Woke up this morning to rain which, is definitely not good. Too much rain leads to flash floods around here. Hogan and I had coffee and quiet time and eventually the sun came out and the slickrock dried. Although the sky looked a bit threatening, we decided to try one trail and if it looked unsafe then we would just come home.
Off we headed and with a bit of direction from a park ranger we found the trail. I wonder what would be so hard about putting up signs. It would certainly make it a little easier to find the trailheads. Yesterday, there were plenty of signs. Today, there are NONE!!
Spring Canyon Trail is a spur trail - a round trip of 55 miles. They say it is an easy trail with mostly drift sand or sediment and some slickrock. LIARS!! They failed to mention the miles of shelf trail!! Oh, how I hate shelf trail!! This shelf trail was originally blasted from the canyon walls by early uranium prospectors. Well, I say, could they not have blasted it a little wider?
At the start of our steep descent down into the canyon we came across a cattle gate and a herd of cattle standing on the trail. Now what do you suppose a bunch of cows are doing on a shelf trail in the middle of nowhere? We opened the gate and the cows started heading down in front of us. John said that they were our speed limit!! We were able to pass a few on the way down but some were quite determined to stay in front. I got out of the truck a few times to take video of John and Hogan making the decent on the numerous switchbacks and I must say I was more comfortable walking down. I just had to dodge all the cow shit!! Have I mentioned that I HATE shelf trails. Once again I was praying to God, Allah, Buddha and the Gitchi Manitou. At one point I thought I would rather slash my wrists and crawl into a warm tub and after all my gasps and carrying on I think John wanted to slash my wrists for me and draw that warm bath!! Oh how I hate hanging off the edge of a mountain. How desperate do you have to be for uranium to have to blast your way down here? Anyway we made it down safe and sound (like there was any other way) to the canyon bottom. The cows cleared out of our way and the trail turned into sand and bush. The scenery was once again incredible. The Green River flowed quietly by and one could understand why the farmer put his cows there. As we carried on there were bits of trail that once again turned into shelf trail but not with the huge cliffs, instead, it was the river that was over the edge. Don't want to go there either!! The trail itself was full of challenges and John was loving it. There were several tight squeezes that had to be negotiated and the little truck did very well. It was your typical Utah trail and by far the best trail we had been on --according to John. I totally wanted to whack the smile off his face!!
At one point we let Hogan out for a run. We came across some more cows and he decided to give chase. He darn near got his head kicked off and so decided that perhaps that wasn't such a good idea. He must have felt the breeze from the cow's hoof!! He ignored them after that - they were so beneath him anyway!!
We continued down the trail and eventually made it to the end where we saw the remains of earlier uranium mining activities and what was left of a mining settlement.
It was getting late and time to head back. Oh Good, we get to do all those shelf trails again.!! It took us one and a half hours to climb back out of the canyon which seemed strange because it seemed like it took us longer to get to the end of the canyon. On the way out, we saw several mule deer and managed to get some pictures of them as they darted away. John and I both, were impressed at their agility and how they can actually skip across all that rock like mountain goats. They weren't terribly frightened as they only went so far, turned around and watched us.
Once back out of the canyon, the road was good and in no time at all we were on the highway and headed back to the motorhome. I must say, now that I am back home, the trail did indeed offer the most spectacular scenery and the most challenge of all the trails we have done so far. John would do this trail again in a heartbeat - he loved it. Me, well that is another story!!
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