So, yeah, these short winter days are starting to get me down. I really wanted to get outside last weekend, possibly to the Moab area again, but it didn’t seem worth the hours of driving time just for a few short hours of hiking or 4-wheeling. I seriously considered going camping there this coming weekend, but I wouldn’t be able to go down until late Thursday after work, and I’d have to be back early Saturday for a Christmas party, so that would still leave me with a lot of driving time and only a single day (Friday) to really do anything.
I did get out briefly on Saturday for a little 4-wheeling and hiking. I drove up Consumers Road and parked the truck on the shoulder near Oak Spring, then crossed the fence and hiked along an old canal to the springs. There was a fair amount of water flowing out of the springs and down the wash, and in some north-facing areas there were sheets of icicles where the spring water had frozen. After returning to the truck I drove farther up the road, parked at Coal Canyon, and unloaded the ATV. I rode farther up Consumers Road from there, checking out a couple of short side roads, then I tried riding past the Horizon mine and up the mountainside toward the Scofield area. There were no tire tracks in the snow past the mine, and the snow was moderately deep in most places. In some places there were drifts that I had to get a run at in order to get through, and eventually some really deep snow on a steep slope stopped me from going farther. I’d planned on doing more in the area, but I didn’t feel like hiking through so much snow, so I returned to the truck and called it a day. I only rode about seven miles–hardly worth the effort.
I may just do something similar this weekend–something close to home and not requiring a lot of driving to get there. I’ve been considering riding in Coal Wash and then doing some hiking in some side canyons, but I guess it’ll depend on how I’m feeling when the weekend comes.