The saga continues...

I went back to the Ford dealer (Price Auto Group) yesterday to take a look at the new Motorcraft wheel cylinders they were supposed to have ordered for me, and instead was surprised to learn that they'd gotten in some AC Delco parts instead. These ones had the wrong brake line inlet size, just like the ones I got from Checker Auto. Glenna, who is the parts manager and who had been helping me all this time, seemed pissed, like I was really putting her out. I asked her what else she could do to get the correct wheel cylinders for my truck, and she said that she'd order the actual Motorcraft parts, though at this point I was fairly certain that they would also not work.

The new parts came in today and, surprise surprise, they were just like all the others. Luckily Glenna wasn't in, and Reggie was helping me this time. I asked him what it would take to find a wheel cylinder just like the old ones, and he asked to look at the old one that I'd brought with me, just like I'd brought it with me the last four times I'd gone there. He cleaned it up and found a part number on it, looked it up in his computer, and told me that Car Quest (which was only a block away) had two of them in stock. I was dumbfounded that I had been waiting since Saturday for Glenna to get the right parts, when all it took was a competent person to look up a part number for me.

I went to Car Quest, and not only did they have the correct wheel cylinder in stock, but according to their computer it was the actual cylinder that's supposed to fit my truck. I'm not certain why Checker's and Ford's computer systems show the wrong part number for my truck, but it's not the first time either place has gotten the wrong parts for me. I think Car Quest will be my first stop for parts from now on.

After work today I installed the new wheel cylinder, new brake shoes, springs, and other parts on the left side. I ran out of daylight to get the right side done, but I should be able to bust through it tomorrow evening after work. Then I'll need Traci's help to bleed the brakes, and hopefully I'll be done having dirty hands for a while.

I got a phone call this evening with some great news. The guy who I believe slashed my tires near Woodside several years ago is in jail tonight. There's been a huge rash of thefts and vehicle break-ins around Woodside in the past couple of years, and a lot of people suspected the looney who lives at Woodside, Jason Pogue. Here is my post about him from last year, and you can read about a few of the older thefts and break-ins here, here, and here. A few days ago there was another report of theft.

Yesterday there was yet another break-in reported near the Smith Cabin, and there were also some hikers camped at Cottonwood Wash that reported somebody going through their camp. Some motorcycle riders had heard about the incidents and were keeping a close eye out, and actually caught the guy in the act. They chased him down on their bikes, tackled him, and held him until the police arrived. You can read all about it here.

I wish I had gotten a good look at the guy who slashed my tires, but I only saw him from about a couple hundred yards away. I can only speculate (and hope) that it was the same guy who got caught today, because it would somewhat put my mind at ease. Either way, as long as Jason Pogue remains behind bars, the northeastern end of the San Rafael Swell is now a safer place.

Living in a small town can be a curse and a blessing. Most of the time I really enjoy living here, so close to the middle of nowhere. Today was one of the few days when I almost wished I lived closer to a big city. Yesterday I had bought all the parts I needed to fix the brakes on my truck, and I was hoping to get the entire job done today. After I'd disassembled one entire side of the brake assembly and cleaned all the grease and brake dust from the backing plate, I began installing the new wheel cylinder. After getting it bolted on I tried hooking up the brake line, but the fitting on the brake line was too small for the threads in the wheel cylinder. I went back to Checker Auto hoping that they would not only let me return both wheel cylinders, but that they'd actually be able to get me the correct ones. It turned out that they weren't able or willing to do either, and I got really pissy with two of the people working there after they informed me that they wouldn't take back the opened cylinder and couldn't find the correct ones in their computer.

I wasn't about to try the same thing at another parts store because I've found that when one has incorrect information regarding parts for my truck, all the others do as well. I went to the parts department at the Ford dealer hoping that they would be able to find the right parts, and I didn't fare much better there. I had to go back home twice--once to get the VIN off my truck, and once again to measure the brake drum--before they could even find the parts in their computer. They ordered two wheel cylinders, but the person working there wasn't entirely confident that they were the correct ones. The parts won't be here until Tuesday, so the truck will be sitting on jack stands in the driveway for at least a few more days, or possibly another week if the right parts don't come in.

I still wouldn't give up living here for anything, but days like today leave me wanting for at least a few conveniences that this town doesn't have. And I'm still not certain that I would trade those conveniences for the other problems that come with living in a heavily-populated area.

I almost didn't get out to play this weekend. The night before last (Sunday), I was considering a trip to Devil's Hole the following morning, but scratched the idea because I didn't think I'd have time to drive there, hike around, and make it back in time for Michael's birthday party. When I woke up yesterday morning I knew that I'd regret not going, and though it was kind of late to start getting ready for a hike, I did it anyway. I was able to get all my gear (and breakfast) ready in about 30 minutes. Thankfully Mark was able to go on such short notice, and I picked him up at his house at around 9:30.

My original plan was to check out two possible hiking routes into Devil's Hole. One route was a long shot, where in Google Earth it looked like it might be possible to scramble down some cliffs from a trail I'd ridden my ATV on last weekend. I wasn't confident that it would be possible to get down from there, but if so, it would shorten the hike into the area. The other route looked pretty likely. In the satellite imagery, a horse/stock trail is visible that leads to the southwest corner of Box Flat, but it disappears for about half a mile across some sandstone. Another trail is visible on the other side of the slickrock in Devil's Hole, but I was uncertain whether it was possible to hike between the two.

We headed for the Box Flat route first because it looked the easiest. Shortly after leaving the graded dirt road and getting on the rocky trail to Box Flat, I noticed that the brake pedal in the truck was going all the way to the floor when I hit the brakes, and the brakes didn't seem as effective as they should have been. I didn't want to stop on the rocky, off-camber section of trail, so I kept driving until we got to some level ground. I looked under the hood and checked the level in the brake fluid reservoir, and it was half empty. I started checking behind the wheels of the truck to see if I was losing fluid somewhere, and sure enough it was gushing out of the left-rear brake drum. Since we were almost to our first destination, I kept driving south on Box Flat until we arrived at the WSA boundary--there was no point in turning back to go home. I knew that each time I pressed on the brake pedal I would lose more fluid, and I managed to drive the rest of the way without touching the brake pedal once.

We left the truck and started hiking toward Devil's Hole, unsure of what kind of terrain we'd have to cross in order to get there. I was expecting to do a lot of route-finding and scrambling down ledges, but in reality the hike was pretty easy and we quickly found where the trail picked up in Devil's Hole. Since we'd made very easy work out of something that I had expected would take much longer, and because I knew that I wouldn't be able to drive to the other hiking route with no brakes, we decided to keep hiking and see as much of the area as we could with the time that remained. We followed the trail west to the base of the big sandstone knoll that rises up out of the middle of Devil's Hole, and from there the trail curved to the north. We didn't have much time to explore, and the country to the south looked to be the most interesting, so we began hiking cross-country around the southern tip of the knoll. We rounded the tip and made it just far enough around to peek over into the valley to the west. There was a cliff just below us, and below that extended a flat valley that was about 3/4-mile wide, and it dropped off sharply to the south into the west fork of Red Canyon. It looked like some awesome country to hike in, but it would have to wait for another day. We also spotted a couple of possible ways to scramble to the top of the sandstone knoll, but those also will have to wait until I have more time.

The hike back to the truck was uneventful, covering the same ground we'd already seen. The drive home was a bit nerve-wracking. I drove from Box Flat all the way to the intersection of Main Street and 200 East in Price--a distance of just over 50 miles--without using the brakes. I had to use the brakes three times before I got to Mark's house, and by then I had lost enough brake fluid that the brake warning light on the dash had turned on. My house is only a couple of blocks away, and by the time I got there I had almost completely lost the brakes.

The weather later this week is supposed to be nice, with highs in the upper 40s, and I'm planning on spending the next few evenings after work replacing both rear brake cylinders on the truck. Since I'll have everything apart already, I'll replace the brake shoes and all the springs, which I last replaced two and a half years ago. I'm hoping to get the job done before the weekend so that I can go play in the Swell some more. I may even go back to Devil's Hole to take another look around.

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Devil's Hole Photo Gallery
Devil's Hole Tracklog and Waypoints (in Google Earth KML format)

The first time I saw the terrain near Box Flat, I was instantly intrigued and wanted to explore it. The road to there is pretty rough and difficult to follow, and even if you get as far as Box Flat, any further exploration has to be done on foot because it's part of the Mexican Mountain Wilderness Study Area. I first saw the area from a few miles away when I was finding a geocache (Double Shot Espresso) more than two years ago, and since then I've admired it from an even greater distance on a few occasions--see this photo taken from about eight miles northwest, and this one from eight miles to the northeast. My interest was rekindled recently when somebody e-mailed me about some of my photos of Cottonwood Wash that she had seen online. My photos were of a different Cottonwood Wash (there are about 25 such named washes/canyons in Utah), but we e-mailed each other back and forth a few times about the area between Cottonwood Wash and Box Flat, and she even sent me some of her photos from a trip through there on horseback. Seeing those photos was enough to finally get me out there to see the area up close.

I almost didn't go there this weekend because there was a 60-70% chance of rain/snow on Saturday. However, when I woke up yesterday morning I could see blue sky in all directions, with only moderate cloud cover, so I started the routine of getting myself and my ATV ready for a trip. By the time I was ready to leave town, the weather had deteriorated and some dark clouds were moving in from the west and dumping snow on the mountains. Since I was already loaded up and ready to go, I decided to risk it and hope for the best. By the time I reached Buckhorn Flat, it looked like I was outrunning the weather, and it was beautiful and sunny there. The rain and snow never got farther east than Castle Valley and I had wonderful conditions all day long.

I parked the truck near Dry Pond on Big Flat and unloaded the ATV, then rode southwest into the Prickly Pear Flat area. I checked out what I presume to be an old cowboy camp that I'd read about in DesertWoodrat's ride report. I was shocked to see that there had recently been a trackhoe there that had dug a huge hole and built up an earthen dam, and also destroyed several trees. I also saw its tracks heading cross-country off to the south (in a Wilderness Study Area!). Surely that kind of work would either have to be done by the BLM, or at least have BLM approval, so it was surprising to see so much damage done in a WSA.

After the cowboy camp, I kept going southwest and parked at the top of the cliffs about half a mile northwest of the rock art panel. I hiked to the rock art and took some photos, then hiked a short distance south from there to a little tree-covered knoll to look for arrowheads. If I was shocked earlier to see heavy equipment tracks near the cowboy camp, I was absolutely flabbergasted to see them near the rock art panel! I ran across more tracks about 600 feet southwest of the rock art, and they appeared to be heading south, perhaps to the "ponderosa cove" area.

On my way back to my ATV (shaking my head the entire way while envisioning a trackhoe driving around the Swell), I realized that the ATV key wasn't in my pocket. I didn't specifically remember either taking the key with me or leaving it in the ignition, and it sent me into a panic. Since I was already halfway back to where I'd parked it, I decided to cover the remaining distance and hoped that the key would be there. Thankfully it was still in the ignition, otherwise I would've needed to backtrack for 1.3 miles using my GPS tracklog to find it. I hopped back on my ride and made good time (with no more stops) back toward the truck, then got on the main road toward Box Flat.

Once I got to the end of the graded road, I began following a rough track that I knew would lead me to Box Flat. The road was pretty clear in Google Earth, and I had only created and uploaded a few waypoints to my GPS that would help me get where I wanted to go. That turned out to be a mistake, though it was a good one. The trail winds through junipers and pinyon pines and crosses a lot of exposed sandstone, and in many areas it's difficult to follow. Twice I ended up completely off the trail and had to backtrack to regain it. I also saw more tracks from the trackhoe, where it had crushed the sandstone on the trail and destroyed a few more trees. I came to a couple of forks in the trail, and each time I took the more-traveled fork. The last such fork eventually turned in a different direction than I wanted to go, but since I still had plenty of daylight left I decided to stick with it just to see where it went. The farther it went, the more uneasy I felt about it. The BLM recently finalized their Resource Management Plan for the Price Field Office, which closed a LOT of existing trails in the San Rafael Swell. I had studied their very poor map showing which trails remained open, but the quality was so lacking that I had a difficult time determining which trails were legal to ride. I suspected that the trail I was on wasn't open, but I pressed on.

The trail went for about two miles over some relatively even and uninteresting terrain, winding through moderately dense juniper and pinyon. However, it ended at an overlook that nearly took my breath away. I was parked at the top of a cliff, overlooking Devil's Hole. I had always thought this place was difficult to get to, but this trail had put me within easy hiking distance of it. Devil's Hole is surrounded by cliffs that rise up to the north, and canyons (the west and east forks of Red Canyon) that drop off sharply to the southwest and southeast, leaving it nearly inaccessible. There must be an easy way down into it though, because I saw some ATV tracks down in the bottom. There's a sandstone mountain that rises out of the center of Devil's Hole that appears (when looking at it from the north) to be impossible to get on top of, but I think that this spring I will hike down there to find out for certain. As a side note, after returning home I was able to compare my GPS tracklog with the BLM's horrible map and it turns out that the trail to Devil's Hole is actually open!

After enjoying the view there for a while, I returned on the trail I'd come in on and eventually found the correct road to Box Flat. After getting there, the trail was an easy "three-track" (in other words, often driven by both ATVs and full-sized vehicles, leaving three distinct ruts) across the sandy flat. The road forked about a quarter-mile into the flat, and I first took the right fork and was again following the path of the trackhoe. The road ended at an awesome box canyon (perhaps the namesake of Box Flat?), and here the trackhoe had dug another pit and created an earthen dam downstream from it. I hiked around for a little while above the canyon, but it was getting later in the day and I wanted to spend the remainder of my time checking out the other fork in the road. I returned to the fork and took the left one this time, and followed it less than a mile before it ended at a wooden barrier at the WSA boundary. I hiked around for about three-quarters of a mile inside the WSA, but I knew that I didn't have enough daylight to hike where I wanted to (either the head of Nate's Canyon, or Moonshine Waterhole), so I didn't spend long there. I returned to the ATV and ate a late lunch, then had a mostly uneventful ride back to the truck. I did notice a section of the cliff on the east side of Box Flat where somebody had constructed (either manually or by blasting) a horse/stock trail through the cliff. There was a barbed wire gate at the top of the trail, and that's the only reason I noticed it. There's a nice flat sandy section at the bottom of the trail in some trees, and that would make a nice base camp for an overnight trip. I would like to drive my truck there and camp in that spot, and spend a couple of days hiking around the area to the east.

This trip was exactly what I needed to cure my cabin fever, and it has resulted in me wanting to do at least a couple more trips into the area, so I've got plenty more to look forward to.

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Prickly Pear Flat & Box Flat Photo Gallery
.KML File (for Google Earth)
.KML File (in Google Maps)

I picked up my new ATV on Tuesday and took it for a ride yesterday. The engine break-in period is supposed to be 15 miles, so I picked a short, easy, close-to-home ride where I could get at least that many miles in. I hauled the ATV to near Cliffview Cemetery, only about two miles from my house, then started riding north toward Kenilworth. The roads were mostly gravel and suitable for just about any vehicle, so it was a relatively boring ride on an ATV. After coming down off the Claybanks Road and through Kenilworth, I stopped to check out a couple of old building foundations that I'd spotted in Google Earth. They were all rough-hewn sandstone, with none of the upper parts of the buildings remaining, but they were pretty interesting. I'm surprised that I hadn't seen them before, after having spent the first ten years of my life in that area.

After Kenilworth I followed the old railroad grade to Helper. I ran into a section of trail there that was really muddy, and it felt terrible riding a brand new ATV through the mud. I got over it after fishtailing through some of the mud though--that seemed to put a smile on my face. :) I stayed on the railroad grade until it petered out and became mostly unrideable. There were a couple of side trails that I could have followed, but I knew I would be pushing it in order to get back to the truck before it got too dark (and too cold). On my way back to town, the sun set before I got to the big natural gas compressor station north of Price and it got surprisingly cold, which I wasn't prepared for. Fortunately it was only a few more miles back to the truck, so I didn't have to endure it for very long.

It was nice to get back in the saddle. Today I put a new basket on my front rack for Torrey to ride in. I'm contemplating going for a ride this weekend, but it's gonna depend on the weather, and whether or not I feel like getting out in the rain/snow. I usually try not to let the weather stop me from getting out, and as long as I choose a sandy (or at least non-clay) trail to ride, the precipitation shouldn't pose any problems. Getting Traci and the kids to come with me will be the difficult part.