What started out as daydreaming about a really long 4-wheeler ride has slowly started becoming a reality. A couple of weeks ago, I began thinking about some possible destinations for a long-ish day-ride that I could reach by riding directly from my house in Price, but there's really nothing close by that's worth spending the better part of a day riding to. I then considered the possibility of spending the night on the trail and making it a longer ride, meaning I would have more time to reach some more interesting places. Looking in Google Earth, I started planning out routes, and eventually came up with a 266-mile long ride that could be done in two or three days. I've got Chris on board, and hopefully Cortney will be able to miss some work and ride with us, and it's looking like this will happen the weekend after next if everything goes according to plan. I've gone on a couple of rides over the past week to check out parts of the route closer to home that I hadn't ridden before. I went to Consumers Road at the Wildcat Loadout after work one day, and on Saturday I rode through Wellington and made it to Mounds before turning back.

The ride will start in Price and take gravel roads east out of town and then south to Wellington. I was hoping to top off the fuel in Wellington, but it would require riding on the shoulder of US-6 against traffic for several hundred yards to get to the gas station. I looked at that section of highway on Saturday and don't think I would feel comfortable riding it, so we may have to skip it and carry some "just in case" fuel to get us to the next stop. From Wellington, we'd take Farnham Road to Mounds, then cut through the northwestern San Rafael Swell, crossing the San Rafael River at Fuller Bottom and eventually landing in Ferron. In Ferron it won't be a problem getting to Gilly's for fuel, then we'll head west out of town and up Ferron Canyon until reaching the Black Dragon trail which will take us north to Joe's Valley Reservoir. From Joe's Valley we'll head up toward Skyline Drive, and hopefully camp for the night near Grassy Lake. The next day, we'll continue up to Skyline Drive, then follow Skyline north. We'll have to drop down into Mt. Pleasant for fuel and maybe supplies, then go back to Skyline and continue north toward Tucker. From Tucker we'll turn south on the Starvation Road and stop for fuel again in Scofield, then take the road over the mountains to the Consumers area and finally end up back in Price.

There are still some issues to work out, such as a couple of short stretches of pavement that may not exactly be legal to ride an ATV on, and whether the distances between fuel stops are within the fuel range of my ATVs. I may be overly optimistic in thinking that the whole trip can be done in two days, so I'd like to hope for two but plan for three days to complete the ride. This week I'll be changing the oil and cleaning the air filters in both ATVs, and inspecting them closely for any other problems. I already test-fitted my gear on the back of my ATV, and I should be able to carry everything I need except the fuel, which Chris can carry on his front rack (since Torrey will be occupying her usual spot on my front rack). I'll probably spend a lot of my free time over the next week or so getting ready for this ride, and I hope it turns out as well as it sounds in my head.

Today the boys and I went for a drive up Price Canyon to finally check out the old tunnel under the highway that we first noticed a couple of months ago. We arrived, armed with headlamps and a geocache container, and headed into the darkness. The tunnel is pretty featureless right up until the end, though there were some mineral formations on the ceiling from water seeping through the cracks. There were also several swallows' nests closer to the tunnel opening, but none were very far in. It didn't take us long to reach the end of the tunnel, and there we found a mound of dirt and a corrugated metal pipe through which warm air was entering the tunnel. I could see daylight through the tunnel, so I assumed that we'd passed under to the other side of Highway 6. I placed the geocache there under the pipe, then we exited the tunnel and crossed the highway above-ground to find the pipe. It turns out that the pipe is for drainage from the reclaimed area near the Castle Gate Mine #1 portal. I got a GPS reading there and determined that the tunnel was about 285 feet in length. I used that waypoint for the geocache listing--I'm sure there will be a lot of DNFs (did not find) before somebody figures out that it's underground. >:)

After leaving the tunnel area, we drove up to Price Canyon Recreation Area and had a picnic. While we ate lunch, it sprinkled a little. We were shaded from it under a large Ponderosa pine, and by the time we were finished eating, the rain had subsided. We hiked up the hiking trail for a while, and the kids stopped a couple of times to climb the boulders along the trail. We didn't really set out to do much hiking (we didn't even bring water with us--it was left in the truck), so we turned back after about half a mile. It was a short but pleasant outing with the kids, and it left them wanting to go back this fall to do some more hiking when the fall leaves have changed color.

I took Friday off work and returned to the Horn Mountain area to do some more exploring. During last week's ride to North Horn Mountain, I saw many roads that I wanted to turn down, but I was leading a group of other ATVs and I wasn't able to explore. I staged on the west side of Joe's Valley Reservoir where UT-29 turns from pavement to gravel, then rode south along North Dragon Creek. I took the 66 trail up onto North Horn Mountain this time, instead of the gravel road I was on last weekend. The Arapeen Trail map showed the road as being "More Difficult" and restricted to 50" width, and the signs on the ground said "Caution". Based on all of that, I was expecting it to be a tough trail, but it was a pretty easy 2WD trail. A stock Jeep could have made it without any problems.

After topping out on the 66 trail, I rode around the Cap, which is a steep and heavily-wooded cap of Flagstaff Limestone that forms the highest point of North Horn Mountain. I eventually reached the same gravel road I'd ridden last weekend, but I only followed it for about half a mile before turning north toward Mahogany Point. The road was mostly a two-track through brush and small trees (mostly Mountain Mahogany). There was one part of the road where two big berms were dug across the road, presumably in an attempt to close it. However, the Arapeen Trail map and the Manti-La Sal Motor Vehicle Use map both showed that the road continued another 3/4-mile almost to the forest boundary, so I rode right over the berms. Eventually the road ended in a clearing that I would guess used to be a drill pad, though there weren't any signs of drilling now. It was a quarter-mile hike to Mahogany Point, and the view was magnificent! I could see up Cottonwood Canyon, down Straight Canyon toward Orangeville and Castle Dale, and well into the San Rafael Swell. I placed a geocache there (of course) after enjoying the view and taking a lot of photos.

From there I rode back south to the main gravel road, then west a bit before heading south again toward South Horn Mountain. I'd scouted this area in Google Earth and noticed a huge crack near the edge of the mountain. Being there in person, it looks as though a huge section of the mountain is about to cleave off and tumble to the valley floor. It's a little unsettling to hike around there, because in addition to the big crack, there are many smaller cracks and sinkholes. I placed another geocache there, on the opposite side of the crack from where I'd parked the ATV. There was some dirt filling the crack where I was able to simply walk across, and I'm not sure if that was natural or whether somebody had filled it in. After placing the cache, I wandered around a bit and collected some rocks. There was a lot of petrified wood and ironstone concretions, and some of the rocks looked like fossilized dinosaur bones. I was very surprised to find some chert flakes, which indicate that this area was used by Fremont Indians while making arrow heads, and also likely hunting and gathering. I wasn't aware that they hung out in the mountains at 8,600', but it shouldn't come as a surprise considering that the game animals would have done the same thing during the summer months.

After finishing up at South Horn Mountain, I cruised along the main roads back toward the truck. By the time I got back there it was still fairly early, so I headed up the switchbacks on UT-29 and found a few geocaches in the area. I was impressed by the area around Grassy Lake. There were a lot of nice camp spots along the road, and Grassy Lake itself was beautiful. I didn't spend much time there, however, since I grew tired of looking for geocaches in the thick timber. I returned to the truck and loaded the ATV up, the set out north along Miller Flat Road toward Potter's Ponds.

I found two geocaches along the way. Since there were a lot of geocachers gathered there last weekend, it's no surprise that there were a lot of geocaches placed in the area. I found one traditional cache, then began looking for a night cache. Night caches are normally designed to be found at night, with reflectors on trees that guide you through the forest to the final cache. This one, however, was different. I stood at the starting coordinates, in broad daylight, hoping to be able to see some reflectors. I didn't expect to have any luck in finding any of them, and right about the time I was ready to give up, I noticed a big orange diamond-shaped reflector on a tree that delineates the edge of the road. I'd ignored it up until that point because it was obviously quite old and placed there by the Forest Service, but knowing who placed the night cache, it deserved another look. At the base of the tree below the reflector was a hollow log, and inside the log was the geocache! I was pretty excited to find it. I tried to get one more first-to-find near Potter's Ponds, but I just couldn't find the cache, and I just gave up finding any more in that area. On my way back toward UT-31, I tried finding one more geocache that has gone unfound for almost a year. The coordinates placed it about 11.5 miles south of where I was looking, but several other people had already looked there and couldn't find the cache. I made the assumption that one of the numbers in the coordinates were entered incorrectly, and by changing them one at a time I eventually came up with a location that seemed more likely. Sure enough, after searching for several minutes, I found the cache, and the logbook was empty!

After finding that last geocache, I kept heading toward home. It was getting late and the sun was beginning to set, so instead of turning east on UT-31 toward home, I turned west and drove to Skyline Drive. I knew I would have cell service there, so I called Traci quickly to let her know I was on my way home, then I set off back down the canyon toward Huntington. I'd had a very full day of 4-wheeling, hiking, and geocaching, but it still didn't seem like enough. I may go back again next weekend since the time left before winter is quickly dwindling, and soon it'll be time to head back to the desert!

This year's geocaching event at Potter's Ponds was yet again a great one, although it was too short. I'd taken Friday off work so that we could take our time getting the trailer loaded, and we arrived at camp relatively early Friday afternoon. After setting up camp and visiting with a few people who were already there, we spent a couple of hours fishing. Nobody caught anything, and I spent a lot of my time untangling the kids' lines, but it was an enjoyable time. A lot of friends showed up that evening, and we spent it around the campfire.

We were slow to rise on Saturday, and after a late breakfast a group of us set out to find some geocaches and visit a place on North Horn Mountain where it overlooks the San Rafael Swell and areas beyond. We started out with five ATVs and a Dodge Durango in our group, and we picked up a motorcycle along the way. We stopped at every single geocache between Potter's Ponds and the Lowry Water turnoff, though I'd already found all of them except one. After finding the cache on the Lowry Water road, I decided to just ride on and skip the rest of the caches along our route. It had gotten hot as we descended into Joe's Valley, and stopping roughly every 3/4-mile was getting tiresome. I was worried about the legality of riding the ATVs on the highway around Joe's Valley Reservoir, but when we got to the pavement there were OHV speed limit signs, so I took that to mean it was legal. We rode around the reservoir on the pavement for several miles before finally getting to the gravel on the south side of the reservoir and began gaining elevation once again. It cooled off as we slowly climbed, and we eventually found a shady spot for lunch. After lunch we pressed on to North Horn Mountain. We reached the overlook and the views were simply stunning. I could see most of the northern San Rafael Swell and parts in the south as well. Cedar Mountain, Window Blind Peak, and the San Rafael Knob were all clearly visible, as were more distant landmarks such as the Henry Mountains (about 75 miles away) and the La Sal Mountains (about 110 miles distant). I placed a geocache at the overlook, then we turned the convoy around and headed straight back to camp without making any stops. That evening we had a potluck dinner, and then some after-dinner "festivities." I overdid it on the "grape juice," and ended up turning in early.

Sunday was a lazy day. My family stayed at camp all morning, while other people came and went. Slowly everybody took down camp and trickled out of the area, and for once we weren't the last ones to leave. We convoyed home with Mark and Sam following in separate vehicles, stopping to make some lunch once we reached Highway 31. When my family and I got home, I backed the trailer into the driveway and we unloaded the fridge and a few essential items from the trailer, then took it easy the rest of the evening. It was nice to have some time to wind down from the weekend before returning to work the next day, but it would have been great to be able to spend more time with all the great people who were at the event.

This past Saturday I'd hoped to have a full day of playing at Huntington Reservoir, but we got a very late start, then had to leave early because of some really nasty weather. We ended up having a picnic on the dining room floor instead of at the lake. To make up for the lack of fun on Saturday, I went to Scofield and rode the Fish Creek trail the next day. I'd hiked parts of the trail a couple of times in 2006, once with just Mark, and a second time with Mark and both of our families. Back then, the bridge over Fish Creek, which was about 3/4-mile up the trail, was washed out and we had to cross the creek on foot. Only recently has the Forest Service remedied the situation. They installed a new bridge right at the trailhead, and built a new trail up to where the old bridge used to be. The new section of trail had a lot of loose rocks, but otherwise wasn't bad to ride on a mountain bike. I enjoyed the challenge, and I realized that I'm getting a little better at staying on the bike.

When I got to where the old bridge used to be, the trail was a bit smoother, but there was a little more overgrowth as well. About 3/4-mile after that, the trail got really rocky and bouldery and very overgrown. When I got a full two miles into the trail, I grew weary of the rocks gnashing my sidewalls and the brush scraping my legs up, so I turned around. The ride back was a bit better than the ride up the trail, and I was lucky to avoid rain as there were storm clouds threatening the entire time I was there. I found a couple of geocaches on my way home, including several at the Price Canyon Recreation Area, which was more beautiful than I remember (it's been a long time since I've been there).

After last week's ride to the southern end of Range Creek, this week I wanted to check out the road to the northern end of Range Creek. As soon as I got off work yesterday, I hopped in the truck (the 4-wheeler was already loaded up) and left town. I staged at the same place as last weekend, except I took the left fork in the road in Horse Canyon. After the fork, the steep mountain road road began climbing above the South Fork of Horse Canyon. There were a lot of switchbacks in the road, but overall it was in good shape and passable by a 2WD high-clearance vehicle in good weather. At one of the hairpin turns in the switchbacks, the mountainside dropped off steeply toward Horse Canyon, and I stopped to enjoy the great view and placed a geocache while I was there. Shortly after that I reached the divide between Horse Canyon and Little Horse Canyon.

The vegetation was thicker and more lush on the Little Horse Canyon side of the mountain. There were a lot more aspen and other deciduous trees, including some plant that smelled wonderful (which I never was able to identify). The divide between the two canyons sits at 8,500' in elevation, and as I descended 1,700' to Range Creek, I could feel the temperature rise. Little Horse Canyon was very interesting and begs for further exploration. Parts of it reminded me of the San Rafael Swell, with large sandstone cliffs and ledges, except it was more heavily-forested. I reached Range Creek and was surprised that nobody was there. There's an officer that patrols the area daily, and I really expected to run into him, but I didn't see a soul the entire time I was there. To proceed any farther into Range Creek requires a permit, so I just checked out the camping area outside of the fenced area, took a few photos, then reversed course and rode back toward the truck. On the way I ran over a gopher snake, but apparently it was unharmed because it slithered off after sitting there stunned for a minute. I'd been hoping to see more wildlife, such as deer or bighorn sheep, but the snake was the most interesting thing I saw.

After reaching the truck and loading and securing the ATV, I drove to Columbia in the hopes of seeing the old railroad bridge in the canyon east of town. Instead, I ran into a gate across the road with a "No Trespassing" sign. At least I got to have the grand tour of Columbia. :D I drove to Sunnyside after that to hopefully see some bighorn sheep, but I got skunked there as well. It was already after sunset, so the sheep had probably moved on. I'll have to go back to Range Creek another day with a permit in hand so I can explore the ruins and rock art in the area.

On Saturday, while Traci was reaching new heights of ridiculosity trying to sell scented wax at a "party" at our house (don't ask--I try to not pay too much attention), I went for a 4-wheeler ride in the Book Cliffs. Since Jenni and Shantel were involved in this "party" (I use that term loosely, since it doesn't jive with my idea of a party), Cortney drove them to Price, along with Cody, and pulled his trailer with two ATVs on it. Chris was already here, since he'd been staying at our place while he worked in Scofield, and his girlfriend Sylvia was here for the weekend as well, so between all of them and me and my kids, we had seven people on four ATVs for this trip. We left my house in Price at about 9:30 in the morning, headed for the old mine buildings in Horse Canyon near East Carbon where we unloaded the ATVs and began our ride.

The first part of the ride took us up Horse Canyon for a short distance, then the road began to climb up to the top of the Book Cliffs. We reached Lila Point and stopped to enjoy the view. It was a bit hazy, but we could see a fair amount of the San Rafael Swell from there. We continued farther and stopped for a geocache, and from that vantage point there was a great view of Mt. Elliott, which we'd ridden/hiked to in May. I had driven to that point in my truck last year, but the rest of the trip would be all new to me. The road after the geocache was set back away from the edge of the Book Cliffs, so the view wasn't nearly as nice. There were several spur roads off the main road, most of which lead to old drill holes, but we didn't have time to explore them.

We reached the divide between the Little Park area and Turtle Canyon, and the terrain changed a bit. It was less heavily-wooded, and more desert-like. It also got much hotter as we descended into Turtle Canyon heading toward Range Creek. There was also increasingly more bear crap on the road as we traveled east. When we reached Range Creek, we stopped along the side of the creek and ate lunch and goofed around a bit. After eating and resting a bit, we rode north a pretty short distance until we reached a gate across the road at the south end of the old Wilcox ranch, where there are a lot of Fremont Indian ruins and rock art.

We turned around and rode south, and followed the Range Creek road as far south as it goes. The road used to go all the way to the Green River, but the BLM closed it off as part of the Desolation Canyon wilderness study area many years ago. We splashed through the creek several times as the road crossed it, and eventually reached the heavily-barricaded end of the road. There wasn't much to see there, so we turned around and started the long journey back to where the trucks were parked. Before getting back to Turtle Canyon, Cortney and I spotted some bighorn sheep, while Chris and Cody kept riding ahead. We stopped for a long time to photograph and observe the sheep. We were pretty close to them and we both got some great photos. The sheep seemed as interested in us as we were in them.

After catching up to the rest of our group, we all hauled ass back to the trucks. There were some very dark storm clouds rolling in, with lightning hitting the peaks to the east of the Book Cliffs. It looked awesome because the sun was still shining from the west, with dark clouds to the east. We made good time back to the mine buildings where the trucks were parked, and even had time to explore the buildings a bit before loading up and heading home. Just a few minutes after driving away from Horse Canyon, the rain poured down. We got lucky to have missed getting drenched. The ride was great, the views awesome, and I've now got a lot more places in that area that I want to explore.

I went rappelling this evening for only the third time ever. My first time was off the old coal tipple at Standardville in Spring Canyon when I was a young teenager. The second time was into the MK Tunnels in the San Rafael Swell when I was about 18. Today Chris and I went to the same place in Spring Canyon and rappelled with some friends. Traci didn't dare to rappel, but I think next time I might be able to talk her into going. The first time I rappelled there all those years ago, there was an awkward start at the beginning of the rappel because of the lip at the top of the wall. I was hoping that it wouldn't be so awkward being an adult, but it was just as bad today as I remembered. Instead of leaning back into the rappel and walking right off the edge, we all crawled backward off the edge before getting our feet under us and beginning the descent. I think I'm comfortable enough with rappelling now to do some easy canyoneering, but only if I'm with somebody with more experience.

Yesterday was a long day at work, but it was worth it for the bike ride in the evening. I woke up just after 6:00 AM and was at work in Orem at a little after 8:00. Eight hours later I was on my way home, but with my bike in the car so I could take a little detour up Sheep Creek Road (or Ray's Valley Road) to ride the Fifth Water Loop. I got to the trailhead and started riding at 6:00 PM. It was still hot outside, and there were a lot of deer flies down low at the trailhead. The first two miles of trail was fairly easy, with a gentle incline and nothing technical. After two miles, the trail forked, and I took the left fork and began climbing up to Fifth Water Ridge. At first the trail followed the creek (and at one point was in the creek) and wasn't too steep, but eventually it became very steep and stayed that way for several miles.

During all that relentless climbing, most of which I walked the bike along, I kept worrying that it was getting later and later and I still hadn't reached the halfway point of the loop. I kept an eye on the time, knowing that the second half of the loop would go very quickly since it was all downhill, but still thinking that I ought to turn around and head back to the car in order to avoid riding in the dark. When I was almost to the top of Fifth Water Ridge, a guy on a KTM motorcycle came up behind me and we chatted briefly, then he was gone in a small cloud of dust and I was alone again. I finally reached the end of the singletrack at the top of Fifth Water Ridge, and began following a graded dirt road that led to Strawberry Ridge, which was roughly the halfway point. That part seemed to go more slowly than the climb up the singletrack for some reason, but just as the sun was touching the horizon, I finally topped out on Strawberry Ridge. I could see Strawberry Reservoir from there, and the views into Fifth Water were great as well.

I only spent a brief time there, long enough to take a few photos and call Traci letting her know I was running much later than expected. I began the descent down the road, then took a slight right turn onto the singletrack again right after passing a family on ATVs that was parked off the road enjoying the sunset. The downhill went very quickly. I was surprised how cool it was along Fifth Water Creek. There were some pockets of very cold air, and since it was all downhill my body wasn't working very hard and I got a little chilly. I was worried about coming up quickly on unsuspecting deer (or, worse, bears), so I loudly whistled a tune for most of the ride down. There were a lot of creek crossings, most of them shallow enough to ride through, but some of them I had to carry my bike across. At one point I did spook a large animal. I heard it thrashing to get away from me through the thick trees and brush, but it was too dark for me to see it. It scared me, too, and I ran off the trail while trying to catch a glimpse of it through the trees. I'm going to continue thinking it was a deer. :)

It eventually got dark enough that my prescription sunglasses did me more harm than good, and I removed them so I could see better in the dark, at the expense of not being able to see quite as clearly. I was probably going entirely too fast for the lighting conditions, and a few times I almost wiped out because of it, but I didn't want to be riding by moonlight alone. I finally made it back to the car, and what had taken me two and a half hours to ride up took less than an hour to ride back down. It was a great mid-week adventure, and it made the trek in to the office well worth it.

For the first time in a long time, I spent the entire past weekend at home. With temperatures nearing 100°, nothing I could have done outdoors sounded like fun. It felt good to do nothing. I'm driving to Orem for work on Thursday, so between the driving time and work, it's going to be a very long day that I'm not looking forward to. And I still don't have any plans for this coming weekend, though I don't think I'll sit this one out.

I'm an idiot, pure and simple. For the past year, I've struggled with the simple task of backing my new camp trailer into the driveway. I always started out close to and parallel to the curb in front of my house, which, after driving the truck diagonally across the street, left the rear of the trailer near the entrance to the driveway as I began to back it in. This made it so that the trailer had to cut the corner of the driveway a little bit as I backed it in, which led me to make a heavy wooden ramp so that the trailer tires didn't drop into the gutter. I always stressed about backing it in after each camping trip because it was so difficult to line up with the driveway and I often had to pull forward and go around the block a time or two in order to get it right. Living on a busy street made it worse because I was always blocking traffic as I fumbled to get the trailer into the driveway. The last time I had to back the trailer into the driveway, the wooden ramp broke. I knew I would either have to make a new one, or figure out how to do without it the next time.

After pulling the camp trailer back from Traci's family reunion last weekend, it was time once again to back the trailer into the driveway. After putting it off for several days, I finally decided yesterday to wake up early today to do the chore. I did, however, figure out a better way of doing it. Instead of starting out close to the curb in front of the house, I would start out in the middle lane of the road. That should give me more room to line up the trailer before it gets to the driveway, but I was still stressing over it. I didn't sleep well last night, and I'm sure it was because I was constantly worrying about backing that trailer into the damn driveway. Here's an awesome drawing showing how I used to back it in (left) and what my new plan was for backing the trailer in:

My alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, and it was time to give it a try while traffic was light. What surprised me is that it worked so well. I managed to back the trailer into the driveway without having to cut the corner and without having to go around the block again to get lined up properly. I don't know why it took me a year to figure out how to do it correctly, but it worked so well that I don't think I'll ever lose any sleep over it again. It seems ridiculous for me to even talk about it in-depth here, but it's such a weight off my chest that I just had to mention it.

This afternoon after work I went for a drive in the truck. I'd driven past some old buildings near Mohrland twice in the past week, and I wanted to stop to check them out today. I also wanted to drive Burma Road, which runs from near Mohrland, south across the base of the mountains, to Huntington Canyon near the power plant. It turned out being a fairly uninteresting trip, so much so that I won't even bother posting any photos. Burma Road was ok, with decent views of the Huntington area and into the Swell, but still nothing special. The area is similar to the maze of gravel roads around Price, and the landscape is dotted with gas wells. I hiked up the cattle/horse trail in Chris Otteson Hollow for about a third of a mile, but it was pretty hot and not worth staying for long in the heat. It might make a nice fall/winter hike later this year.

I took off after work today to place a couple of geocaches with my family. Earlier this year, somebody placed a cache called Chicken Head between Mohrland and Hiawatha, but there was nothing in the cache listing explaining what the name meant. Over the next couple of months, somebody placed two more geocaches in the same area with the names Monkey Butt and Zebra Toes. The three caches were each about 0.3 miles apart, and they fell along roughly the same line bearing 303.83 degrees true. I decided to further be a smartass today and placed two more caches on either side of the three existing ones along the same bearing and distance from the others. Now there are five geocaches that are equidistant along the same line. I'm still trying to figure out the names of the two that I placed today, but I'm leaning toward Goose Lips and Camel Fingers.

On the way to place the caches, we stopped at Huntington Reservoir. A short distance past the park entrance is a gate with a "Foot Traffic Welcome" sign that states there is no fee for walk-in traffic, which was a surprise to me. We parked there and walked to the lake shore and watched a huge black storm roll in. After watching the storm for a bit, Traci and I realized that the longer we stayed there, the greater the risk we'd get rained on while we placed our caches. We hurried back to the car and continued up the Mohrland Road and started the hike toward the first cache placement. We got rained on there while I tried hiding a cache under a huge pile of dead sagebrush branches, and hiked about 1,000' in the rain while we listened to the wind make eerie sounds in the power lines above us. The second cache was a very short distance from a gravel road, so I didn't get too soaked while hiding it in a pile of rocks at the base of a pine tree. On our way home, we watched the rain fall in different areas to the east while rainbows danced among the falling rain.

I spent some time over the past week trying to find a nice mountain bike route in and around Price, by using Google Earth and just riding around, and yesterday I found a route that I think I'd like to ride more often. I left home and rode a few blocks on the pavement toward Pinnacle Canyon Academy, and from there I took a narrow singletrack dirt trail up some hills, then bombed down a dirt road that followed the canal all the way to the skate park. From there it was several more blocks of asphalt to the east end of 800 North, then north into the dirt hills. I rode across the north end of Price from east to west, eventually coming back to the pavement for a short distance in the Coves, then up the dirt road onto Wood Hill and bombed again down behind the junior high school. It was a few more blocks of pavement from there to my house. The ride kicked my ass, but I'm sure doing it several more times will help to get me in better shape, and improve my biking skills. There are a lot of very steep uphill section on this route, and I'm hopeful that by repeating it over and over I'll eventually be able to ride it without stopping to catch my breath (or nearly falling off my bike).

Since I didn't get to explore as much of Gentry Mountain as I'd hoped to last week, I returned this past weekend and explored the rest of it. Traci and the kids were at her family reunion at the campground near the power plant in Huntington Canyon, and as it just so happened I had planned on hiking to the south end of Wild Horse Ridge, which overlooks the campground from a height of 2,600'. I got up early (for a Saturday) and left home by 8:00. There were dark clouds all around and I could see rain falling to the south, but there were patches of blue skies to the west. At the Mohrland Road turnoff, there were sheriff's deputies directing traffic due to a triathlon. The biking portion of the triathlon followed the lower seven miles of Mohrland Road, and one deputy tried to talk me into going a different way, but he eventually let me pass and just asked me to be very careful. I only saw a handful of bikers on the road, and I gave them a wide berth. I got to the old townsite of Mohrland just before 9:00 AM and unloaded the ATV. The skies had cleared up and the weather was looking better.

The road leading up onto Gentry Mountain was graded gravel and in very good condition. It had obviously been widened and improved since the last time I was there in 2005, when it was a narrower dirt road. I took my time riding up the road, stopping to look at the old mining ruins. I was sad to see that some reclamation had been done, and this machinery was no longer there. As I continued up the road past the Mohrland mine, the road was about as steep as the Wattis road that we'd ridden up the previous weekend, but since it was wider and graveled, it was much less worrisome.

When the road reached the top of the mountain, I continued riding west and crossed into the Manti-La Sal National Forest and headed toward Wild Horse Point. We called off our hike the weekend before because of a gate with a "No Trespassing" sign on the way to Wild Horse Point, but after thinking about it all last week, I decided not to worry about it. The road only crossed private property for 0.2 miles after the gate, and beyond that the parking area and entire hike were on national forest lands. I parked at Wild Horse Point and started the hike down Wild Horse Ridge. The first part descended a very steep and loose hillside, and near the bottom of the hill was a small pond. The pond didn't have any water visibly flowing into it, but it had a pretty good outflow rate, so it must be fed by an underground spring. After passing the pond and hiking through some thick trees, I came out in a clearing and began following the top of Wild Horse Ridge south.

From that point on, I kept to the top of the ridge, following it up and down over several hills and saddles. Along the way I saw a pile of sandstone drill cores where somebody has obviously drilled a deep hole. There was a rusty metal pipe in the ground nearby, and I assume that was the drill hole. I can only imagine that the drill hole had something to do with the coal mine in Bear Creek Canyon, as I'm sure their coal seam runs several hundred or even a few thousand feet below. Beyond the drill cores, there wasn't much else of interest to see during the hike to the end of Wild Horse Ridge except for a few interesting views down into Huntington Canyon. As I approached the small peak at the end of the ridge, I saw some very strange concretions in the rock. Just beyond the high point of the peak, I reached a cliff that couldn't be downclimbed, so I backtracked just a bit until I found a way to climb down, then skirted around the bottom of the cliff in order to get farther out on the point. From there, I had a good view into Huntington Canyon. I could see the power plant and the campground where Traci was. I placed a geocache there, and as I was averaging the coordinates in my GPS, it began to rain lightly. It actually felt good after the hike. After finishing up the cache placement, I reverse course and returned to my ATV. When I got back to the pile of drill cores, I picked up a couple of them to take home as souvenirs. Torrey took a dip in the pond just before the steep scramble back to the 4-wheeler, and there I noticed some lovely-smelling wild roses that I hadn't seen earlier.

Back at the ATV, I was a little exhausted from the hike and didn't feel like eating lunch quite yet, so I just got on and rode. I didn't get to ride out to McCadden Ridge last time, so that's where I headed. Along the way I found a nice spot under a pine tree to eat lunch, which consisted of a bean salad I'd made the night before and some Powerade. After that I continued to the end of the road on McCadden Ridge, and the view there was...not spectacular. I snapped a photo or two, then headed to the north end of Gentry Mountain. Along the way, I tried getting to the southwestern corner of Carbon County, but both roads visible in Google Earth have been closed by the Forest Service, and I wasn't feeling up to another hike, however short it might have been (less than a mile).

I continued north and checked out a road that passed though an area called Little Park and ended at a place called the Steeps. Near Little Park were two drill holes spaced very close together, which is something I've never seen before. Where the road officially ended, an ATV trail continued up the hill toward Castle Valley Ridge. It didn't appear in Google Earth that the trail went very far past the top of the hill, but I still wanted to check it out. If the road did happen to continue all the way along Castle Valley Ridge to Nuck Woodard Canyon (or Nuck Woodward, depending on which map you look at), it could make for an awesome ride. Unfortunately, as I climbed the hill, it suddenly seemed much steeper than it had looked from the bottom. It felt a lot like the time when I rolled my ATV, except without the snow. It still scared the shit out of me. I came to a stop, shifted out of 4WD, and used mostly the front brakes while backing down the hill. The front brakes kept locking up as I slid backward down the hill, so I very gently applied the rear brakes just enough to slow my descent without sending me over backward. I made it to the bottom and breathed a sigh of relief.

The last place I visited after that was the end of the road on Wild Cattle Ridge. It was much like McCadden Ridge--nothing special, not much of a view. From there, I simply cruised back to the truck without making any more stops. I'd hoped to have enough time left in the day to go visit Traci for a bit at her family reunion, but I was beat and it was close enough to dinner time that I just headed home. I've now ridden my ATV over the entirety of every legal road on Gentry Mountain, and even a couple that aren't on the official travel plan. It's a nice place to go to escape the heat of the valley during the summer, but having seen most of it, I probably won't be back for a while.

For the first day of the long Independence Day weekend my family and I explored Gentry Mountain on our ATVs. I'd been up there twice before, but each time it was just a brief stay. On my first visit there, I drove the truck to the radio towers at Star Point to find a geocache, so I was just barely on top of Gentry Mountain before heading home after finding the cache. The second time, Mark and I rode ATVs for only a few miles on Gentry Mountain before parking them and hiking down into Tie Fork Canyon. Our destination was elsewhere, and we didn't take any time to explore and enjoy the mountain.

I had Saturday's route planned out in advance, but I was overly-optimistic and we only covered about half of what I expected to. We parked the truck above the old townsite of Wattis, then rode the ATVs along the shelf road above the reclaimed Plateau Mine area and up the extremely steep switchbacks to Star Point. We went south at the intersection at the south end of Hoag Ridge, after which point most of the road runs across private property. Somewhere in the vicinity of Fiddler's Green we saw a moose, which was a first for all of us. When we got to the intersection of the road coming up from Mohrland (which is the only other road with access to Gentry Mountain), we turned west and once again entered national forest land. My plan from there was to work our way south and park at Wild Horse Point, then hike Wild Horse Ridge to its south end and place a geocache there. The end of Wild Horse Ridge sits 2,600' above Huntington Canyon, so there should be a great view from there. Unfortunately we ran into a gate with a "No Trespassing" sign on it. I consulted the map on my GPS and it showed that the road crossed private property for only two-tenths of a mile before returning to national forest land, so we went through the gate and continued to our destination. Once at Wild Horse Point, we pondered what we should do. I didn't want to place a geocache on the ridge, even though it was on public lands, if seekers would have to disregard the sign like we'd done. Traci also didn't really want to do the hike once she saw how steep parts of it were, so we ultimately decided not to do the hike or place a geocache.

We rode back the way we'd come until we reached the intersection with the McCadden Hollow road, then we followed that road across the upper end of McCadden Hollow and out onto the unnamed ridge between Trail Canyon and Tie Fork Canyon. From there we had a pretty good view down into Huntington Canyon, but probably not nearly as nice as the one we might have had from Wild Horse Ridge. We ran into a large group of people on horseback there, but luckily they were off the road and we didn't have any issues with trying to pass them. I placed a geocache at the end of the road on the ridge, then we reversed course and headed back to McCadden Hollow where we ate lunch. While we were eating, some cattle started wandering toward us, and what started out as a few cows turned into a moderately large herd that was being herded by a couple of horsemen. We enjoyed our lunch in the midst of a cattle drive, and I was pretty amused by it all.

After lunch we rode back to the north and this time took the west fork at the Hoag Ridge intersection. We passed several forks in the road as we worked our way toward Gentry Ridge. There was a fallen aspen tree across the road at one point, and I tried but failed to pull it off the road using my ATV because there was still one large unbroken root in the ground. The road slowly descended Gentry Ridge, and eventually it turned into an ATV-only trail for the last mile or so. Near the end of the road the forest had been burned in a wildfire, and although barren, it was beautiful in its own way. The trail ended at what appeared at first to be a concrete fire ring, but upon looking more closely I realized that it was a sewer manhole that had been filled in almost completely with rocks. I would imagine that somebody tried to develop a spring there, since there was a pipe coming out of the hillside near the manhole. I placed another geocache there, then we turned around and headed back for the truck. On the way we came to another tree that had fallen across the trail. We had driven around it on our way down the ridge, but on the return trip I stopped to try pulling it off the trail, and I was able to easily drag it away.

Once at the truck we loaded and secured the ATVs, but I didn't want the adventure to be over. We hiked east from the truck for a quarter of a mile to where the ridge ended at a point with cliffs dropping off below. I'd seen this point from the mountain above during the ride back to the truck, and it just looked like an interesting spot. I placed a third geocache there, then we walked back to the truck and drove home.

I really enjoy the Gentry Mountain area because it's only a 20-mile drive from home to where I can unload ATVs and start riding. The elevation runs between 9,500' and 10,000', so it's relatively cool in the summer. It's the closest national forest land to where I live, but for some reason I haven't spent much time in the area. I expect that will change after this trip, 'cause I had a lot of fun and I'm hoping to go back soon.