along a narrow trail and found a few other caves but none were very deep.

When we got back to the jeep, Patti noticed a ravens nest high on a cliff. It is hard to see but it is in the hole that looks like a mouth.

From Tusher Tunnel we went to find Hidden Canyon. We drove around following the directions in our book and sure enough we drove through a beautiful canyon.

along the way we came across a really pretty lizard.

After we went through the canyon we decided to see if we could find the Hidden Canyon overlook so we followed the directions in the book but this time there were so many roads that I think we got a might confused for a spell.
The roads dwindled to trails and then to tracks and then we got into a vast area of "slick rock" where the trail came and went.

Fortunately someone has painted white arrows and occasional short stripes on the surface of the rock.
We followed these signs for a couple of miles.

Now I may have mentioned this before but "slick rock" is a bit of a misnomer. The rock is anything but slick in fact it is bumpy as hell.

Eventually the trail we were following disappeared at least I couldn't find it any more. We were kind of tired from the beating we were getting from the "Slick rock" so we turned around and started back the way had come and after a short distance we stopped for a break.

While Patti sat and smoked a cigarette I walked over to what looked like an edge and found a pretty little canyon with a small stream in its bottom.

It took us much less time to get off the rocks than I would have expected and soon we were back on trails then dirt roads and then the highway from there, in about a half hour we were home again.

Tomorrow we will go to Canyonlands National Park and a three day jeep trek on the White Rim road.
If our Verizon wireless Internet gadget works, I will send you a blog from there. If it doesn't work I won't publish another blog until Thursday or Friday.

05-15-10

This morning, we got our camping gear together and loaded it into Clifford in preparation for our trip on the White Rim trail on Tuesday.
Around 10:00 we decided to take a ride.
When we went out yesterday we missed one of the trails that went north off the road to Spring Canyon Point, so today we decided to go check it out.
The trail went to what is called Rainbow Terrace.
Of course as you know I don't like to go over terrain that I have already covered so I decided to come at this place from a different direction than what our guide book describes.
After wandering around for several hours, not sure where we were, we finally came out on "Spring Canyon Road, just east of Tombstone Rock. The trail we wanted was only about 100 yards east of the rock so we stopped there for lunch. After lunch we headed out "Rainbow Terrace" trail.
Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures today but here are what we have of the Rainbow Terrace.


After about a mile the trail became very hard to see and we found ourselves wandering around on a "slick rock" mountain side with no idea where the trail had gone.
Finally we saw a couple of Jeeps and a pickup a little higher on the mountain so we decided to drive up the rocks and see if we could locate the trail. Eventually we came across the track and turned onto it. A short distance later we came upon the jeeps.
They were climbing up some very intimidating rock ledges but they looked like they knew where they were going so we followed them. It is a good thing we found them because if I had come to these rock ledges alone I probably would not have attempted to climb them.
Unfortunately we were so engrossed in climbing the rocks that we forgot to take any pictures.
After we attained the ledge/terrace we stopped to talk to the people in the jeeps. I asked them if the trail went any where and they said to follow the slick rock ledge around the mountain eventually it would come to a good dirt trail and then it would connect to a road that would lead us north to Highway 191.
We did as they suggested and eventually, got to a sandy trail that went in and out of a wash. After about five miles we came to a better dirt road.
We had been looking for a place called "Dripping Spring" which we wanted to see because of the "Dripping Spring" we had visited near Quartzsite. We knew that it was off this trail and we could see several large Cottonwood trees to the west, so when we got to the intersection, instead of turning right toward the highway we turned left and drove into the wash where we found the spring.


There is a lot more water in this dripping spring than in the one in Arizona.
We got home around 5:30.

05-14-10 Today Patti and I went to Spring Canyon Point. We drove north on Highway 191, turned west on Highway 313, (the road that goes to Canyonlands). About 8 miles up the road we turned north on Dubinky Well Road. After about 4 miles we turned east on Spring Canyon Point Road and followed it to the end. Along the way we passed Tombstone Rock.

A little further we came across some Bighorn Sheep feeding on some brush above the road. Patti got some nice shots of them.

Spring Canyon Point overlooks the Green River.

On our way to the point we passed some other trails and decided to check them out on the way back. One went to Secret Spire. Of course it isn’t really much of a secret since it is in the Moab Back Roads and Jeep Trails book so a lot of people know about it. Patti tried to push it over but without much sucess.

There were several vehicles there, with some families and a bunch of kids so we left there and stopped on some “slick rocks” with a view to have lunch.

I don’t know why they call the rocks “slick rocks” because they are usually pretty bumpy, but I guess it is because they are all one piece. They aren’t very slick, at least when they are dry anyway. After lunch we drove back to Tombstone Rock where we turned south toward Dellenbaugh Tunnel. The road to the tunnel had a few spots where we had to do a little minor rock crawling.

It was fun and the tunnel was pretty neat.

Patti got several nice flower pictures during the day.

The weather continues to be unsettled. It was overcast all day with a few sprinkles. It started raining in earnest around 6:00 this evening and is still raining as I write this at 10:00.

05-13-10

Sunday,


This morning around 10:00 we left Blanding Utah and after about an hour and a half
we arrived at the Moab Rim RV Park in Moab.
After getting set up, the first thing we did was go to Milt’s hamburger stand for Buffalo Burgers.
After lunch Patti packed up the dirty clothes and went into town to the laundromat . When she returned she told me that Mary and Tom and Leo (my sister, brother-in-law and their dog) had arrived in Moab and would meet us for dinner.
We had planned to go to a good Mexican restaurant that we know of but when we got there they were closed for Mother’s Day, so we went to a steak house that is connected to the motel where Mary & Tom were staying.

Monday,

Mary and Tom had never seen Canyonlands, so around 9:00 we all got into their TrailBlazer for a ride to Dead Horse State Park overlook and Canyonlands National Park (Island in The Sky).
We stopped at Dead Horse first for a look into the canyon.

From there we drove on to Canyonlands. We stopped at most of the overlooks along the way, took pictures.

We stopped for lunch at one of the picnic areas.

On the way back to Moab, we went down the Shafer Switchbacks and along the Potash road.

The Potash Road is easy, suitable for 2WD vehicles and very scenic.

There are a couple of large turnouts with views of the river.

Dispite what it looks like in the picture , Tom is not peeing in the river from the overlook.

Potash Road connects with Highway 279.

Along 279 are some petroglyphs so we stopped to check them out but no one thought to take any pictures.
We got back to Moab around 5:00 and went to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. This time it was open and we had an excellent meal.

Tuesday,
We met Mary and Tom at the Moab Diner for breakfast.
We decided to just take a short ride today because we are going to take a boat ride on the Colorado in the evening.
We went out the Kane Creek road which follows the south side of the river and stopped at the “Birthing Rock” to see the petroglyphs.



We continued along the road a few more miles until we got to where it becomes a 4WD road that goes over Hurrah Pass.
Here is a view of Hurrah Pass from above from Anticline overlook..

We turned around there and headed for home.
We got back to Plan “B” around 1:00 and made plans to meet Mary and Tom at the "Colorado River by Night" boat ride place.

The trip up the river includes a dinner served at their dining room, at 7:00, then we were to board the boat and go up stream where they put on a light show in the canyon.
Tom was not feeling well so around 6:30 Mary called and told us that he would not be going with us but she was.
We got to the boat place in time for dinner and it was very good.
I ate too much!
Well, I haven’t mentioned it yet but the weather today has been less than perfect with cold high winds and occasional showers.

After dinner they got us all together and told us that the weather was too bad to do the trip and they would refund the money for the boat ride.
Mary had paid for the ride as a birthday gift to Patti so we went to the boat ride store so she could get her refund. fortunately she also got a refund for Tom’s ticket.

Wednesday,
Tom was feeling better this morning so we took a ride south of Moab to The Needles Overlook and Anticline overlook. It was a very nice drive on paved and gravel 2WD roads.

Views from the needles overlook;

Look at the left side of this picture. Do you see a sleeping warior?

From Needles Overlook we drove to Anticline Overlook. Along the way we stopped for lundc at an unnamed overlook.

Here is the view from the lunch stop.

Anticline overlook is on a point of land overlooking the colorado river and vallies

to the north ,

east,

and west.

Thursday,

Mary and Tom left today.

I have been spending most of this morning trying to make sense of the pictures and getting this blog published.

o4-08-10

Around 10:00 this morning we took a ride into the Manti La Sal national forest.
We didn't have any destination in mind but thought that we might find a way to Beef Basin through the mountains.
It was really nice just to be in the forest for a change.
We saw several deer.



Drove past a couple of ponds.



Drove on several trails.

Saw some beautiful views.

There was still a lot of snow in the mountains.

Some of the roads that we were on ended at snow drifts.
This one doesn't look to bad but the right side is slimy mud with a steep canyon on that side. I tried to get through but the jeep started going sideways so I slowly backed out of it and turned around.

The next one was just to long to mess with.

We crossed several small streams cascading down the mountains.

For lunch we just pulled off the road and sat in the jeep to eat.

Patti got another flower picture.

It was very refreshing just driving around in green forest after all the dry desert we have seen the last five months.