Awake this morning to the sun shining and the birds are singing. Well, the only birds around are the ravens and they don't really sing!! But, you get the picture, right?Today we are going to head back out onto the trails. We didn't find the partially restored Halfway Stage Station yesterday so that is the first thing on our agenda today. As you can see from the pics, we found it. These are the preserved ruins of the 1883 stagecoach stop. Travelers used this stop to eat, change horses or sleep. Some of the fencing and the building are still standing. It is now a historical site and illegal to remove or damage anything in this area.
We headed towards Bartlett Wash Trail and once there noted that there was a bit of water running in the wash. This was neat to see and even better to drive on. The sand was deep in places and we ran quite close to the red sandstone cliffs for most of the lower wash.
We detoured off the trail and managed to find some pretty spectacular stair steps that led into a much narrower canyon - Hidden Canyon and drove along this trail until we had to turn around which meant we had to do all those steps again. No Problem for that little truck.
We found some nice sandy trail and were going along quite nicely when there was a huge nasty noise which had come from somewhere under the truck. It didn't sound good!! I immediately wondered how far we were from civilization and how far we were going to have to walk!! Oh, what an adventure!! Upon close inspection by John, the coil spring on the driver's side rear had dislodged and was out of it's perches. Good thing John is a handy kind of guy because we were on our way in about an 1/2 hour. Spring back where it belonged and truck running like a charm.
Because we had earlier taken a side trail, we got back on the main trail and continued along the wash until we met up with another road that ultimately led us to the Bartlett Rim Trail.
This trail followed the wash we had just travelled only on top of the cliffs. We were able to see the trail we had just travelled and also saw the "submarine". This is a collection of rock and sand that indeed were in the shape of a submarine. Interesting to say the least and only seen from up on the rim. We took some pics but I'm afraid they didn't show all that well.
We carried on and once again hit the road and drove past the Dubinky Well. This was obviously a water well although I couldn't find any information on it so really don't know anything about it. I'm guessing it used to provide much needed water to the area but it didn't look like it was in use anymore.
We found the trailhead to the Rainbow Rocks Trail at a prominence called the Needles and this by far was the best trail of the day. It was classified as an easy trail with loose and packed drift sand. wash sand and slickrock. It travelled past a huge bluff of colorful banded sandstone. It was quite pretty but because it was getting later in the day the sun was not as bright and so didn't really bring out the colors as vividly as it probably did earlier in the day. It was, non the less still something to see. At one point along the trail we did hit the slickrock and the trail was quite obscure. There were a few of those little rock towers to follow and with a little perserverence did manage to find the trail and continue on. Eventually accessing the Levi Well Trail and ultimately back to the highway and home.
Another great day on the trails of Utah. Some mechanical excitement and lots of great scenery.
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