Sitting having my coffee today and I hear this noise so go outside to investigate and see this little airplane thing buzzing the campsite!! What a neat way to see the Valley of the Gods.Got into gear and headed down the dusty trail once again today except it wasn't too dusty because it was trying hard to rain. John did manage to get a picture of the rainbow that followed us for quite some time that day. We did the Snow Flat Trail today with the intention of taking the Grand Gulch Trail which spurs off it and eventually hooking back up with Comb Wash. Well that was the plan anyway. We accessed Snow Flat and it was a great trail and much better now that I could actually see the scenery. This trail is part of the Mormon Trail and that alone makes it worthwhile. I can't imagine these pioneers taking their horses and wagons along these trails. There must have been profound hardships along the way. We access the Grand Gulch Trail and travelled along the sandy path. We passed several dead SCARY looking trees and eventually came to a dead end trail. It was closed to any motor vehicles but we were more than welcome to hike the trail. YEA RIGHT!! We turned around and eventually made it to the trailhead and down the highway to access yet another trail. We eventually hooked up to yet another highway and passed Salvation Knoll. This is a mountain summit that climbs to 7244 feet. It was here on Christmas morning in 1879 that the Mormon scouts found themselves lost and out of food. One scout, George Hobbs, climbed to the top of this knoll to look for recognizable landmarks and saw the Blue Mountains about 10 miles away. This was the landmark they had been looking for. Such incredible history in this area. It is mind boggling!!
We took a quick drive down the Arch Canyon road to where we attended the Jeep Jamboree 20 years ago. It is now private property belonging to the Ute Indian Nation and there were all kinds of no trespassing signs. The road itself is public land and can access Arch Canyon. We had to leave this trail for another time as it was getting on in the day and we had to start making our was towards home.
We accessed Black Mesa Road. This trail was to eventually hook up to Lower Butler Wash and home. We obviously made a wrong turn somewhere along the way because we ended at a dead end high above the wash and it was now DARK. Great!! Went for a little walkabout to see if we could see the trail but to no avail. By the time I got back to the truck I swore off cigarettes!! (I don't smoke!!) Either I am so out of shape or I just cannot take these high elevations. John doesn't seem to have much trouble in this area at all. He was hardly winded and I thought I needed a respirator!! We backtracked and found an awesome trail that lead us down the mesa and into the wash. After another side trail and a dead end we did eventually find the proper trail and did finally make it back to the motorhome. All in all a good day. Travelled a few extra miles but one is never lost if one can find their way back from whence he came!!
The videos go from top to bottom.
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