Spring Break 2015 - March 21 - 26 - Canyonlands (1 Viewer)

[CO_Hunter]

Day 3

camp at Dirty Devil

Day 4


Travis informed us he would be leaving our merry little bunch of 15 so we were down to 11 Travis gave us 5 gallons of water which was great.


We drove out the rest of the way to the highway and aired up and on to Hite to gas up. Glad Travis gave us the water as it was not turned on yet in Hite! We tried to take Elk Mtn road into Beef Basin but got turned back. I busted drifts for a couple of miles. When I finally got stuck and pulled out i decided for one more go at it and was successful at busting through. Luke made it but Eric got stuck. Luke went ahed to scout and I stayed to help Eric. Well Luke got stuck farther down the trail and Eric may as well have been in concrete. I will let Eric fill in. Suffice to say we eventually turned back with our tails between our legs.


Luke found a us a nice camp spot on Forest Service not too far outside of Blanding for the night. I’ll let him explain why he felt compelled to go for a car wash at 9:00 at night in the middle of a trail run .

 

[CO_Hunter]

Day 5


Into Beef Basin from Monticello. We stopped at newspaper rock which in an extensive pictograph panel. Luckily the part of our route that could have been snowy wasn’t that bad and we made it through. We took a few hikes looking for cliff dwellings and stopped at Tower ruin. I was getting a bit nervous about the remainder of the trip so we cut short the hiking/exploring. There some was some amazing scenery along into the Needles District. Bobby’s hole had a few challenges but not too bad. There was one off camber spot on Silver Stairs that kind of freaked me out a bit but didn’t seem to bother anyone else. There was a tight tight turn and steep ledge that I got stuck on, worst I have ever been stuck and had to winch off. With some rock stacking we got Eric up without too much fuss. Had we only known it was a warm up. Then came the challenge..Elephant Hill. I really had no idea how bad it was when I planned the trip.


We got there about dusk and I was able to get past he first of three hairpin turns before it got dark. Eric was second up the hill and it was dark by then. We wound up backing him up the trail so he could make the the turn,no other way, at least with a tailer. Turn 2 not too bad all things considered and turn 3 had a nice relatively large area that required about a 10 point trailer turn/jack knife fest. Luke made it all look easy. Doing all that stuff in the dark takes a lot of trust, what a great bunch of folks to be out with. Props to Peggy as well for spotting me up some parts of Elephant Hill, that was one steep bugger. We later realized Luke and I ran it incorrectly and we all should have backed up to the first turn.


We rolled into camp about 9 or so, what a cool camp (Split Top group site). We built a fire in the cave and hung out for a while.

Newspaper rock

Tower Ruin

Needles district

After some rock stacking and much head scratching etc. Luke says " I don't know what to tell you man...you're stuck" I ended up winching out.

Luke making it look easy


Day 6

Pretty much the drive back. Eric went home I-70 at Grand Junction while Luke and I took Hwy 50.

All in all a total blast, great scenery, people, hikes, drives, etc. Six nights camping, 1400 miles... priceless. It went by way too fast!

None of the pictures do any aspects of the trip justice.

 

[CO_Hunter]

Almost forgot our realtime APRS track. Each red dot represents a packet that got out.

 

[Pops]

Thanks for the great trip report. Glad you all made it safe back home.

 

[EricG]

Great write-ups and a fantastic trip! I'll add to it when I get into our pics.

 

[Stokes]

Nice pics! When did you get the trailer Travis?

 

[Fitzgerald]

Nice pics! When did you get the trailer Travis?

Wish you could have made it made. You guys would have loved it. The trailer isn't mine. Leon was kind enough to allow me to barrow his for the trip. Now I'm hooked, need to get a high clearance trailer of my own.

 

[Fitzgerald]

Great write up Leon, really wished we could have made it the whole trip. Would have been really neat to see all of those pictographs.

Elephant Hill looks like it might have been a bit rough from the 100.




P.S. I'll burn some discs of the 550+ pics we took for all who attended.

 

[Fitzgerald]

A week ago, about this time of night, I was setting up my tent and had this little ditty stuck in my head for some reason .

Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp..............

 

[black95]

A week ago, about this time of night, I was setting up my tent and had this little ditty stuck in my head for some reason .

Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp..............

Hilarious. "He'll save every one of us!"

It's literrally going to be a year before I see the last of that Utah mud. Tried to get more off yesterday. Front ARB was packed with it. we had a conversation about your hundy at the top of elephant hill, it would have been pretty rough for you, I think your length might have been an issue.

 

[Springs505]

It looks like you guys had a blast on this trip. The scenery looks amazing, I can't wait to take in a bit of Utah on the CM trip.

Luke and I took Hwy 50.

Leon or Luke,

Can you tell me how the drive is on HWY 50? I'm looking at taking 50 to avoid the combination of higher speeds and steep pass on I-70, and I am wondering if there is anything significant I should consider on 50 when towing a trailer in an underpowered vehicle?

 

[PWCO70crusier]

The only pass really is Monarch which has some steepness to it, but the rest of the way out to Grand Junction isn't bad.

 

[black95]

Correct Kyle. Monarch pass is very, very long and steep. Driving down is not a power problem, but a braking problem. My camper doesn't have brakes, so it would be eventful going down that pass. The rest of it is relatively flat, and the traffic was light. Road conditions were excellent, don't remember a lot of potholes or deep road ruts.

 

[Fitzgerald]

Took some time for the post-trip cleanup today. Sooooooo much fine Utah dust to deal with. Can't wait to collect more in the future.

 

[CO_Hunter]

I think it is pretty funny we have the same tent, that thing is awesome! Heavy and big but bomber.

 

[EricG]

Still haven't gotten a chance to sit down and post pics & stuff yet. But Leon mentioned the Iridium flare we saw the night by the Dirty Devil river.

Iridium refers to a constellation of 66 active (plus spares) low earth orbit communications satellites. They are typically used for mobile voice & data - think your cell phone, but no coverage outages and rates on the order of $1/minute.

When your position on the earth lines up just right with the position of the satellite and the sun, you get a glint (aka specular reflection) off of the antenna panels. Think of a signalling mirror - little mirror that you can hold in your hand, but you can see it 10s of miles away if you point it right.

These events are called flares, and they're predictable: http://www.heavens-above.com/Iridiu...=-109.946&loc=Doll+House+Road&alt=1561&tz=MST

I'm using the Doll House location because I don't know the Dirty Devil location without some more effort. Interesting thing is that there aren't any very bright flares predicted for March 23. So it might not have been an Iridium - all satellites with flat reflective surfaces can flare, the iridum flares are just more common.

Anyway, that's what we saw Monday night. A fairly dim satellite moving across the sky that momentarily became the brightest object in the sky with the exception of the moon and maybe Venus - it wasn't at all subtle.

 

[SAS]

Great written summary and photos! Thanks for posting.

 

[CO_Hunter]

This should have been the trip song

 

[MrMoose]

This trip looks like a blast. If it ever happens again, I'll have to take some time and get my wheeling fix and come back from NY. Looks like a completely different side of Utah.

I think once I get to NY, the truck will go more the way of an expo rig anyways, so it'll be perfect!

 

[Fitzgerald]

This trip looks like a blast. If it ever happens again, I'll have to take some time and get my wheeling fix and come back from NY. Looks like a completely different side of Utah.

I think once I get to NY, the truck will go more the way of an expo rig anyways, so it'll be perfect!

We all talked about how we must make it back to the area (soooooo much more to see), so I'm sure there will be more trips in the future.

Spent some more time today looking at pics from the trip: