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Traci and I planted our garden on Saturday. We’ve got mostly tomatoes (a few varieties), some squash, strawberries, and lettuce. I got some other yard work done that day, and this evening I enjoyed the coolness of an early summer storm (that hasn’t produced any rain) and finished weeding the flower beds in the front yard. Sunday was Mother’s Day and I had a nice surprise for Traci. I bought her an air mattress so she could go camping more comfortably with the boys and me, but I removed the mattress from the box and replaced it with a Kindle Fire. When she pulled the mattress box from the gift bag on Sunday morning she seemed to like it, but I told her I slipped the card into the box. She opened the box and cried when she realized what was inside. I suppose that means she liked it.

I made breakfast for everybody–bacon, eggs, and toast–then brought my mom’s gift to her and visited for a while. That evening after a dinner of ribs and corn on the cob, we went for an ATV ride–at Traci’s request, even!–with the Gravett family. They have a Polaris Ranger Crew that holds their entire family, and Traci and I followed on our two ATVs, each with a kid on the back. We rode up toward Kenilworth then took the Diff Hanger trail which follows a bouldery wash, and is coincidentally where my dad’s ashes are scattered. Doing the trail on ATVs presented a few challenges but made some parts easier than in a full-sized vehicle. Traci and I took bypass routes in two spots but Chris took his Ranger through the entire trail, having to winch up one tough spot. It was a fun ride, and we finished up just after the sun went down. I feel lucky to have a wife whose idea of a fun Mother’s Day is to do a difficult rock-crawling ATV ride.

Yesterday was mine and Traci’s 14th wedding anniversary. Fourteen years doesn’t seem like too long a time unless I start to think of it as almost fifteen years. We didn’t exchange gifts–we rarely do. We spent our anniversary at home with the kids and fixed a hugely obscene dinner of ribeye steak, shrimp, lobster tail, crab legs, and corn on the cob, which we ate while watching Deadliest Catch. It was typical of our anniversaries, but I think next year we’ll do something special.

On April 17th I drove down early for the semi-annual San Rafael geocaching event. I got off work that day at 1:00PM and got a few last-minute things ready just as Dave showed up so we could convoy to our campsite. I’d been having problems with the engine in the truck momentarily cutting out in the weeks before the event, but it always went away when the engine warmed up. During the drive south it cut out often and jerked violently each time due to the added drag from the camp trailer, but other than that it was an uneventful drive. We arrived at the planned campsite near the Temple Mountain Road/Goblin Valley Road junction, but there were three trailers already set up there. We parked our vehicles and walked over to the camp and spoke with the occupants for a while. They were “full-timers” from out of state who had been camped there for a week and said they’d be camped there for another week or more. I asked them if they’d send any geocacher traffic over the hill, then Dave and I drove west a short distance on the Temple Mountain Road to the large BLM campground, or, as it’s affectionately known, the “people pasture.” After we each set up camp, we went for an ATV ride to Taylor Flat to find a geocache whose coordinates were more than 20 miles off due to an error by the cache hider. I’d figured out roughly the correct coordinates and Dave and I found the cache pretty easily. We then returned to camp for dinner and turned in a bit early.

Dave drove in to Green River on Wednesday to find some oil because his ATV needed an oil change. I went for a hike up Wild Horse Creek to find some pictographs that I’d seen photos of online. I was planning a group hike up Wild Horse Creek on Saturday, but I wanted to find the rock art before the hike so I wasn’t fumbling around for it with a large group. The coordinates I’d estimated from looking at photos turned out to be dead-on. I had walked right past the rock art alcove five years ago without knowing it was there. The pictographs there were absolutely amazing. There were some large figures with interesting shapes and small figures with very fine details. I spent about half an hour there enjoying the rock art, then rode my ATV back to camp. Dave still hadn’t returned, so I hiked up and back down a small canyon near camp.

Dave was at camp when I returned from my short hike and I helped him a little bit with his oil change. We went for a ride to check out some pictographs I’d discovered a year and a half ago. Lighting conditions weren’t ideal for photographing the pictographs, and Dave and I split up to do a little hiking around the sandstone hills. Not long after we split up, I heard the sound of a snake rattling behind me. I swore under my breath. I was no more than a couple hundred feet from the place where I’d seen a rattlesnake a year and a half before, and Torrey was running loose this time as well. I called Torrey over to me and put her leash on, then walked about 20 feet to where I’d heard the snake. It was starting to crawl under a bush, and I got a single out-of-focus photo of it before it disappeared into the brush.

Late that afternoon I rode my ATV to Iron Wash and hiked up the canyon to look for some pictographs that I’d heard of from a couple of different people. It had become overcast and I could hear the wind roaring over the top of the canyon, but I was fairly well protected from it in the canyon’s bottom. I scrambled up to an alcove to check it out, but found nothing interesting there. A large group of dirt bikes passed by going down the canyon. I expected to see them again after they reached the fence at the WSA boundary because when I parked my ATV there I didn’t see a way around the fence. I found the pictographs just about where I thought they would be and spent only a few minutes there taking photos. I returned back down the canyon but never saw the motorcyclists, so when I got to the fence I looked for their tracks. Curiously enough, the tire tracks went right through the fence in the center of the drainage. I lifted the fence and realized that, even though it was freestanding, it could be lifted up about five feet–plenty to allow an ATV or motorcycle to pass under. On the ride back to camp I got hammered by cold, stinging, wind-blown rain. The short-lived storm was nearly gone when I got back to camp, though, and I was treated to a more sunny evening and a nice rainbow to the east. I returned to the pictographs where I’d seen the rattlesnake and got some photos with better lighting, then retired back to camp for the night.

Thursday was an awesome day. I wanted to ride my ATV and cross over to the east side of Highway 24 to look for some rock art near Crow’s Nest Spring and Cottonwood Wash. Getting there wasn’t easy. The official travel map shows a legal route through Temple Wash starting at a gravel pit near the Temple Mountain/Goblin Valley junction and going east to UT-24. From there there’s a short jog along the highway to a dirt road on the east side that would eventually lead us along the rim of Cottonwood Wash and to Crow’s Nest Spring. As Dave and I rode east through Temple Wash we came upon a fence at some private property. Frustrated by the BLM’s map issues, we rode cross-country to reach the paved Temple Mountain Road and continued east to Highway 24. After a short ride south, we turned east and finally made it to the other side of the highway. Since we’d had to alter our route, it took a long, roundabout route to the south, then east, north, and finally back to the west to reach Cottonwood Wash. The terrain along the way was mostly flat and uninteresting, but we did stop at Rattlesnake Butte and found some names carved into the sandstone from the early 1900s.

We reached Cottonwood Wash but since I didn’t know where to even start looking for the rumored rock art, we just checked out the spring and an old corral, then moved along to Crow’s Nest Spring. We parked the ATVs below the spring near the lone Cottonwood tree and hiked up to look into the three small canyons that merge just above the spring. I assumed the rock art would be in one of those three canyons because I couldn’t see any after a cursory look near the spring. We hiked up the more easily accessed left fork first. It was shallow and narrow and quite interesting, but there was no rock art. We reached the top of the canyon where Dave turned around and returned to the spring while I crossed over into the middle fork. I had to walk the rim up-canyon for a while before I found a spot to drop into the canyon, then I followed it back to the spring. The middle fork was longer and more interesting than the left, and a light rain fell as I walked along the easy bottom. I got back to the confluence of the three canyons and found Dave at the top of a slope looking at a cliff–he’d found the rock art! There were several small petroglyph snakes that appeared to be emerging from natural holes in the cliff, one large snake petroglyph, a few interesting pinkish-orange pictograph figures, and a rake figure that was lightly scratched into the rock. After a pretty thorough check of the cliffs to make sure I wasn’t missing any rock art, we took a much shorter and direct (though still not completely legal) route back to camp. We returned to find a few people had joined us at camp, and spent a nice evening around the fire with some old and new friends.

On Friday morning I went for a short two-mile hike just north of our camp. I was just wandering around hoping to find some rock art or anything else of interest. There were chert flakes littering the ground all along the sandy bottoms of the cliffs in the area, so I spent much of the time with my eyes on the ground. I saw one flint flake half-buried in the sand and flicked it with my finger, and it turned out to be a nice arrowhead! I normally like to take an in-situ photo of arrowheads before I pick them up, but I had to move this one to even realize what it was. What’s surprising is that there were plenty of footprints in the wash–many people had walked right past it without realizing it was there. I turned around when I reached an impassible canyon just south of Temple Wash, but it looked interesting enough that I made a mental note to return another day and hike up the canyon from the east. I got back to camp and found Dave and his wife getting ready for an ATV ride. They invited me along, and Dave’s wife borrowed Traci’s ATV and we rode up North Temple Wash. We went as far as the old cabin on the east side of Temple Mountain, then returned to camp the same way we’d come in. On the way I was very surprised to spot some pictographs in North Temple. I’d been past that spot a few times without noticing it. We got back to camp and found even more people there. Traci showed up with the kids that afternoon, and slowly the rest of the group trickled in that night until quite late. I spun some steel wool on the Temple Mountain Road after sunset, had some drinks, and hung out around the fire until well into the morning.

It took everyone a while to get going the next morning, but several of us set up a vehicle shuttle for the hike up Wild Horse Creek, then a large group of more than 20 of us started up the canyon. There were all different ages and hiking abilities represented in the group, so naturally we were strung out all along the canyon. I stayed somewhere around the middle most of the time, trying to keep an eye on my kids ahead of me while making sure nobody fell too far behind. There were three somewhat technical sections along the way that were easily bypassed, but several people chose the challenge of climbing up them. The first two weren’t too difficult–I was able to lift Torrey up each of them and then haul myself up. The third was the most difficult. Traci took Torrey around, and I think Chris and I were the only ones to climb it ourselves, though Chris helped a few of the kids up it. Torrey was also happy to find a couple of water-filled potholes in the canyon. We reached the top of the canyon after about three and a half hours. After making sure everybody was accounted for, we drove back to camp.

That afternoon Chris found a wheel missing from his Element with a note attached to one of the lugnuts. Jeremy had taken the wheel and hidden it, leaving GPS coordinates in its place. Chris and I rode ATVs over to the coordinates and found nothing but some reflective tacks in a wooden fencepost. Well played, Jeremy. We had to return at night with flashlights to follow a series of reflectors until we found more coordinates written on a fencepost, and those led us to the tire. We retired around the campfire, but most everyone turned in relatively early (meaning, after midnight).

Most people had a longer drive home and pulled out of camp on Sunday morning. Chris and I went for a quick ATV ride toward Goblin Valley to check out Molly’s Castle. I’d never been there and wanted to see what it was like, but it turns out I wasn’t missing much. I was hoping to see a way to scramble to the top of the formation, but the cliffs looked pretty vertical around the top. We hiked around the base of the main formation for a while, and Torrey managed to catch a lizard. We rode back to camp and Chris headed home while Traci and I got the trailer packed up. She followed me home just in case I had any major problems with the truck, though besides the occasional sputtering it never completely died on me.

I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather last Saturday and did some ATV riding and hiking in the Coal Wash area. It’s been a favorite place of mine in the winter months, though with the lack of snow on the ground and the warm days I wasn’t sure whether I’d see any ice like I’ve seen in the past. I staged at the north end of Coal Wash and took a quick side trip to the degree confluence at N 39° W 110°. It was cold enough that early in the morning that I stopped a couple of times to warm my hands on the ATV exhaust. Although (judging from the tire tracks) many people have driven up the wash from the road to the confluence, I parked the ATV on the side of the road and walked in. That warmed me up a bit, then I did a little hiking around on the rocks near the confluence.

After that, I rode back past where the truck was parked and started up Coal Wash. I was pleased to find plenty of ice at the Drips. At the fork in the canyon I took the north fork and then stopped to hike up a side canyon. There are a lot of interesting side canyons in Coal Wash, but this one was relatively short and I only spent about 20 minutes hiking. I then rode to the Devil’s Racetrack turnoff and started searching for some old cowboy inscriptions that I heard about. I didn’t have coordinates, just a verbal description, but I found the spot easily. There was an undated “L. Swasey” inscription and another from Joseph Swasey from 1875. I found huge amounts of chert flakes scattered over an area hundreds of feet in every direction from the inscriptions. I wandered around hoping to find a complete arrowhead or maybe some rock art, but the chert flakes were all the evidence I saw of native Americans.

From there I reversed course and started toward Cow Canyon, but along the way I had to do some donuts on the sheet of ice formed by a natural spring in the bottom of Coal Wash. Torrey merely tolerated it, while I actually had fun. I parked the ATV at the fence where Cow Canyon joins Coal Wash and began hiking. As I hiked along the main Cow Canyon I searched for rock art along the cliffs, but found none. I took the first right fork in the canyon and hiked to its end. The side canyon started out with a flat, sandy bottom, but the higher I got the gnarlier and rockier it became. At the head of the canyon was a large ice-covered pool, with natural springs creating huge icicles above the pool. This would be an amazing place to be during summertime. I spent more time exploring the side canyon than I’d planned, so when I returned to the main canyon I headed back to the ATV. I took a quick lunch break, though it was nearing 3:00PM so when I finished my snack I just headed back toward the truck and then home. I didn’t take the time to ride up the South Fork of Coal Wash to look for some rock art I heard about, so I have a good excuse to return another day.

I spent six days and five nights camped at the Wedge in the San Rafael Swell this past week. I had a really nice, laid back time, and the weather turned out to be perfect. Dave had a golf tournament in Moab the weekend before the San Rafael campout, so he pulled his camp trailer to Price on Thursday and parked it in my driveway while he spent two days in Moab. He returned Saturday and spent the night here, then on Sunday pulled his trailer down to the Wedge. The campsite we wanted was taken, so he set up in the next nearest spot. I had my trailer ready so that as soon as I got off work on Tuesday, I hopped in the truck and pulled it down to meet up with Dave. After setting up camp and fixing some dinner, it was dark and there wasn’t much to do, so I turned in early and read a book for a while before going to bed.

On Wednesday, Dave and I went for a 4-wheeler ride down Buckhorn Wash, then back out to the Green River Cutoff Road to check out a part of the abandoned railroad grade. We found a few geocaches along the way, but one of them along the railroad grade eluded us. Some friends from the Logan area showed up that afternoon, and they brought with them another couple who I hadn’t met before. That evening Dave and I rode up to the Wedge Overlook at sunset and took some photos, then stuck around until full dark so we could take some long-exposure shots.

Traci was planning on coming down with the kids on Thursday, but in the morning before they arrived I went for a hike in Good Water Canyon just below camp. I’d done this same hike before with Traci and the kids, and we ended up at a pool of water with a large dryfall below it. The pool was full of cattails back then, but now it had been scoured out by flash floods and most of the vegetation was gone. The hike took me less time than I expected, and I ended up back at camp before Traci got there. After she arrived, we didn’t do much for the rest of the day, which felt great.

After breakfast on Friday, Dave, Traci, and I, along with the kids, went for a ride on the west side of the Wedge. It had been about eight years since I’d been out that way, and this time we saw some new country as well. We stopped at a couple of nice overlooks of the Little Grand Canyon. While heading back toward camp Traci wasn’t feeling well, so Dave and I decided to explore a little more while Traci took the kids back to camp. We took some old mining roads that would sometimes disappear completely, though if we kept heading in the general direction the road had been going, we would eventually pick it up again.

After getting back to camp, a few more people showed up throughout the evening. Several of us went out and found a night geocache before returning to camp and hanging out around the camp fire. Chris surprised everybody by showing up. He originally had to work that weekend, but managed to work extra earlier in the week and made it to camp late Friday night. As usual it ended up being just Chris and me around the fire late at night, and we decided to ride my 4-wheeler over to the night cache so that Chris could find it. We followed the reflectors through the trees and stopped at the final location, and while Chris was signing the logbook, we heard what sounded like a coyote yipping just a couple hundred feet from us. Chris yelled something like, “Watch out coyote, we’ve got a gun,” and a voice answered back, “So do I.” WTF?! We were more than a little freaked out, so we just walked away quickly, got on the 4-wheeler, and hauled ass outta there. The next day we went back and looked at the area where the voice came from, and there were tire tracks from a full-sized vehicle off the road into the trees, and two sets of footprints. I’m still not sure what the hell was going on, but it was a bit freaky.

On Saturday a group of us went up to Cedar Mountain and found all the geocaches along the way. There were a few ATVs, a UTV, and a Jeep. Most of the geocaches were drive-bys, and we did a couple of nice hikes as well. That evening back at camp we had a big potluck dinner and another nice evening around the fire. Everybody pulled out on Sunday, but before we left, Chris and I decided we needed to get some rappelling in. We hiked down Good Water Canyon looking for the perfect cliff, but didn’t find anything nice, so we drove down Buckhorn Wash. We were looking for a cliff with a ledge or hole halfway down where we could leave a geocache, and we found a nice spot, but I already had a geocache that I’d placed a while back that was too close. I decided to take that cache and leave it on the cliff. There were some bolts at the top of the cliff, but my rope wouldn’t reach the bottom from there. After some figuring, we found that we could anchor Chris’ rope on the bolts, then downclimb about 20 feet and connect our ropes with some carabiners. We rappelled down to a ledge where we hid the geocache, then had to do a swinging rappel off one side of the fin we were on ’cause that’s the only side where the rope reached the bottom. After getting back to camp, we headed home and ended a great week.

I had a great time at the Potter’s Ponds geocaching campout this year, despite (or perhaps because of) the low turnout. It was a relaxing trip, and for once I didn’t feel like I needed time to recover from my vacation before returning to work. I had Friday off work, and my family and I left Price late Friday morning and arrived at campsite #5 at Potter’s Ponds early in the afternoon. As soon as we got camp set up, I hopped on my ATV and rode up to Skyline Drive because I’d heard it was closed by a landslide just south of where the Potter’s Canyon road tops out. Sure enough, there was a “Road Closed” sign and a small laminated paper warning of a fine for ignoring the closure, so I didn’t venture south to check out the landslide. That put a damper on my plans to hike North and South Tent Mountains the following day, which would now have required at least 40 miles of detouring to get to the trailhead.

Back at camp people were beginning to show up, and by nightfall there was a group of close friends staying at my campsite, and a few others at nearby sites. We sat around the campfire and had a few drinks, then a few of us hopped in Jeremy’s truck and drove to a few geocaches. I had been taking some night shots and at some point I dropped my camera and got a big scratch on the lens, which I didn’t notice until the next day. A few of us froze our tails off in the back of Jeremy’s truck, but we had fun wandering through the trees in the dark and trying to find Jeremy’s keys at one of our stops.

On Saturday we hiked the Left Fork of Huntington Creek Trail. It was a little longer than the North/South Tent Mountain hike I’d planned, but there was an actual trail and less elevation gain, so it was easier overall. Michael and Bradley came with me while Torrey stayed at camp with Traci because her foot still hadn’t healed. Chris, Kim, Jeremy, and an older gentleman from Fountain Green also went on the hike. We found three geocaches along the trail, the first of which was near a nice waterfall in Miller Flat Creek. We took a break at the last cache, then turned around and hiked back up the trail to our vehicles. The hike was about 6.5 miles and took us three hours to complete. We returned to camp and had a very nice potluck dinner with several others who had arrived during the day, then had a quiet night around the campfire.

It rained a bit during the night, which is probably why fewer people camped Saturday night than Friday. Sunday morning things were a little damp, and we had a few light showers. I hiked up to the old sawmill at the top of Fly Canyon with Chris, Terry, and Kim, and we got rained on, but it was a fun hike. We dodged mud holes while riding ATVs on the Lowry Water Road heading south from camp and parked under some pine trees at the Fly Canyon trailhead. The “trail” is actually an old logging road which would be perfectly rideable if the Forest Service hadn’t torn it up and closed it to motorized vehicles. Or, I should say, it would be rideable if it weren’t for all the new deadfall since I last hiked up there five years ago. It took us almost two hours to get to my geocache near the old sawmill, and about 40 minutes to get back down to the ATVs, totaling about 3.6 miles. When we arrived back at camp, everybody started packing things up while it rained, and Terry and I were the last ones to pull out. I got home early enough in the day to get the trailer unloaded, and I even had some time to mow the lawn and relax in front of the computer in the evening.

This was my first holiday weekend camping in the San Rafael Swell. It was a great time! My family normally doesn’t go camping on holiday weekends, ’cause the weekends of Easter, Memorial Day, and Labor Day are usually extremely crowded in the desert. The weekend prior to Memorial weekend, however, was so wintry that we canceled our trip for that weekend and decided to hang out with the huge crowds the following weekend. Luckily for us, our friend Dave Huntsman was also looking to do some camping that weekend and drove down from Utah County on Wednesday to save our spot. After my niece’s high school graduation on Thursday (boy, does that make me feel old!), my family hopped in both vehicles (me in the truck and Traci and the boys in the car) and drove down to meet Dave at the northwest end of Buckhorn Flat at the base of Cedar Mountain. Dave was out geocaching when we arrived, but he showed up while we were setting up camp. After Traci and I got things set up, Dave and I went for a 4-wheeler ride to see some nearby rock art and an abandoned bus.

On Friday, we all went for an ATV ride down Buckhorn Wash. We stopped to see the Buckhorn rock art panel. I’d never been up Calf Canyon or Pine Canyon, so we turned up both canyons and rode to the end of each. In Calf Canyon, the trail appeared to end at a small pond, though at home later I looked at the imagery in Google Earth and discovered that the trail may keep going up the canyon. We ended our progress at the pond, however, and I spotted a bat crawling on the ground there. When I got close with the camera to take some photos, it began chirping at me. After I took several photos, the bat flew off up the canyon and landed in the grass a few dozen feet away. I assumed that was the last we’d see of it, but a short while later it flew back down the canyon and landed in some tree branches. It stayed there for a while, but before we left the area it fell to the ground again, which is where we last saw it. Here’s a short video clip of the bat as it flew off the first time:

Friday’s ride was just a warm-up for Saturday. We took our time getting ready in the morning, then we set out for a ride along the old railroad grade that follows the base of Cedar Mountain. We stopped at several geocaches along the railroad grade, all of them at geocaches that draw attention to the real points of interest. There’s a lot of rock art all along the grade, and I even saw some that I hadn’t seen before. After reaching the Green River Cutoff Road, we left the railroad grade and rode to Box Flat. We’d hoped to meet a friend there, but she had ended up staying in town, so we ate lunch on Box Flat and set out to look for a cave.

Last month, somebody e-mailed me to tell me about a cave he found near Box Flat. He hadn’t explored the entire cave because it was too deep to explore fully without a flashlight (a rarity in the San Rafael Swell), so I went fully prepared. After a quick lunch of PB&J sandwiches at the same spot where we Eastered in 2009, we hiked over a hill and scrambled down some boulders to the cave entrance. I’d actually seen this canyon before, but hadn’t seen the cave entrance, and I had no idea what to expect. There was an obvious water course flowing out of the cave entrance, and I dropped all my bulky gear there and walked inside with only a flashlight and camera. Torrey followed me while Traci and the boys stayed at the entrance and waited. I followed the sinuous water course into the cave. Eventually I was far enough from the entrance that I couldn’t see daylight entering. I cautiously and curiously followed the water course until it curved back toward the entrance. It turns out that all the water runoff from Jackass Flat flows down a wash, enters the cave through a jumble of boulders, then flows several hundred horizontal feet under the cliff before flowing back out not far from where the water enters. It was very cool inside the cave compared to the heat outside, and it was still damp from recent rains. After exploring the entire cave, we walked back down to the ATVs and took the main road back to camp. The kids and I hiked up Cedar Mountain above camp that evening and wrapped up a long day of exploring.

Sunday was supposed to be our last day of camping, but with the heavy winds that picked up throughout the day I was unsure whether I wanted to pull the trailer home. We set out for a ride to Hambrick Bottom, with a quick stop at Hamburger Rocks where the kids got to play on the interesting sandstone formations. I’d never been to the end of the road at Hambrick Bottom, so we checked out a couple of dead-end roads there. We followed a side road that ended at the San Rafael River, and it would make a nice place to camp (already duly noted for a future camping trip ). The river was running high and swiftly, and my desire to float the river faded slightly after seeing how quickly it was running. We also followed the main road to its end, and where the road crossed the normally-dry Red Seep Wash, we drove through water where the high-running San Rafael River had backed up into the wash. The road ended at the northwest end of Hambrick Bottom, where it pinched out between a steep hillside and the river. From there, we reversed course, but instead of following the main roads back to camp, we took a detour over to Sand Bench Rim where I’d hidden a couple of geocaches two years ago. We stopped for the first geocache so Dave could sign the log, and the wind had picked up and was very intense. Just before reaching the second geocache, I saw a gopher snake and stopped to take some photos. Traci stopped right behind me, and when I crouched down to snap a photo of the snake, it turned back toward the road and climbed right up into Traci’s ATV! It wrapped around the bottom of the front differential, and no amount of prodding or pulling could get it out. We left it alone for a while as we found the geocache, but upon returning to the ATV, it was still snuggled up securely under the front diff. I finally prodded it in the head enough to get it to unwrap itself from the ATV, and it slithered off apparently unscathed and we continued on our way back to camp.

The wind storm picked up that afternoon and rocked the trailer heavily while we debated whether to head home that day. I went for a solo 4-wheeler ride despite the weather. I rode along a trail that climbed up Cedar Mountain just above and north of camp. It’s the same trail that Traci and I rode a few years ago, but we came in from the other end and weren’t able to ride the entire trail that time. This time I made it to the summit along the trail above camp, so now I can say that I’ve been on the entire trail. I turned around at that point and rode up the old mining track near the abandoned bus near Little Cedar Mountain. The first part of that trail was also pretty rough and steep, but eventually it reached the main road up Little Cedar, and I rode all the way to the summit. The views were awesome from there, and I radioed to Traci back at camp and she could see me at the summit from about 1.3 miles away. When I got back to camp, Traci had already started to pack things up, so apparently that meant we were heading home that evening (I was still torn between enjoying an entire day at home before returning to work, or spending an extra night camping). We got home in plenty of time to get the trailer backed into the driveway and partially unloaded before sundown, while Dave spent an extra night at the campsite and returned home the following day. For spending the long weekend in an area I thought I was familiar with, we sure saw a lot of stuff I wasn’t expecting.

Last weekend began early for me. As soon as I got off work at 3:00PM on Wednesday, I did a few last minute things before jumping in the truck and pulling the trailer down to the San Rafael Swell. The campsite I’d chosen was near South Salt Wash just off of exit 108 on I-70. It was windy when I arrived, and I set up camp quickly while keeping the trailer closed as much as possible to keep the dust out. Dropping the ramp to unload the ATVs let plenty of dust in, however, and after that you couldn’t even tell I’d swept and mopped the trailer before going camping. I’d hoped to do some ATV riding that evening, but at times visibility was only a couple hundred yards because of all the dust being kicked up by the wind, so I stayed holed up inside the trailer and started reading a book (The Split Sky by Tom McCourt). I’d planned on grilling some kielbasa for dinner, but instead I stayed in the trailer and pan-fried it. I turned in to bed early and slept well most of the night.

On Thursday morning I woke up early. It was cool, but calm and sunny outside, and I finished setting up camp after a light breakfast of banana bread and coffee. At 9:30AM I left on a 4-wheeler ride with no particular destination in mind, other than that I wanted to travel south and possibly find a nice overlook of Muddy Creek. I crossed the Muddy on the bridge at Lone Tree Crossing and eventually found myself riding east on Lone Tree Wedge. I passed through what appeared to be an old gypsum quarry, and just east of there the road turned into more of an ATV trail, though there were recent tire tracks from a full-sized vehicle. I stopped at two overlooks with nice views down into the incredible scenery of the upper Muddy Creek gorge. The trail simply ended at the second overlook, and I turned around there and rode back toward camp. I stopped briefly about 1.3 miles south of Lone Tree Crossing to hike across the exposed Entrada Sandstone, hoping to find some interesting goblin-like formations. The topography was interesting there, but nothing like I was hoping to see.

I got back to camp and ate lunch, then went for another short ride south of camp toward an old gravel pit that was used when I-70 was being built. On my way south I saw some horsemen herding a large group of cattle north directly toward camp. They were in a wash bottom but nearly to the road when I passed them, and I decided not to take that way back to camp (lest I get stuck behind a slow-moving group of cattle with no way around). I had to ride in a wash bottom to connect the two roads that officially dead-end (according to the BLM travel plan) near the gravel pit, then took a different road back to camp. When I got there, Terry and Karen had just pulled in, and so had the group of cattle. Terry told me he’d had truck problems on the drive down from Ogden–the engine had lost power and was blowing black, sooty smoke out the exhaust. The guy apparently in charge of the cattle-gathering operation came over and let us know that they planned on watering the cattle at the pond just across the road from our camp, then they’d turn ‘em loose nearby for the night, then gather them back up in the morning and ship them out by the truckload. Slowly throughout the afternoon and evening people started showing up at camp. That night we had two trailers, a motorhome, a camper, and two tents in the site. We had a nice, quite evening around the fire.

The following morning Eric and Sherie set out in their Jeep, along with Craig in his Jeep, to go to Colonnade Arch and do some other exploring in that area. Chris and I hopped on the ATVs with the kids and rode out to Horizon Arch, and Ken and Jan came along in their Jeep. Traci stayed at camp and enjoyed some time without the kids. I’d driven the truck to Horizon Arch five years ago, and though it was a fun drive, it was long, and we didn’t spend much time hiking around then. This time it was a pretty quick jaunt from camp, and on ATVs it went even more quickly. We parked at the end of the road near Horizon Arch and hiked around to three geocaches, only one of which I hadn’t found before. When we were finished hiking around, Ken and Jan headed back to camp while Chris and I took a side road that led to the head of Pancho Wash. The travel map showed the road ending after less than a mile, but I was hoping it would continue farther and possibly get us closer to Muddy Creek from the north side. Unfortunately it did indeed end where the map showed, near a strange reservoir that had been dug out and lined with plastic, but had no inlet and was completely dry.

Back at camp, several more people arrived that evening–one more trailer and a bunch of tents. We threw a 1-gallon can of green beans in the fire and blew it up better than anything else we’ve tried. The partially full can of butane/propane wasn’t even as explosive as the green beans. I got a text from Eric saying that he’d broken a u-joint on his Jeep and was limping it back to Green River with Craig following him. He made it to town alright, then he and Sherie crammed into Craig’s Jeep for the drive along the interstate back to camp. They arrived after all the campfire fun, and we got to spend some time around the fire enjoying the evening.

Eric and Sherie left the next morning (Saturday) to tow their Jeep to Moab to get fixed, and I was bummed that we didn’t get to spend much time with them. Traci and I took the kids on a 4-wheeler ride that day through Kimball Draw and Cat Canyon. We stopped to find one geocache in Kimball Draw and ran into some geocachers from Colorado who’d stopped briefly at camp earlier in the morning. We ended up running into them a couple more times later in the day, and I learned later that they’d gotten their Jeep stuck in a sandy ditch near Link Flats and that Terry pulled them out with his ATV. Anyhow, after finding that first cache, we stopped at some pictographs in Kimball Draw. As we were riding along the wash I noticed an alcove with what looked like just graffiti, but some of the circles didn’t look quite like spray paint. I stopped to check it out and realized that the circles were genuine pictographs, and there were smaller and fainter pictographs all over in the alcove. I had no idea any of that was there, and it was really too bad that it had been so badly vandalized. We very briefly checked out a very old drill site, then continued along Kimball Draw until eventually the road climbed out of the wash and over a pass, then down into Cat Canyon.

Cat Canyon and the area surrounding it were just awesome. It was my favorite place to visit all weekend. The road drops into Cat Canyon at about the point where the Navajo Sandstone becomes exposed below the Carmel Formation, and then the road follows the wash bottom all the way to Link Flats. We only went as far as an old steel dam where there was a geocache, and we ate our lunch there. We all hiked up the shallow, narrow slot canyon above the steel dam, stemming over the parts where the bottom narrowed down to a point too small for our bodies to fit. I hiked alone up one side of the canyon, around the head of the canyon, then back down the other side to where Traci and the kids were waiting. There were ponderosa pine trees all over the area, and a lot of flat, sandy areas surrounded by large seas of rolling slickrock. I’ve already decided that I need to ride my ATV back to the area and spend a couple of days camping and hiking around. We returned to camp and had an awesome potluck dinner that evening, and spent a crazy night around the campfire (Torrey got really crazy). We blew up a 1-gallon can of corn, had some drinks, and a few even stayed up ’til almost daylight (not me, I turned in early–around 2:00AM).

Everyone was slow to rise on Sunday morning. Traci and I started taking down camp, then I went for a quick ride with Michael (and Terry for part of the way). We rode north along South Salt Wash to the Moore Cutoff Road, then headed west for just over a mile, then turned north again and followed the road along Sand Bench. We ended up working out way east to the Sid and Charlie rock formation and stopped to find the geocache there, then we headed back to camp. Some had already left by then, and everyone else was getting ready to go. Terry had decided he was going to try driving his truck home despite the engine troubles, but he asked me to pull his trailer to Price and leave it there until he could come get it. Traci and I were the last ones to leave camp. I pulled the trailer to Price and dumped it at the RV dump, then dropped it in the driveway and unloaded the back of the truck. I fueled up and left for the Swell again, picking up Terry’s trailer and bringing it back to Price, dropping it in the dirt lot next to Traci’s parents’ place. It made for a long day, and I slept well that night after having had such a full and long weekend.

I had a somewhat boring, yet somewhat productive weekend. On Saturday I took my ATV down to the San Rafael Swell where we’re going to camp in a few weeks. I rode north along the South Salt Wash road, and I’d planned on stopping to hike around whenever I found any interesting places. I turned down a short road leading to Canyon Pond and hiked around just a little there, but the area wasn’t terribly interesting. After that I got back on the main road and continued north, and when I got near the Moore Cutoff Road I realized that I wasn’t going to find anything else interesting so I turned around and rode back to where the truck was parked. It was beginning to get colder–I could see a big snow storm coming in from the west–and I ate lunch in the truck with the heat running. After that I rode south to an old gravel pit near where Devil’s Canyon meets up with South Salt Wash. There are still piles of sand and gravel all around the area, but the paved road that used to lead there is long washed out (or perhaps was intentionally removed). There are still huge chunks of asphalt that have been washed downstream from where the road used to cross the wash in Devil’s Canyon. I was going to continue to follow South Salt Wash downstream to Lone Tree Crossing at Muddy Creek, but the cold was too much for me to handle. It had been sunny when I left home in the morning and I hadn’t thought to bring winter riding gear, but I would have needed it in order to continue. So, I returned to the truck and headed home, wishing that I’d either stayed home, or come better prepared. I only took a few photos, hardly worth posting here, but at least I ruled out one area to explore when I’m camping there with friends next month.
Sunday morning I went for a drive to the foot of the Book Cliffs near Airport Road and cut some firewood. The pile behind the garage was running low, and what was left there was some aspen that didn’t burn very well. I cut mostly pinyon and juniper that had been knocked over last year when the gas company made a new road and pipeline to some new gas wells. I left the logs long before loading them into the truck, then brought them home where I cut everything down to shorter lengths and split some of the larger logs. Between trying to start the %@#! chainsaw, lifting huge logs, and splitting wood, my entire upper body is sore today and will likely remain so for several days.

I rode my 4-wheeler almost 50 miles today through mostly snow and mud. I started riding straight from home and went to the Consumers area, and my main reason for heading out there was to check out an old piece of equipment that I’d seen several times while driving by. I could easily have driven the car out there, but I also wanted to try getting to what looked like an old mining track near Bull Point that I noticed in Google Earth. On my way from Price to Helper, there’s normally a gravel road that I use as a shortcut through the Eagle Cliff subdivision that puts me on the old Kenilworth railroad grade. When I got there today, however, I found the road to be completely obliterated. It looked like an excavator had dug the road up and left boulders and trees in its wake. I tried finding a way around but was unsuccessful, so I just put my ATV in 4WD and rode across the torn up ground. I picked my way through the boulders and dead trees, scraping my skid plates a few times, but I made it to the railroad grade in much less time than it would have taken me to detour north to Kenilworth.
The roads were snowpacked in the morning on my way to Consumers Road. There are a few troublesome spots along the old railroad grade near Helper that are normally washed out, but they weren’t bad today with the washouts filled with snow. I passed through Helper and found a newer geocache near the Castle Gate subdivision, then headed over the hill to the Consumers Area. I stopped along Consumers Road to check out that old piece of equipment. After seeing the manufacturer’s name on it and doing some internet research, I found out that it’s a “chopper,” designed to be dragged behind a bulldozer and chop brush and trees in order to make way for grasses for wildlife to graze on. I placed a geocache right under the thing, then went on to explore a few dirt roads nearby.
I tried a couple of different roads trying to get to the north near Bull Point, but they both fizzled out without going anywhere. The snow drifts in the area were pretty deep and it made the going a little tough, so I gave up trying to find my way to Bull Point. I tried another dirt road leading to the south, and it turned out to be a huge challenge. There were a lot of snow drifts along the way, and several times I had to back up and get another run at them in order to bust through. The road ended at an overlook above Garley Canyon with a nice view out onto Porphyry Bench, and when I got there I realized that I’d been there in my Subaru about eight years ago.
After that, I was ready to go home. The ride home was much more difficult than the ride getting there earlier in the day. It had almost gotten up to 40°F during the day, and the snow turned to slush and there was a lot of mud on the roads on my way home. The railroad grade between Helper and Kenilworth was the worst part. I got stuck once in a spot that I’d driven over easily in the morning, but the deep snow had gotten so slushy that I couldn’t push through it without sinking in and losing traction. Less than a minute after I got stuck, a couple of guys in a lifted Jeep Cherokee were coming the opposite direction and helped push me out. I could have easily gotten out myself with a little digging, but I was still grateful for their help. I waited while they drove through the huge slush pit to make sure they could get through, then I continued on my way home. I was cold and wet when I got home, but I’d had fun getting that way.

We got our first significant snowfall of the season today, so after I got off work I took my family out to ride in it! We rode the 4-wheelers straight from home and went to Kenilworth and back. It snowed for the entire two and a half hours that we were riding, but it was a pellet-like snow rather than flakes. None of us enjoyed being pelted by the snow at higher speeds on the gravel roads, but once we reached the rougher dirt roads closer to Kenilworth and slowed down a bit, the pelting subsided. There were a lot of deer out–it seemed that if we stopped anywhere long enough, a few would pop their heads up above the sagebrush to check us out. Strangely (or maybe not so, for me), I had the song “Sleigh Ride” in my head while we were riding, and I even busted out singing it a few times during the ride.
Near Kenilworth I inadvertently ran my ATV into a deep rut. The road ahead of me had looked perfectly flat, but in reality there were some very deep ruts that had been filled with water from the heavy rains from last week. Once the rain subsided and temps got colder, the top layer of water froze and the rest of it slowly seeped into the ground. When the snow fell and covered the ice, it left a deceptive trap just waiting for someone to come along and spring it. I hit one of the ruts and broke through the ice, and my 4-wheeler tipped over and almost threw Bradley and me off. We got off and realized what had happened, and I was able to just back the 4-wheeler out easily. We stopped to drink some hot chocolate near Kenilworth, but by then it was getting late and if we didn’t hurry we’d be riding home in the dark. We took the highway for a couple of miles, then turned onto another gravel road that saved us quite a bit of time over returning the same way we’d come. We stopped once on the way home so Traci could warm her hands on the exhaust of her machine, and we made it home before it was fully dark.