Saturday morning we headed for the north end of the San Rafael Swell… again. This time we were headed for Box Flat and Big Hole Wash, just a bit further down the road from our last San Rafael Swell exploring trips. The day was indeed sunny but the temperatures never got above freezing. We bundled up as warm as we could and headed down the first side road we could find.

The first trail took us up a small canyon or wash heading west. Someone had parked a trailer not far inside the canyon so we referred to the wash as Trailer Wash.

The road didn’t go far up the canyon so we parked the ATVs and hiked further west up the wash for about a mile. The orange and white sandstone walls of the canyon really weren’t the kind of strata that we would usually expect to find natural arches in but you never knew until you looked. It was a good chance to get warmed up and enjoy the area. Out here, you never know what you might find.

When we finally topped out the end of the wash, we tried to hike to the top of the closest hill to get a look around. The view from the hills didn’t let us see anything interesting so we looped around to a short side canyon of Trailer Wash and dropped back into the canyon for the hike back to the bikes.

We then tried a similar wash a short distance to the south with the same rock strata and also running east and west. This wash had a stock pond near the mouth so I called it Pond Wash. Again we didn’t find much of anything interesting and had soon exited the wash again.

Back on the main road, we hit the end of the maintained road and struck out on a jeep trail heading east along the edge of Big Hole Wash.

About the time that the wash started bending to the north, the trails quit but not before we had spied a class “C” natural arch (defined as big enough to drive a jeep through) just below us.

We managed to find a crack in the cliffs to scramble down and take a few pictures of this arch which we called Big Hole Wash Arch… naturally.

I scouted around the cliff bottom and found ATV tracks near a camp site. I also found a “Wide Gear” tent pole bundle that someone had dropped. Someone was going to be upset the next time they try to set up their tent because they were going to be missing a pole.

Back to terminus of the main road, we too another trail that headed south and south east to before dropping off into Box Flat. We had been down this road years ago on our way to Spring Canyon Arch but I didn’t remember the trail until we were bumping over the ribbed sandstone. If I remember correctly, traversing this trail in my original Ford Explorer took a long, long time. Dropping down onto Box Flat required building rock ramps and we spent some time taking pictures of an extra large spider that we disturbed. This time, the trail was just a bumpy but only took a few minutes on ATVs.

The main trail on Box Flat, heads south and enters a short break in the surrounding cliffs. However, now the road ends at a Wilderness Study Area which is heavily fenced to keep people from driving around the barriers.

We had already been out there years ago so we weren’t too disappointed. Instead we took another trail heading west to yet another Wilderness Study Area sign.

The road then turns north to make a complete loop. Here the cliffs were perfect for natural arches, yet we found none.

Since the shadows were growing long, we knew that the temperatures were going to be dropping quickly. We wisely decided to head back early. By the time we had trailered the ATVs again, we were frozen even though the sun was still up.

ATV mileage for the day = 16.5 miles.

By the time we got back to Price Utah, we could see big storm clouds over the mountain that we had to drive over. Though there was a little snow on the road over Soldier Summit, we really didn’t have any problems until we got to Billie’s Mountain in Spanish Fork Canyon. Here the snow plows were busy trying to keep the snow from piling up too high. From there until the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, it was “white knuckle” driving with multiple vehicles crawling down the road behind us. Utah valley had only received a skiff of snow but by morning we had another four inches. (That was cutting it close.)

Winter has arrived and my ATV trips are probably suspended until warmer weather returns… in three or four months.

AHHHH!!!!

Saturday morning we headed back to the north end of the San Rafael Swell and drove east of the head of Calf Canyon, which is where we ended our ATV exploring three weeks earlier. This time we took the south fork and parked on Big Flat, next to a pickup truck that had obviously unloaded a single ATV and headed out the same dirt road that we wanted to explore.

After exploring different trails heading southwest, we ended up on the rim of the cliffs overlooking the San Rafael River with Assembly Hall Butte to the west.

After a little walking around, we were able to see what looked like an obvious natural arch (lots of water stains running down the back wall) in the cliffs to the northwest, across a side canyon. It wouldn’t be possible to see this arch from the Mexican Mountain road far below us. Nor would you be able to see it by hiking up the side canyon from below. Even exploring the cliffs above the arch would not allow you to see it. As far as I could tell, you would only be able to see it by hiking out to the edge where we were. Because of the way it was hiding in the cliffs, I called it Ambush Arch.

I was trying to locate the jeep trail that would take us to some Indian pictographs located somewhere at the southern end of Prickly Pear Flat. However, finding the right trail proved difficult since the roads had all changed since our US 7.5″ topographical maps were printed in 1983. We actually ended up going clear back to the Explorer and trying the dirt roads further north off of the Big Flat road. After several attempts, we ended up back on our first dirt road again.

David thought he saw a trail that we hadn’t tried yet back down the main trail so we headed back to the southwest again. After climbing up the rocky south side of a ridge, we then took a trail which descended the opposite north side of the short ridge. On the way down we stopped to pump up one of David’s ATV front tires which seemed to have developed a slow leak. As we were finishing up, a single ATV rider appeared on the trail coming from the opposite direction. This turned out to be Dennis Udink with his dog Torrey, riding in a padded carrier mounted on the front of the ATV.  (See response to this post.) He stopped and confirmed that we were now on the right trail and that we could find the Indian pictographs at the end of the trail by making our way down the cliffs. Since the daylight was quickly disappearing, we hurried to the end of the trail, parked the ATVs and made our way down the cliffs on a slope that looks like it could have been cut by machinery for cattle or jeep access to the lower flats.

Once on the lower flats, we hiked south along the cliff base. At one point there was a small double alcove high on the cliff wall that seemed a reasonable location for ancient Indians to inhabit (except for the fact that there was no water supply nearby). I climbed up high enough to see that the double alcove had a small hole between them which meant that the alcove was actually a class D natural arch. However, there were no pictographs.

By the time I had explored along the cliffs, I was around the corner of the cliffs where I could see a fence structure along some cliffs further to the southeast. This fence structure is of the same type that we have seen the BLM build around other petroglyph/pictograph sites. I climbed down to the flats again and we hurried to the nearby fenced area, arriving just as the sun disappeared over the hill.

This was a wonderful pictograph site. At one time in the distant past, it was even better. However, time has not been kind to the rock art with much of the different scenes simply missing as the sandstone flaked off over the years. Cattle rubbing against the lower parts probably helped to accelerate the process. However, the red painted pictographs that were left were fantastic!

The most interesting scene seemed to involve a large dog figure with two white spots on the sides. The dog figure had a collar and seemed to be attacking a group of people with the main figure of the group with his hands raised high in the air. The dog may have been controlled by another group of people pictured behind the fierce dog figure.

Because the area lacked a year round water source, this site would not have been used for habitation which means this was a hunting camp and/or a ceremonial site. However a hunting camp would usually include figures of mountain sheep or mule deer and this site had neither. I am guessing that the area was ceremonial and the pictographs depicted an actual event that was important to the ancient inhabitants.

By the time we had taken evening pictures it was time to hike back to our ATVs at the top of the cliffs. It was then a rather chilly ride back to the vehicle in the dark. Riding in the dark was something we were getting used to but I’m glad we didn’t have too far to go.

Total ATV mileage for the day: 28.2 miles.

Friday morning we threw our bags in the Ford Explorer and headed south. My idea of the perfect getaway involved going to southern Utah. My wife didn’t care as long as it was out of town. Perfect!

We drove leisurely towards Escalante Utah, pausing for a few pictures in Scipio, Loa and Teasdale Utah.

After passing through Boulder Utah, we crossed the Escalante River and turned east on the Old Sheffield Road. We then spent the rest of the day driving to the furthest extent of the Old Sheffield Road and exploring every side road.

My goal was to find out how many of the roads and jeep trails were left now that the Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument people had finished closing trails that they deemed “unnecessary”. I was surprised to find that the main roads were still open as well as a few side roads that were necessary for the few ranchers that were still running cows on the legacy public ranges. The main Old Sheffield Road was terminated to vehicle traffic several miles short of its previous end. I decided that this wasn’t too serious. However, I discovered later that I had missed one side jeep trail off of the road that ends at the northwest side of Red Breaks. I’ll have to go back some time and check out that road.

This area turned out to be littered heavily with Moqui marbles which are iron concretions that can form in sandstone. I finally got to show my wife what they looked like.

With the day light ending before 6 PM, that was about all we had time for that day. We drove to Escalante for dinner and a room at the Circle D motel.

Saturday morning after a nice omelete and French toast breakfast, we drove out the badly wash-boarded Hole-in-the-Rock road for ten miles and took the Harris Wash road heading east. Again, my desire was to see the terminus of the main road and every side jeep trail.

We drove the main Harris Wash road east and then northeast, past the Harris Wash trailhead and across Harris Wash to the north.

Not long after the trail turned to the east again, we got stuck in deep sand. By backing up and pulling forward until I could feel the wheels start to sink, we loaded the tracks with dead brush and were able to progress back about four feet at a time. I was finally able to grap enough traction to suddenly propel us out of the sand. Since my wife was pushing from the front, this left her doing a “face plant” in the sand as I backed up. (Thank goodness for soft sand and an amused wife.)

As it turned out, this was exactly where I needed to park anyway. I wanted to do some hiking up into the sandstone hills to look for a unique stone structure that I had heard was up there. My wife wanted to sit in the sun and enjoy the quiet. (I’m not sure what made me the most nervous, leaving her alone or going hiking alone.)

I headed off up a sandstone bowl that quickly climbed to a peak. The sandstone was very similar to the rock veins of the popular Coyote Buttes and “The Wave” area just over the Utah/Arizona border. However, this rock was not so colorful. Still I spent quite a while hunting for pictures that showed the sculptured rock and wispy clouds above. For the first hour or so, everything was perfect.

As I climbed towards the highest point of the peak, I was surprised at the number of natural tanks on the sides of the peak. I had to hike out to the steeper edges to make sure none of the deep tanks had broken through to make natural arches. I didn’t find any. Nor did I find any tanks with any water still in them. They would all probably be full in the spring though.

As I approached the highest point, I hiked around to the steeper east side were I found the rock structure I was looking for. For a lack of another name, I called it “The Quag Pit”, a quag being a water pipe used in the middle east (and by marijuana smokers) and the root of the word “quagmire”.

I was glad I had a camera and took pictures because I really don’t think I could adequately describe The Quag Pit. It is a large eggshell shaped rock cone stuck on the side of sandstone cliffs, with part of the top eggshell shaped rock missing as if someone had knocked the top off to get at the egg inside. This allowed a view into the center where a large core rock sat in a sea of yellow mud. (Yoke?) The inside is large enough for a small house where the center core rock sat. By tossing a rock it, I confirmed that it was indeed mud that filled the bottom. I image that the mud was very deep since there was no place where mud and water could pore out. I also noticed that some Moqui steps had been carved in the steep wall at one end. I don’t know if this was done by ancient Indians to access scarce moisture or if they were carved by more modern people to afford an escape path for anyone stupid enough to end up down there. (I could tell that even the shallow Moqui steps would not have been enough to get me out of there. It was still too steep for most people to climb.)

This bizarre geological curiosity turned out to be MUCH larger than I expected. With no evidence of volcanic influence, I was left wondering how this could naturally form. Some kind of bubble in the sandstone, I suppose.

Very odd.

As I was attempting to take pictures from different view points, the weather turned cloudy, cold and very windy. It was like Mother Nature didn’t like me being there. I finished climbing to the top for a look around before descending the west flank into another sandstone bowl and following it south out of the hills. This let me strike the road not far from where I had parked.

Back at the Explorer, I found my wife had retreated into the vehicle to avoid the wind and was sound asleep. We turned around and were headed back down the trail when the clouds passed and the sun came out again.

The only other major trail that we could locate took us east to Little Valley where the road ended at the edge of a wash that had eroded the bank and road away. We passed only one other road without exploring it. It appeared to head east towards the Escalante River drainage in the far distance. Perhaps I will be back another day to explore it.

Since my wife had obligations on Sunday, we headed home again arriving about 10 PM.

I found the weekend to be most enjoyable. My wife says she will let me know the next time she is ready to go on another of my “weekend getaways”.

We parked the Explorer near the intersection at the head of Buckhorn Draw and proceeded east on county road 401 until we could head the side canyons on the northeast side of Buckhorn Draw. We then proceeded to drive the canyon rim trails along the top of these side canyons.

The first trail took us to the Morrison Knudsen Tunnels (or MK Tunnels). This area was used as a test conducted for the Department of Defense between 1948 and 1952. They drilled a tunnel and then set off large explosives nearby to measure the damage nearby. We didn’t look for the tunnel but there were two large explosion craters plus a cave in crater in the short canyon. It also looked like they had recently brought in earth moving equipment to rework the area, perhaps even burying the tunnels for safety purposes.

Interesting.

The next side canyon was to the southeast. We ended up driving down both sides so we could locate a class C natural arch. When we drove down the northwest side, we noticed two smaller class D arches, one of which was in the base of one of the sandstone towers called “The Conquistadors”.

We had to drive down the southeast side of the canyon, almost to the mouth into Buckhorn Draw, until we were able to locate the class C double arch that I had been calling Cave Arches. It was located on the opposite cliff wall but the best view was from the southeast canyon rim. Here we found quite a number of rifle shell casings. (By enlarging the photographs that I took that day, I could see that they were shooting the rock that created the natural arch across the canyon. Luckily, other than many impact holes, it really didn’t do much damage to the arch structure.)

The ATV trail that we had been following, seemed to be a designated trail defined by occasional red wooden arrows. We continued to follow the trail which wound along the canyon rims and allowed wonderful views into Buckhorn Wash and a number of smaller side canyons.

By late afternoon, the clouds had started to bunch up to the point of making photography difficult. There was no real chance of rain — just clouds.

By this time we had hit the edge of Calf Creek, which is a major side canyon which extends for miles to the northeast. With binoculars we could see an ATV trail running along the bottom of Calf Canyon that we didn’t know about. We made note of this trail for a future ATV trip.

We also found a nice class B natural arch that we did not know about.

We followed the north rim of Calf Canyon since that was going to get us back to the county road again anyway. When we were finally able to drive around the head of Calf Canyon, the day was drawing to a close.

We stopped here to look for some Indian pictographs that I knew were nearby. I ended up climbing down into the canyon and hiking down canyon for several hundred yards before I found them on a cliff wall near two small alcoves. I quickly took several pictures in practically dark conditions before heading back to the ATVs.

Back on the ATV’s, we located a nearby dirt road that took us back to the country gravel road. It was then a dusty 8.2 miles ride back to the Explorer, in the dark. The road must have been somewhat downhill because I noticed that at several points, I was traveling at 37 mph. That is probably the fastest I have been able to get my ATVs to move… probably faster than is safe.

It was an easy drive back to Utah County that evening. It helps that the days are so short now that it is dark by 6 PM. Short days sure cut into day trips to southern Utah though.

Total ATV mileage for the day: 38.2 miles.

Because my wife and I had taken David out for dinner for his birthday the night before, we didn’t get a real early start Saturday morning. David and I drove down to the Behind-the-Rocks area south of Moab and unloaded the ATVs. We had been here two months earlier but it was much warmer then. We were wearing coats and hats for the 45 degree high temperature. However, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so it still felt nice in the sun.

We drove west until we could intersect a trail heading north where we attempted to drive down the Behind-the-Rocks trail from the other end. The last time we were on this trail, we turned around when it got too rough. We thought by coming in from the other end, we could bypass a lot of the problem areas. We were wrong.

The trail was just as rough from the west end. At a steep and rocky ravine, we encountered two Jeep Cherokees trying to navigate the crossing. It was ugly. We managed to get around them and barely negotiated the trail ourselves. They were still trying to figure out how to get up the north side when we gave up watching them and headed down the trail again.

We ended up parking in exactly the same place we did on our last trip when we went looking for Back of Beyond Arch. We tried the hike again but took another fork in the canyon this time. As it turned out, this fork was the main canyon which we should have taken last time (two months ago). After some hiking we found ourselves at the bottom of a small dry fall that looked very familiar. After building a quick ladder out of a dead cedar tree trunk, we were able to climb up to the next level where we finally located Back of Beyond Arch… again. (We were there 10+ years or so ago.)

Back on the ATVs again, we continued eastward on the trail since we figured going forward was now the easiest trail. There was still one area where I almost lost it while climbing a steep rock. David had the same problem on another rock.

Back on the main dirt road, not far from where we had parked the Explorer and ATV trailer, we again headed west directly into a lowering sun. This time we drove almost all the way to Hunter Canyon.

The sun was now setting and we didn’t have much time to locate a 30 foot natural arch that we knew was in the area. We quickly hiked to the edge of a series of canyons and tried up and down the canyon before we decided that we weren’t going to easily find it. I even hiked to the head of the canyon to investigate some deep alcoves just in case one of them was actually the arch. (Later we found that the arch was actually located in the side canyon further to the west. We will get it next time!)

 By the time David and I met back at the ATVs, the sun had set and it immediately started to get cold. We bundled up in coats, hats and gloves before starting the long ride back to the Explorer in the dark. I had purchased a set of clear goggles so I didn’t freeze my eyeballs at 30 miles per hour. Still, we were quite chilled by the time we rode back to the Explorer, loaded up the ATVs and crawled back in the vehicle almost an hour later.

Total ATV mileage for the day = 37.6 miles.

Saturday morning found David and I heading south with the ATV’s. We drove down to Green River Utah where we gassed up and stocked up with a little food. We then headed east down I-70 freeway to the next freeway exit, and then headed south to the White Wash sand dunes.

In July, when we last visited the sand dunes, we were practically the only visitors and all previous vehicle tracks had disappeared because of wind or storm. Saturday, there were RV’s and campers everywhere, with their various sand vehicles. However, the area is large enough that we only ran into a couple of ATVs in our immediate area, only once or twice.

The day was partially cloudy but warm. We could see potential storm clouds in the distance but they didn’t seem to be moving too fast. The cottonwood trees that stuck out of the sand dunes, were turning golden with the fall weather. It was wonderful!

We spent some time just spinning around in the sand dunes, trying our new tires in the deep sand. We found that having some tread on the tires significantly increases traction. (Duh!)

The canyons that we wanted to explore were actually east of the sand dunes so we rode back down to the wash and headed east and the south around the dunes. Every side canyon that we encountered, we either rode up the existing jeep trail or stopped and hiked up as far as we could. All of the side canyons ended at dry falls where we then turned around. After about six of these side canyon hikes, I was starting to get tired. You can only scramble over rock fields and climb through brush for so long before the legs and back start to complain.

However, the area was fantastic! While the sandstone wasn’t exactly the right type for the formation of natural arches, we had found arches in this kind of sandstone before so the possibility was always there.

We had pretty much explored the main side canyons all the way up the main canyon until even the main canyon became narrow somewhere southeast of the sand dunes. We then hit a part of the trail where it jumps up to a higher level via a steep sandstone ramp. Inasmuch as I have rather strong feelings about attempting steep climbs in remote locations (ever since I rolled an ATV in Oak Creek), I voted against attempting it. We walked up the trail for a way and it really didn’t look like the trail could continue much further anyway.

We turned around and headed back down the canyon, exploring a couple of small canyons on the way back. By the time we got back to the sand dunes, we could see rain clouds heading our way. However, it was still early and the first back of clouds didn’t look like the rain was actually hitting the ground… yet. We decided to drive around to the southwest side of the dunes to explore that area.

Southwest of the dunes is mostly slickrock sandstone which can be slow riding on ATVs. We soon hit a deep ravine that ran all the way to the south cliffs and kept us from continuing to the southwest. Instead we headed east again to check out a narrow canyon. We stopped the ATVs at the mouth of the slot canyon but noticed that dirt bike motorcycles had driving in. We walked up the canyon and found that it soon opened up into another sand playground, which apparently is only available to dirt bikes. Interesting.

 By this time, the clouds were looking much more threatening so we began to pick our way back to the comfort of the deep sand.

We then hurried down the White Wash and were soon confronted by a line of dirt bikes heading the opposite direction at full speed. There was some quick maneuvering to avoid collisions, which is always interesting when flying down the wash at 30 mph.

By the time we climbed the hill back to our parking place, there were a few drops falling and the drive back to the freeway was in the dark because of the dark clouds. Still we only used the windshield wipers a couple of times on the drive home.

Green River Utah was only one freeway exit away but we were groggy from a long day on the bikes. We were going to need caffeinated drinks and a hamburger to get us home that night. However, as I pulled off on the second Green River freeway exit, I encountered the lights of an eighteen wheeler heading right for us!

AHHH!!!

THAT will wake you up quick!

After a quick evaluation of the situation, I decided that it was the big rig that was in error so I began to flash my lights at him. As we pulled up next to him, I yelled out that window to let him know that he was going the wrong way. He yelled back an acknowledgment and I noticed that he had an eastern European accent. We continued into Green River and noticed that he was backing slowly back down the freeway ramp.

We made it home in fairly good time that night, though the last hour was a real struggle to stay awake.

It was another excellent day! (Even if we didn’t find any natural arches.)

ATV mileage for the day = 30.1 miles.

From Emery Utah, we drove the Emery cutoff down Miller Canyon so we could get a look at the Coal Cliffs in daylight hours.

Once we hit the I-70 freeway heading west, we pulled off at the Ranch Exit just one exit past the rest stop that we had stopped at last week. We parked the Explorer a short distance down the dirt road and headed south on the ATV’s.

The tires on the ATV’s had been getting a pretty good beating this summer. We had already replaced the front tires on both bikes and we finally had to replace the back tires just this month since they were getting way too slick to be reliable in the kind of country we traveled in. We had already had our share of tire problems the past three trips with a flat tire on an ATV, one on the trailer and then one on the Explorer last week. It was nice to be running on new reliable tires.

New tires didn’t help in the dusty road we were on though. It was kind of like driving in light grey powered sugar. I had to give David a half mile head start just to stay out of his dust cloud.

Several miles down the road we turned east for a mile and a half where we could then take the jeep trail heading south. However, several miles down this trail, we took the wrong fork which took us east along the north lip of Cat Canyon.

We turned around when we hit the main Emery County road that dropped down into Cat Canyon. This is where we turned around last week when we were heading in the opposite direction.

Once back to the fork in the trail, we took the other trail which soon crossed the low end of Cat Canyon, crossed Dizzy Trail Canyon and headed out through the cedar hills to the south. David was quite a distance in front of me so after a while I really got into a driving “groove” — an extremely focused and fast riding mode that can REALLY be fun on the right trails.

Many miles later, the trail headed up a wash and soon bumped out in some sagebrush flats. Ahead were the top rim cliffs overlooking Reds Canyon and Poor Canyon and the end of the trail next to a tall rock outcrop with a class “c” natural arch hole in it.

Wait a minute, this looks familiar.

That is Horizon Arch and we have been here before!

After parking my ATV and hiking around to the east side of Horizon Arch, I caught up with David and we tried to figure out how we got here before. Neither of us remembered driving in on that jeep trail and that is the only way to get there. It was probably 10 years or so ago that we first visited this arch.

We took some “fresh” pictures and I checked out some cowboy signatures on the cliffs near the arch. One of the signature was for Allen and was dated 1935. Another was dated 2007. Hmm…

We also took a few pictures of Poor Canyon and were glad that we couldn’t see any natural arches down there. It would be a real struggle to climb into that canyon.

We checked out some side roads in the area but they didn’t take us anywhere interesting.

Soon we had to head back as the afternoon sun quickly dove towards the horizon.

About the time I crossed Cat Canyon, I noticed David wasn’t behind me so I stopped and waited. When he didn’t show up, I turned around and headed back. I soon found him slowly driving down the trail with a nearly flat rear tire. (One of the new ones!)

Many places on the trail was through a lot of shale, which could be sharp if it was hit just right. I shouldn’t have been surprised that we got a flat tire out there. But they were NEW tires!

We stopped and tried to get the air compressor to work so we could patch the hole. The air compressor had apparently taken too many bumps. It wasn’t going to pump anymore. David ended up limping the rest of the way back to the Explorer on a partially inflated back tire.

It was dark by the time we got back to Emery Utah and we stopped in Castledale (again) to use the air compressor to confirm that we had a hole in the ATV tire. Oh well.

Total ATV miles for the day: 45.7 miles.

Just before hitting the San Rafael Swell, we stopped at a Rest Stop where years earlier, we had located a small class D natural arch now called Rest Stop Arch.This was near the head of Muligan Wash.

A little further down the road, we parked just south of the I-70 freeway in an ATV unload area. We then headed east and then south down the Golden Globe and Link Flats road. The road crosses Devils Canyon and quickly becomes a rocky jeep trail. I could have driven it in my Ford Explorer Sport but it would have been a very slow ride as I negotiated over the rock obstacles. However, on ATVs the ride was much faster and more enjoyable.

Along the road, we were passed by much quicker dirt bikers. (ATV’s may be faster than jeeps, but we are turtles compared to motocross dirt bike.)

Also along the way, we passed a small herd of wild horses. From the many tracks in the area, this seems to be a popular area for wild horses. I even noticed one set of horse tracks that showed that they had horse shoes. Either someone had turned their horse loose or a horse had gone rogue and joined a wild herd.

The biggest problem with riding ATVs in an area with wild horses is their tendency to “mark” their territory (usually in the middle of a trail) with horse droppings that grow taller and taller over the years. After a while, this becomes a formidable trail “obstacle”. (Insert joke here.)

We stopped at “Shepherds End” to examine a marble monument that documented the killing of a sheepherder back in the sheep vs. cattle war era of the 1900’s. Then we drove a short distance down the road to the Copper Globe.

The Copper Globe refers to an old copper mine on the side of a sandstone dome. The Copper Globe Mine has long since been abandoned but there are still miner’s shacks and open mine shafts which makes the area interesting to visit. Here we caught up with the dirt bikers who turned out to be a bunch of 25 to 30 year-olds from the Salt Lake and Ogden area.

We wandered around the mine area for a while and I even found a couple of Indian petroglyphs on the nearby cliff. I wonder if Indians utilized the ground level copper deposits somehow.

We also drove around to the south side of the sandstone dome where we found more miner shacks and a single shaft that is now surrounded by a chain link fence to keep people out and to keep idiots from falling in.

Back on the main road, we continued south to Link Flats at the edge of Reds Canyon. Here we drove the side roads that took us out to wonderful lookout points overlooking Reds Canyon and fantastic vistas of the area. Here we could look far to the south where we imagined Seger Hole and the vistas we enjoyed on a previous ATV trip. This was just a different view of the same areas of the interior San Rafael Swell.

One of the roads took us through a cut in the cliffs and out on a ledge overlooking Reds Canyon. We could then ride a road along the ledge until the ledge ran out at a sheer cliff.

As we parked the ATVs so we could walk over to the edge, I noticed that there was a bag under a nearby cedar tree. It turned out to be a RMI food pack that someone had stashed. The plastic was weathered but still viable. I’m guessing that it had been there for at least a year. I don’t know how anyone would end up there needing emergency food though. Interesting.

Once we had explored most of the side trails, we ended up taking the trail west down Cat Canyon. This was mostly a drive down the dry sand and shale creek bed. By then, the shadows were growing long (I hate these short fall days!) so we turned around when the road left the canyon floor and joined a nice Emery County road heading west. It was obvious that this road was much better than the one we had come in on. This was definitely a better access road into Link Flats.

On the way back, we stopped at an area on the north slope that included a number of Ponderosa Pine trees, which seemed out of place for the area. There we found an old collapsed metal dam that they had built to hold back rain runoff water, to use to water cattle. It had collapsed many years earlier but we were surprised to see how heavy the metal was. I would have been quite an effort to build this way out in this remote area.

It took about 45 minutes to hurry back to the vehicle and we got there just as the sun was setting. Total ATV mileage for the day: 36.6 miles.

On the way back home, we took the Emery cutoff road which we had never driven before. It was a slower road but it cut off a number of miles. We need to go back that way in the daylight to get a better look.

Before we arrived in Castledale, we found that we had a flat tire on the Explorer. We limbed into Castledale and parked next to a Maverick station so we could use their air compressor. The tire leaked badly when pumped up so we used the Maverick lights to change the tire.

After a stop in Price for dinner and another in Spanish Fork Canyon for a nap, we got home about midnight.

Another excellent day exploring another corner of Utah!

Saturday was forecast to be only partly cloudy as a new storm was not scheduled to move until Sunday, and that was good enough for me. However, after other issues arose Friday evening and early Saturday morning, I didn’t get much sleep Friday night. By the time I hooked up the ATV trailer and picked up David, we knew we were getting a late start on the day. We decided to explore Wild Horse Creeek just west of Goblin Valley State Park, which would probably only be a partial day ride on the ATVs.

With clouds moving in from the south, it was overcast all the way to Wild Horse Creek and all day while we were in Horse Canyon. It even looked like it could rain a bit when we were on our way out again.

We parked the Explorer near the head of Wild Horse Creek and passed quite a few campers who were sheltering around the base of the mesa. On the east side of the mesa was Goblin Valley but the west side also sported some stone “goblin” formations and seems to be a popular place to camp.

We unloaded and headed south down Wild Horse Creek. This was a fairly easy ride and we were glad to see that it was dry even after the storm earlier in the week. (Nearby Hanksville supposedly got .8 inches of rain — a LOT for Utah.)

About four miles down the canyon we passed a pickup truck that had just turned around and headed back out again. The trail did get a little rocky there. We didn’t see any recent vehicle tracks in front of us for the rest of the day.

The canyon didn’t seem like the kind of strata that would contain natural arches and we were encouraged when a think layer of sandstone appeared further down the canyon. Suddenly, there were possibilities of finding natural arches — but we didn’t see any. In fact, finding anything to take pictures of in the canyon, was a little challenging. Especially when the gray skies also hindered picture taking.

The ride down the canyon was pleasant enough. It is kind of exciting not knowing what you are going to see around the next bend. Most of the riding was in the dry stream bed with occasional signs of the road heading up over a hill. We had to stop several times to move rocks or check out an obstacle. Mostly the ride was just uneventful.

After about ten miles, we hit the confluence of the Muddy River (which will turn into the Dirty Devil River not far away near Hanksville Utah). Here we encountered some water and mud which proceeded to bury David and his ATV. I had to use the wench on my ATV to assist and almost couldn’t pull him out again.

The Muddy River was only about six inches deep and a dozen feet wide but it is a year around flowing stream coming out of the San Rafael Swell. Therefore, the mud along the banks is very unstable and can be troublesome/dangerous for hikers. We decided not to explore further and instead, headed back up the canyon again.

By the time we arrived back at the Explorer and trailer, it was cool and breezy with the sun peaking out under the clouds on the rim of the nearby San Rafael Swell. We probably could have ridden around for another hour but there really wasn’t anything to see in the area. Instead, we just headed for home again.

My wife was quite surprised to see me home so early and immediately jumped to the conclusion that something serious and bad had happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a scary story prepared so I lost a perfect opportunity. Oh well… next time.

Total ATV mileage for the day = 24.1 miles.

About half way up the dugway cut, we found Posey Trail Arch, a large class ‘C’ cliff handle arch, high on the cliff above us.

We also noticed some Indian pictographs in an alcove above the road but I couldn’t see a good way to access them.

The trail up the dugway was rough with a lot of loose rock. I wouldn’t want to take my Ford Explorer up there but it wasn’t too bad on the ATVs. Just when I thought we had reached to top, we entered a long alley cut deep into the sandstone. This was VERY rough and even tricky in a few spots.

Once on the top of Comb Ridge, we took a well traveled dirt road south. It was obvious that the main access for this road was from the east side of Comb Ridge since we saw several cars in the area before the day was over. (There was no way they were going to make it up the dugway!)

The road travels near the spine of Comb Ridge and is called the Posey Trail. It ends not far from the highway cut through the ridge and just above the Butler Wash Indian ruins. We explored several dirt roads on the way back that took us along the top of Butler Wash but we didn’t find anything interesting along the way.

We then drove east to the head of Butler Wash and hiked down to some Indian ruins called Tower House Ruins. There are not large ruins but there is one very well preserved square tower.

If we would have had more time and energy, it would have been nice to do some more hiking down Butler Wash. Instead we climbed back to the top and continued on our ATVs.

We explored some dirt roads heading north to Whiskers Wash but it didn’t look too interesting from our viewpoint. The area we were in was called “Cheese and Raisins” but except for a minor rock spire, it wasn’t that interesting. Instead we head back down the Comb Ridge dugway.

On the way down the dugway, we again stopped to take pictures since the light had changed. We noticed two hikers proceeding down a ledge above us, when I heard one of them whistling. They were obviously looking for Indian petroglyphs and pictographs but I don’t think they knew about the pictographs that we could see from the dugway.

At the bottom of the dugway, we took the dirt road to the north which took us further up Comb Wash. Here we could access several side canyons to the west. I climbed into one of them but couldn’t see anything of interest.

The second one included Comb Wash Cave, a very large alcove cave but NOT a natural arch.

By this time, it was time to head back again. Total ATV mileage for the day: 33 miles.

After two days on ATVs, we were tired and decided to head for home.We stopped only long enough to take a picture of Hotel Rock and to pick up caffeinated sodas.

From this part of Utah, it was a six hour drive to get to Utah Valley and our own beds. That would also give us all day Sunday to rest up before going back to work on Monday. (Talk about sleeping in church!)