Thursday, November 10/2011

Slick rock

Dinosaur tracks

This is the trail on the slick fo ck

Old uranium mine

Heading down

Check out the video on Facebook

On the salt Valley

Another old mine

Unmarked grave

Moon coming up

Sun going down and we are in the middle

Old homestead

Get in

Time to head home

                        Oh the sun is shining through the windows again this morning and it looks like it will be another glorious day.  Sun means warmth so that means that the little lizards will be out to bug Hogan again today!!  They keep him entertained for quite a while.  He takes his "guarding" the bus very seriously!!
We are supposed to be doing some trails today so wish me luck.  I will be fine if there a no "shelf" trails as I just can not wrap my mind around hanging off the side of a cliff for any reason!!  I may have to call on the Four Power (God, Allah, Buddha and the Gitchi Manitou) at some point today!!
We headed out to do Klondike Bluff Trail, Yellowcat Trail and hopefully Dome Plateau Trail as well as one leads off the other.  With the jeep packed and ready to go, we headed out.  The Klondike Bluff Trail is considered an "easy" trail consisting of mostly packed sediment or drift sand and rough slickrock.  The jeeps share this trail with the mountain bikers and we met several of them on the trail.   We passed several abandoned uranium and copper mines and actually had the pleasure of seeing some dinosaur tracks as well.  It is hard to believe that dinosaur wandered this area so many years ago and left tracks for us to view today.  We travelled in The Little Valley for part of the trip then climbed up onto the bluff and eventually down into the Salt Valley where we met up with the Yellowcat Trail.  The travel down off the Bluff Trail was rough as the trail was strewn with various sizes of rocks and required some technical ability to traverse the area without any damage.  It was truly four wheeling at its best and why so many people come here to do just this.
The Yellowcat Trail is considered "easy" as well  consisting of graded dirt, packed sediments and drift sand with some slickrock, wash sand and rocky rubble.  It was a fast trail as you could really get some speed up on the graded dirt so that ate up alot of its 40 mile length rather quickly.  The eastern section of the trail is much rougher and more challenging and quite frankly the best part of the trail.. This trail also took us past several abandoned mines and outbuilding as well making one appreciate the history of this area.
We were hoping to do Dome Plateau Trail but it was getting rather late and time for us to get off the trails.  As it turned out, the sun did go down and the moon came up and we were able to get pics of both these events.  It gives one a whole different perspective on the trail when you finish it in the dark and unfortunately, I think we missed the best part of it because of the dark so we just may have to do that eastern end of it again - in the daylight!!

Back at the bus, it was time for me to make supper and watch a little TV.  Off to bed and maybe another trail tomorrow.