Thursday, April 17/2014

The sun is shining this morning and it looks like a good day to ride.  Since was are in a service area for the phone (although it is finicky), I did manage to chat with Kay this morning through text messaging.
She has to work in this area so will be joining us for a few days before she has to report to the job site.  Interstate 70 is to be repaved between Green River, Utah and Grand Junction, Colorado and the company that Kay works for got the job.

One of today's trails

Our day started out with us stopping at the big map at the staging area to write down the numbers of the trails we were taking today.  We then headed off and realized about a mile into the trip that we had forgot the camera so I quickly headed back to camp to get it.  Once I was back with John, today's adventure started!!

Sid's Mountain wild life study area
Closed to all motorized vehicles

We travelled through the bench lands and headed into the upper elevations.  This trail is by far the best one yet.  It had several interesting features and was a bit more challenging than yesterday's ride.

In Cane Wash again today only traveling in
the opposite direction

More evidence of erosion

Driving in Cane Wash

This trail was rated as moderate for difficulty

Once we accessed the North Fork of Coal Wash Trail, the travel was along a few shelf trails and consisted of mostly rock.  There was one spot on the trail that was VERY adventurous and John had to come and save me as I managed to get myself into a bit of a bind when I took the wrong path down and was stopped by a rather large bolder.  These boulders had fallen off the face of the mountain that we were trying to traverse and had filled the trail.  It definitely made for an interesting descent!!   This piece of trail was only about 100 feet long but it was challenging!!  With both of us safely past this point we continued to skirt along the edge of the wilderness study area.  It is in this area that I imagine the  big horn sheep make their home as it is indeed mountainous.

The view from the top of the mesa looking back over the
trail we had used to get to this point

Once down off the mountain, we entered another wash and travelled until we reached the Devils Racetrack Trail.  This trail would take us the eight miles back to the interstate and only a few miles from camp.  We started up the trail and were immediately met with slick rock, large rocks and many, many stair steps!!   It was low range and four wheel drive for the next eight miles.  There were two spots on the trail that caused me some grief and once again John had to come to my rescue!!   Damn, I hate that. It truly was a challenging trail and the constant jarring from the rocky terrain certainly took a toll on my already sore shoulders!!  By the time this particular part of the trail was over, I was convinced that Lucifer himself had indeed made this trail and it was so aptly named!!  All in all though, despite my complaints, it was an awesome trail and one that I would certainly do again although I think I would like to tackle it at the beginning of the day instead of the end of the day!!

The Devil's Racetrack trail gave way to the bench lands once again and sandy trails.  Here we found the pictoglyphs on the side of the sandstone rocks left there from previous civilizations.  There were only two and they were interesting but sorely lacking as far as some of the ancient writings we have seen.  Oh well, now we can say we have "been there, done that"!!

John descending a shelf trail along the wildlife
study area

another awesome view

yes, there is a trail down there!!

John headed towards the 100 feet of "nasty" trail

And these are the boulders we had to climb over

This "most difficult" sign was at the end of the trail!!
Would have been nice to have it at the start!!

The arch along side the trail

Animal trails up the side of the hill

An underground spring must feed this area
as this water was flowing…..I should say trickling!!

Slickrock trail.  

pinnacles and domes

The Spring flowers were out

Now that is a looong way down!!

There is trail down there!!

Marie, navigating the rock

Another arch - Dutchmen's Arch

pictoglyphs

The ATV underpass on I-70

Tonight's sunset

Kay had arrived by the time we returned we had returned to camp and she was busy entertaining Hogan.  He was happy to see her.  We spent the rest of the evening chatting and catching up on the gossip!!.  We spent the evening in the trailer with the heater going as it was windy and chilly out.  It was soon time for bed as we have another quad day planned for tomorrow.  More great scenery to come!!