It feels like I went everywhere in the San Rafael Swell yesterday. I started out at 8:00 am, hoping to climb The Wickiup again and finally find the cache up there. Well, the road was still pretty muddy, with snow in some spots, so I decided to pass. After that, I went to the Eagle Canyon overlook, and hiked one mile round-trip to find a cache nearby. I’d hoped to cross I-70 from there and find a few more on Justensen Flats, but that road was extremely muddy–there was even runoff from melting snow flowing right down the middle of the road.
From there, I headed back east and tried exiting I-70 onto a dirt road at the Head of Sinbad, but either UDOT or the BLM has fenced off that road and placed a sign saying to use exit 129. I headed several more miles east to that exit, then drove back west on a dirt road for about five miles, but I eventually ran into a mud bog that I don’t think the Mazda could have made it through. So scratch another few caches.
I knew the road going north from I-70 on the east side of the San Rafael Reef was dry, since I’d passed it earlier in the morning, so I drove there and found one cache and did a little more hiking. After that, I drove south on UT-24 and did a lot more hiking, and found three more caches.
Finally, I drove back to Green River, then headed south to Crystal Geyser. It’s a cold-water geyser, powered by carbon dioxide, much like the geyser at Woodside (about 25 miles north). This was really the highlight of my day–the minerals that have built up around the geyser are just awesome, and it’s right on the banks of the Green River. I stayed there for a couple of hours (until well after sundown), hoping to catch the geyser erupting, but it never did–it only sputtered a bit. I fixed something to eat while I waited, and took a lot of pictures. Considering how amazing this place is, and how close to the town of Green River it is, I’m surprised I’d never heard about it before a cache was placed nearby. I’d like to go back sometime when I can wait it out–it supposedly only erupts three times a day.