However, Friday morning was seriously overcast in both northern Utah and the Moab area. So much for enjoying a day of sunshine.

We went anyway.

After a couple hours of driving, we found ourselves hiking the north rim of Mineral Canyon, northwest of Moab Utah.

Cloudy or not, it felt REALLY good to be out and hiking the desert canyons again.

We first visited Split Top Arch, which was a small class ‘D’ arch which cannot be seen from the canyon floor.

Next we visited Swallows Nest Arch which turned out to be a class ‘C’ arch.

We then encountered Mineral Canyon Arch which seems much larger when viewed from the top which is closer to the arch that where we could view it from the canyon floor. This was a very large class ‘B’ natural arch.

We then made our way over to the northeast and a side canyon to Mineral Canyon. We were looking for something called “Double Doohickey Arch” but we never did find it. It must be fairly small or not in the correct area of the canyon.

November days are short and we didn’t have enough time to visit other arches in the area before darkness fell. Nothing to do in the dark but head for home again.

(By the way, besides a little rain on Saturday morning, there was no Winter storm. By Sunday afternoon, the warm sun was out again.)

On the way out of Vernal, we stopped briefly along the highway to take a few pictures of a class ‘D’ natural arch we called Highway 40 Arch.

I could then justify (in my mind) taking a day off but not going arch hunting in southern Utah.

Sadness.

David and I drove down to Arches National Park on Saturday morning and spent the day in the park.

Mostly we were hiking the Landscape Arch/Navajo Arch trail area. We were in no hurry and had no destination other than to just enjoy the area.

We were glad to see Landscape Arch is still standing. The Law of Physics and gravity says it shouldn’t be. David and I believe there has to be rebar in there somewhere.

We were surprised to see that the new trail created to bypass the Wall Arch collapse was significantly steep and could be slick.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that hiking in Arches National Park also meant rubbing shoulders with the “Great Unwashed” hordes of tourists. (Doesn’t anyone speak English anymore?) I grew frustrated waiting for a pack of tourists to move out of my picture only to immediately have another herd wander into the camera frame.

Even so, it was a nice chance to get out. October days are short so soon we were heading back to the parking lot and then heading for home again.

We were heading to Fuller Bottoms from the north road but found the road greatly impacted by recent monsoon rains. We rode the ATVs in to Fuller Bottoms after parking about four miles away at a coral.

At Fuller Bottoms we found the road crossing the San Rafael River at Fuller Bottom completely destroyed and impassible.

We rode back to the vehicle and loaded up the ATVs again. We then drove around to the west access to the San Rafael from Ferron Utah. We parked in the Red Ledges area and took the ATVs north towards Fuller Bottoms. However, we took the east jeep trail along the west rim of Salt Wash.

From the west rim, we could see Triple Arch near the east rim, just across the canyon.

I was surprised to see that all of the side jeep trails had been closed to all vehicles including the only access into Salt Wash. Now you have to walk down the jeep trail.

We found the south side of Fuller Bottoms just as messed up as the north side. It will be quite a while before vehicles can travel that road again.

We drove back to the vehicle on the main Fuller Bottoms road and found we still had several hours of riding we could do. From the vehicle we started exploring the roads eastward and ended up in Coal Wash. This trail was also impacted from recent rains which left the trail strewn with large boulders.

By the time we passed Dripping Springs and reached the main access trail in and out of Coal Wash, the engine on my ATV was knocking badly. We ended up towing it back to the Explorer just to make sure we didn’t do major damage to the engine.

It was another great day on the trail. However, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much if I had known that my ATV was in for a $1500 repair bill.

Thursday my family and I loaded up the Explorer (along with my brother, David) and headed for the family cabin north of Vernal, near Grizzly Ridge. My son and his wife followed later and brought my ATVs on the trailer. We spent the next couple of days enjoying the green and cool mountain and exploring the nearby ATV trails.

Saturday, David and I took the ATVs south on an ATV trail just below Grizzly Ridge, all the way to the Little Brush Creek drainage. On the south side of Grizzly Ridge, we were surprised at the number of ATV trails that honeycombed the area.

We took one trail down to the Little Brush Creek Cave and spent some time walking around the cave area.

We then took the main Little Brush Creek road north until it intersected a trail we had already explored. We then headed back to the cabin, content that we had punished our bodies and the ATVs sufficiently for the day.

Sunday, we attended church services in Dutch John before heading back to Utah Valley again.

The mountains can be very restful in the summer but I’m looking forward to my next trip into southern Utah canyon country.

After unloading the ATVs in Horse Canyon, a short distance southeast of Columbia Utah, we took the Turtle Canyon road east and south to the rim of the Book Cliffs. The rough and badly rutted dirt road (sometimes just a jeep trail) then continues south along the rim country from many miles before turning east. It had looked like the road down Turtle Canyon had been recently graded but subsequent storms had undone the work.

Near the road’s summit, as it begins to drop down Turtle Canyon, we stopped to take telephoto pictures of the class “C” natural arch called Foot-in-Mouth Arch located about two miles away from the road in rough country.

So far, the day had been mostly clear with thunderheads building to the east as the heat rolls off the low country and is pushed up the Book Cliffs. The road took us around any storms that were brewing and a little breeze helped keep the no-see-ums and face fly swarms down.

We stopped several times while descending Turtle Canyon to examine small class “D” arches but we didn’t find anything of any real interest.

One layer of strata had a number of interesting “Table & Chairs” rock formations.

At the bottom of Turtle Canyon, the canyon joins Range Creek several miles northwest of the Green River. We drove up to the locked gate for the south end of the Wilcox Ranch (now owned by the Utah Wildlife Resources) before turning around again.

Near the south gate, we had to check out a deep alcove on the far side of the creek but it didn’t turn out to be a natural arch. As we walked over to the alcove, I saw several old cougar tracks. The last time I was in Range Creek on a tour organized by the college in Price, they mentioned a couple of old bull buffalo that roamed the area near the Green River. This area of Utah is indeed remote… and beautiful.

Near the Turtle Canyon and Range Creek intersection, we found the road grader that had probably been doing the road work earlier in the year. They needed to gas it up and do it all over again.

Unfortunately, it was also HOT at the lower elevation. We were looking forward to climbing back up to cooler altitudes.

We now had almost a 30 mile trip on rough roads to get back to our vehicle. When we stopped for sandwiches near the summit, David mentioned that his backside was about to fall off with all of the the rough riding. I told him that I had better ride behind to pick up the pieces that fall off. I believe that is called “bringing up the rear”.

On the long ride back, the black clouds tried to get even more serious. While we watched a number of lightning strikes and rain dropping to the north and east of us, we enjoyed a clear and uneventful ride.

Back at the vehicle, we could tell that it had tried to rain in that area but not enough to even settle the dust.

While we had driven in with the ATV trailer on the Horse Canyon road from the Price to Green River highway, we drove out via Columbia Utah and then the Sunnyside Utah road.

Near Columbia, we noticed a sign for the “Range Creek ATV Trailhead”. We had not heard of this so we pulled in to see what the setup was.

We found a developed campground with restrooms and a playground. Nearby was the old abandoned Carbon County Railroad station. That was interesting and required a walk around to take some pictures.

However, we were not prepared to see some very unusual structures just to the east of the old station building. Here we found several rows, each row about a city block long, of shell shaped kilns made of bricks and built into a continuous row. Between the rows of kilns was a railroad grade low enough to allow the kilns to unload directly onto rail cars.

At first I thought this was a kiln system for firing bricks since there was an abundance of discarded bricks scattered about. I noticed a number of old bricks with the Haws name imprinted on them. (The name ‘Haws’ is a name from our personal family histories.)

A passing gentleman on an ATV stopped to talk to us and explained the history behind this site. Apparently, these kilns were built back in the 1940s to process the abundant nearby coal into coke before being transported to the Geneva Steel Plant in Vineyard Utah near Orem Utah, on the east shore of Utah Lake. Coke is used by steel mills as a fuel and as a reducing agent when smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. (The Geneva Steel plant operated until 1987 under U.S. Steel then off and on again until 2002 when it was finally shut down and dismantled.)

This was an interesting piece of Utah history that I had not heard before.

Meanwhile, the sun disappeared over the horizon and we headed for home.

Total ATV mileage = 57.1 miles.

Friday morning we noticed our dishwasher was leaking water so I spent most of Friday removing the dishwasher, cussing and replacing a shut off valve that wouldn’t completely shut off. I declared the dishwasher to be “old and worthless” — which is not really a good idea when you are as old as I am. I think this triggered something in my wife’s head because she began asking all sort of questions about how to dispose of the “old one” and get a “new one”. I had to keep asking her if we were still talking about dishwashers.

During one of several trips to Home Depot, I noticed they had dishwashers on sale and soon my wife joined me to pick out a new one. She kept telling the salesman that she REALLY wanted a “new one” but she didn’t seem to be looking at the dishwashers.

Since the floor under the dishwasher was going to need to dry out and be replaced, we left the new dishwasher on the back deck which left a big hole in the kitchen cabinets where the old dishwasher had once resided. To explain the hole to my daughter, who would soon be arriving home from work, we left a note telling her that we decided to take the dishwasher to Idaho with us.

We (myself, my wife and my other daughter) finally left town late in the afternoon and headed north to Idaho for a weekend of exploring and taking photographs wherever I might spy one.

We spent the night in a motel near Burley and headed to Oakley Idaho the next morning.

Using my iPad 2 as a GPS system, we were able to climb the mountain past Lower Goose Creek Reservoir and then negotiate many jeep trails up Rodeo Creek, over Beaverdam Pass, down to NE Creek and finally, across some sagebrush flats to the boundary marker for the Utah/Idaho/Nevada corner.

Now I could truthfully say that I have visited every corner of Utah.

At the state boundary marker or monument, we found a note pad stashed in a waterproof container so we added our names to the short list. Only one other name had been added to the list this year.

The drive back to paved roads seemed longer and dusty-er. We spent the night in Idaho Falls and were glad to wash off a layer of white Idaho dust. This also allowed me to get evening and morning pictures of the Twin Falls LDS Temple.

The next morning, we continued exploring along the Snake River, northwest along the Thousand Springs Scenic Highway and finally ended up in Bliss Idaho.

At this point, I gave up looking for something to point my camera at and hit the freeway for the long drive back to Utah.

Southern Idaho sure is boring when you are hunting for pictures. Perhaps they could borrow a few redrock canyons from Utah to give the area some interest.

My younger brother David and I found ourselves parking my Ford Explorer Sport and the ATV trailer a short distance northwest of Caineville Utah on the Middle Desert road. Here we unloaded the ATVs and headed towards the Middle Desert area.

We left the main road not far from the Capital Reef National Park boundary and headed east and then north towards Black Mountain on the Salt Wash jeep trail.

There had been heavy rains earlier in the week so there was some tricky muddy spots as the trail crossed the Salt Wash drainage. We rode the ATVs nearly all the way to Black Dike Arch which completed our exploration of the Salt Wash and the primitive Salt Wash Trail. We had approached Black Dike Arch twice from the east but were never able to finish the ride all the way through Salt Wash. Now we had completed the missing section.

Now we wanted to finish exploring the southern end of Last Chance Wash after exploring the northern end on a previous trip. From Salt Wash we headed north into the canyon which immediately turns to the east before twisting to the north again. When entering from the southern end, we didn’t have to endure mile after mile of boring dirt wash before finally getting into a rock walled canyon. From the southern end, you are immediately engulfed in steep canyon walls. However, hiking in mud is no better than riding ATVs in mud. It is still messy at times.

When exploring Utah canyons, we are always on the look out for natural arches and we did find one large hole that could be a natural arch but it was impossible to say for sure. The opening made it large enough to be at least a large class ‘C’ natural arch but it looked like a large round slab of rock had been rolled into the hole. Since we couldn’t see any light coming in behind the slab, we had to assume that it wasn’t a natural arch… yet.

Several miles later, we arrived at a class ‘B’ natural arch that we had discovered on our previous exploration from the other end. We called the arch Last Chance Wash Arch… of course.

Unfortunately, along the way we failed to find any other significant natural arches other than a small class ‘D’ arch.

Still, the canyon was wonderful and unique.

By the time we made it back to Salt Wash, it was late afternoon. We had to do some serious quick ATV riding to get out of Salt Wash and back on good roads before the sun set. That was one of the only times that I allowed myself to have some serious fun ripping down the trail and sending the mud flying. Usually I ride rather slowly, preferring to enjoy the view and the surroundings along the way.

Once on the main dirt road, it was still a long ride back to the Explorer in the dark and even a longer drive home that night.

The ATVs are going to need a trip to the car wash after that ride. And so are my boots.

On the way north, we stopped by Brigham City Utah for a few pictures of the new LDS temple they are building there.

Then on to Deweyville Utah to take a quick hike up the steep mountain side to visit a few class ‘D’ arches and enjoy the view.

One of the small natural arches was called Indian Cave Arch while the other was called Flat Canyon Arch.

While scrambling around the mountainside in the loose shale, I noticed a number of horn coral fossils probably from the Devonian period.

We were on our way out of the area when we were informed by a very pleasant land owner that we were trespassing on private property. While the steep hillside was public land, the foothills and jeep trails were private property. We thanked the landowner for his graciousness and suggested that a few signs and fence gates might be a good idea.

From Deweyville we headed west traveling northwest to Snowville and then west to Blue Creek Utah before heading west to Kelton.

We finally made it to the Kelton Utah area where there are a few working farms, a few ruins of historical Kelton (including the cemetery) and a new, odd industrial building surrounded by high security fences and gates. That new building was not there the last time I was in the area but it is probably just a pump station or something similar.

On the northwest edge of the Great Salt Lake, just south of Kelton, we found what we were looking for. In a rare rock outcrop south of Table Top Mountain, was a class ‘D’ natural arch called Peplin Arch.

What a place to find a natural arch!

While in the Kelton area, we found a monument and interpretive sign describing the historical 1869 survey of the area by U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant George M. Wheeler as part of the first geographic survey of the lands west of the 100th meridian.

On the way back to civilization, we stopped by Howell Utah for a few pictures before heading for home again.