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| Heading to the trail |
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| Down hyway 128 |
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| Along the Colorado River |
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| Our trail for the day |
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| Onion Creek |
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| We crossed it several times |
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| Heading up |
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| Getting into the snow |
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| We came from down there |
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| The summit |
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| Heading down |
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| The nightmare begins! |
I must check the phone to see if I am able to text today as I have been unable to do so for a few days and I thought it was from the cloudy weather but, yesterday was quite clear and I was still unable to get anything sent out. Perhaps the phone is screwed!! Or, maybe it is just our position and will work again once we move - I hope.
We are destined to ride the Onion Creek and Thompson Canyon Trails today and perhaps do the Polar Mesa Trail if time permits. The entire trail ran through incredible scenery and really was Utah at its best. The first part of the trail was graded dirt with numerous crossing of the Onion Creek. Here, at the start of the trail the water was a dirty muddy red color due to the rather unique color of the sand and mud over which it traveled but, as we climbed higher, the water became crystal clear. I can see why one is advised NOT to travel this trail after heavy rainstorms or if one is threatening as we could easily see where the trail was washed away by flash flooding (and I don't mean just a few inches of water either). We could see were debris was lodged several feet up into the trees and surrounding boulders!! This is definitely NOT where you want to be during a flood.
We traveled several shelf roads (my favorite kind - yea, right!!) above the creek that certainly gives one a different view of it however, I still prefer to have all four wheels in the canyon floor!! John loves this though!!
As we climbed higher towards Thompson Canyon, the trail became rocky ledge yet the view was spectacular. It truly is one of the better trails that we have done here with views of the Dolores River Valley, Hideout Canyon and Polar Mesa. As we climbed higher into the upper elevations we started seeing snow on the ground. The trail however remained easily passable and we soon found our way to the Polar Mesa Junction. It is a spur trail so dead ended at the top of he Mesa. We would have to return the same way we went. It was still early, so decided to give it a try. Here again, we were warned not to do this trail if it was wet as the mud becomes quite greasy and treacherous. There are shelf trails and switchbacks going up to the mesa. (Oh good, my favorite kind of trails!!) I may have to call on the Four Powers (God, Allah, Buddha and the Gitchi Manitou) to get us through this!!
Polar Mesa, in its heyday supplied extremely high quality uranium oxide so the warning was that the tailing left behind from these abandoned mines were to be considered radioactive and there is still the danger of radon gas around the tunnels. Also, the risk (as with any abandoned mine site) of cutting a tire on debris at the sites was great so there was also an advisory to watch where you drive. Nails, broken glass and chunks of tin lay in waiting for an unsuspecting tire!!
We started our ascent and although there were bits of snow on the trail, we managed to climb to the mesa. Once at the top, we encountered the greasy condition and decided to turn around and head back down. I don't know what I hate worse, going up shelf roads or going down.
With the switchbacks behind us, we continues towards the end of the trail which incredibly, gave you the impression that you were descending when in fact, we continued to climb. I think the highest elevation we drove through was 8585 feet!! We were definitely "in the snow"!!
We eventually hooked up to the Casselton - Gateway Road, which took us to the Lasal Loop and down to Hwy 128.
Once back on the highway, John decided to travel the few miles further down to the YellowCat Trail and take that home. It would pop us out on Hwy 191, a hop, skip and a jump from the motor home. I mentioned that it was getting dark and we would end up doing the trail in the dark (definitely Not my favorite thing - Hell, I have trouble seeing in the day light, let alone the dark!!) Undaunted, John drives on. In hindsight, this was probably the stupidest decision made. The Yellowcat is full of spur trails and unless one knows exactly where they are headed, should probably not do this trail - especially at night with a limited amount of gas. We poured our first jerry can of gas into the tank a few miles into the trail. By this time, it was dark and we still had a few miles to go. It was too dark to read the map and with these triCisco was but were determined to find our way off the trail to hwy 191 - it was to the west. After several wrong trails and much backtracking and broken motor mount and a screwed up clutch, we poured our last jerry can of gas into the jeep. For some reason, the last one only lasted about 27 miles .... NOT GOOD!! There was now a real possibility that we would be spending the night in the jeep!! Now isn't that just lovely!!
We decided to head back towards Cisco hoping we were lucky enough to take the right trails and have enough gas to actually get there. We did make it but I am sure that by now I have several more grey hairs to attribute to this adventure.
Cisco is a very small village(with no services) and I would say only has two residences. Only one had their lights on. It was eleven o'clock at night. I went up to the house ready to knock on the door and right by my hand was a sign saying that "I have a 357 Magnum". Now that is comforting to see!! These Americans and their guns!! I hope I look friendly. A little old lady came to the door (she didn't look like she could pick up a 357 Magnum - isn't that Dirty Harry's gun!!) and I explained our situation hoping that she may have a bit of gas we could buy or a phone I could use to call Good Sam (they would bring us gas) but alas, she had neither but did say there was another family "just up the hill" (God, did we have enough gas to get "just up the hill"?!!). We drove by the property and did not see any light on so made the decision not the go pounding on their door at midnight (maybe they had a 357 Magnum too!!). Looks like we are staying in the jeep tonight. (P.S. Our phone is dead!! I guess it did not have a full charge when we started out today - what a couple of amateurs - who would suspect that we have been off roading by ourselves for years!!)
Needless to say, we spent a very chilly looong night. I must say that I do pack the jeep for the "just in case" scenarios and we did have candles, food, water, blankets (even if it was just the boys "batman" blankets) and our cold weather gear (skidoo jackets, neck warmers, mitts and toques). I know John always complains that I take too much "stuff" on the trails but I am kind of glad I do!! Too bad I didn't throw in the little propane heater too!! Despite all this stuff, it was still chilly, especially when you can't really move around all that much. Hogan was totally freezing and eventually crawled up on my lap so was sharing my batman blanket. John used Hogan's little baby blanket (again from the boys) for his feet which were now getting cold. "What time is it now".....
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