steelbender

Continuing in our quest to explore places that would be very, very busy this time of year (i.e., the Moab Easter Jeep Safari week, sadly canceled for the first time in 53 years due to the pandemic), we checked out Ken's Lake and the Steelbender 4x4 trail on Saturday.  It was by far the best weather we've had since October: clear skies, sunny and temperatures almost reaching 70.

Somewhere along the Rock Trail

Milton at the top of the falls' spillover

The Ken's Lake recreation area consists of a small man-made reservoir that allows swimming, fishing and non-motorized boating, a campground (currently closed) and short hiking/equestrian trails.  Dogs need to be kept on a leash while in the recreation area.

Seems plausible

I love these metal signs

We walked around the reservoir, explored the Rock Trail and then went up to Faux Falls, created when they diverted part of Mill Creek by drilling a tunnel through a sandstone dome.  There is a trail to looker's right of the falls that continues up the hillside to where the diverted creek comes through the rock, and then connected with the Flat Pass Road.  Flat Pass Road becomes the Steelbender trail and that's where we went.

Heading down the Flat Pass road

View of the La Sals from Steelbender

It was very pretty back in there, with the snow-covered La Sals looming above and the walls of Mill Creek Canyon starting to rise up.  The road started as dirt, following along the creek and passing some pictographs and old (c. 1905) cowboy graffiti.  When it crossed the creek, the trail surface changed to cobbles, ledges and slickrock shelves, at least as far as we followed it.  It was climbing steadily but not steeply after we crossed the creek.

A gentle section of Steelbender

The 4x4 trail itself is about ten miles long, coming out further north in a Spanish Valley neighborhood.  According to the Jeep Safari booklet, it is rated a 6 out of 10, with the difficulty changing from year to year as erosion changes the various obstacles.  We didn't get out that far on it since we'd spent time on the Ken's Lake trails, but it's not unreasonable to think a person could hike the whole trail with a shuttle vehicle.

Shorts and a light fleece - hooray for spring!

The clouds were building over the La Sals when we got back to the truck.  There were fifteen or so other vehicles around, with locals fishing, walking dogs, reading and picnicking on the shores, but consciously physically distant from one another.  We perched on the tailgate for a couple of beers, Milton sprawled out below us, all of soaking up the sunshine.  What a gorgeous day.

Hike stats: 7.63 miles; moving 2:44 / 2.8 m.p.h; overall 3:23 / 2.2 m.p.h; 1,160' elevation

jackson's trail

After we did Pritchett Canyon (so pretty!), we hung around the BLM parking lot for beers and snacks, and watched a number of trail runners heading out on Jackson's Trail.  "We should do that," we said.  A couple weeks later, we did.

Colorado River below

Jackson's Trail is both a MTB trail and a hiking trail, rated very difficult (for MTBing) because of its steep, exposed sections.  It is recommended that you ride it in the reverse direction from how we hiked it, starting from the Amasa Back trailhead.  I don't see how a person could ride up what we hiked but I sure would have liked to have seen a good MTBer ride down some of those sections.

The boys at a pour-off

It starts out easy enough, crossing Kane Creek as it enters the Colorado River (with spring run-off, this section is likely to be flooded), and then following the base of the cliffs along the river.  The climb is gradual at first and then we gained elevation quickly in steep, rocky/sandy switchbacks until the river was far, far below us.  There were a couple of exposed spots but it wasn't nearly as vertigo-inducing as the Portal trail.  I had been concerned about Milton but he showed good trail smarts, trotting calmly along without wandering further afield until the trail had climbed high enough to pull away from the cliff edge.

The boys with Behind the Rocks WSA and the La Sals

When we reached a trail intersection, we had a decision to make: take the Rockstacker trail (extremely difficult for MTBers with "consequences" along cliff edges) or the 4x4 trail to connect to the Pothole Arch trail.  Because we had the dog with us, we opted for the 4x4 trail, thinking to limit our time along the cliffs.  We'd like to go back and check it out sometime when it's just us people.

Ease on down the [jeep] road

And anyway, it wasn't like the 4x4 trail (connecting with the Amasa Back trails via Cliffhanger) wasn't stupidly scenic - there are spectacular views this whole hike, either the Colorado River or out across Behind the Rocks WSA to the La Sal mountains.  Absolutely stunning.  We got to another trail junction (this whole area is very well-signed which is wonderful) and checked out GPS.  Pothole Arch was another two miles one way, which would have made this hike 10+ miles round trip, a little long this early in the season.  So we had snacks, waved hello to the two MTBers and two dirtbikers who passed us, and then retraced our steps.

Napping

The return went very quickly - even having to stop to gawk at the views - and we were soon enough back at the parking lot, just as the sun came out for a few minutes, long enough for beers and snacks.  Milton sprawled out, face in the dirt, possibly because he overdid it chasing birds up on the mesa, or possibly because he loves to bake himself in the sun and there haven't been many opportunities for that so far this spring.

Hike stats:  6.02 miles; moving time 2:15 / 2.7 m.p.h.; overall 2:40 / 2.3 m.p.h.; 1,160' elevation

jackass canyon

I had been hoping to see some sunshine in Moab last weekend but alas, it was not quite to be.  Saturday turned out cloudier than it had been forecasted to be, while Sunday turned out a wee bit less cloudy than we expected.  It never rained so I was grateful for that, at least.

Heading up the wash

Less than ideal weather wasn't going to keep us inside, however, not when there are canyons to explore.  When we did the bottom portion of the Whole Enchilada in December, we remarked at how pretty Jackass Canyon was as we hiked up to its rim.  We knew it wasn't a long canyon but we figured that it wouldn't be crowded and we wanted to see what it looked like from the bottom.

H and Milton leading the way

We parked at a large paved pull-out along the Colorado River; there must be good climbing or river access near there because that parking area is certainly not needed for Jackass Canyon.  There's no real trail, just a use-worn path that goes a little ways up the canyon before fading away.  You don't need a trail anyway: the canyon is narrow and you just follow the dry creek, picking the best route over the boulders. 

It was slow going, trying to find the best/safest route, both for us and for Milton.  If it had just been us humans, we could have easily scrambled over the boulders and gotten to the very head of the canyon, where sheer cliffs rise up to the mesa rim.  But Milton couldn't get traction in some places, and in others we worried that he'd just launch himself off something and land wrong - we didn't want to risk him getting hurt.  So we picked our way up the steep grassy side walls until we could see the end of the canyon and then retraced our steps.  There was no one in there but us and the canyon wrens, trilling their lovely, cascading songs as we clambered over rocks and under twisted cottonwood trunks.

King of all he surveys

Although we had had the canyon to ourselves, we passed - maintaining careful physical distance - about five hikers heading in, just as we were finishing up.  I wouldn't say that Jackass Canyon is my favorite canyon to hike - it's too short and the scrambling is tough for dogs - but I'm glad we got in there to see what we could see.  

Our GPS lost the satellite on the way out: we

most certainly did not go straight up the cliff walls!

But you can see how much route finding we had to do

Hike stats: 3.3 miles; moving time 1:30 / 2.2 m.p.h; overall time 2;23 / 1.4 m.p.h. (slow! with all the route-finding); 650' elevation

let the rubber hit the rock

My first MTB ride of 2020 was a full month earlier than 2019.  For one, all the ski areas have been closed due to the coronavirus, so we've been trying to use our freed-up time to get down to Moab.  For another, on Sunday it was finally warm enough for me to ride (I generally need at least 50 F or my hands and feet get too cold).  This was H's second ride; he'd gone once at the end of January and still had red mud caked to his MTB frame.

Remembering how to ride

To ease back into it, we went to the MOAB Brand Trails.  There were just a handful of vehicles in the parking lot, all parked well away from each other to maintain distancing.  That said, we saw no one out on the trails until our second time around, when we spied two MTBs and their accompanying dog about a quarter mile ahead of us.  They turned a corner and we never saw them again.

That's purty

Although weather had moved through as recently as Friday, the bike trails were pretty dry.  And the sun was out in force for the morning, with wide swatches of that gorgeous blue sky.  It was glorious.  We have really, really missed the sun.  (Remind me that I said that when I'm grousing about the 103+ temperatures in July.)

Cow crossing

We did our regular Rusty Spur/Bar M loop once, then around again but taking the cutoff back to the parking lot on the second go-round.  It was enough riding to wake my legs up and I remembered how much I like MTBing.  Of course, I did find myself a little saddle-sore for the next couple of days!

We hung out in the parking lot for a while afterwards, having beers as the clouds grew.  There were more people around, riding and trail-running, and we met another Underdog rescue puppy named Murphy, who looked just like our Milton without the white.  We also talked to all the range cows and calves who were crisscrossing the parking lot, looking for the quickest way to the best grazing. 

Chilly but worth it

Bike stats: 15.85 miles; time 1:30; average speed 10.6 m.p.h.; H's top speed 22.2 m.p.h.

porcupine rim, part 3

Once again we were able to get out of Dodge (SLC) early on Friday, enabling us to arrive in Moab at a reasonable, early evening time.  We did have some snow flurries going up Spanish Fork Canyon and across the top of Soldier Summit, but it wasn't sticking to the road and there wasn't much traffic.  The weather was forecasted to be a bit better than it's been lately; we drove down in the truck, hoping that warmer weather might enable us to get out on our MTBs.  

 Smooth stretch there

But first we went hiking on Saturday.  When we had done the Porcupine Rim portion of the Whole Enchilada trail the prior weekend, we noted the signed turn-off for the Porcupine Rim 4x4 trail.  We've really been enjoying our explorations of this part of Moab - upper Grandstaff Canyon, Jackass Canyon, the greater Sand Flats - and thought that we should see what the 4x4 trail had to offer.  With no tourist lodging available in Moab right now, trails are not being heavily used and we decided to take advantage of an OHV trail with probably no OHVs on it.

Grandstaff Canyon

We parked in the same spot as before, the area by the water tanks on the Sand Flats road.  After starting on the Porcupine Rim trail, we turned left at the first sign, where the 4x4 trail reverses back down the canyon on a short, steep, rough pitch.  This section was loose dirt and stones and it looked like it had recently been dug out.  It's just a few yards long, however, and after that the trail was remarkably like the MTB trail: a mix of dirt, sand, slickrock ledge and boulder-y bits.

Pour-over

Of course, since we were going the other way, towards the mouth of the canyon, we started out going down (which would mean an uphill finish, the bane of a hiker's existence).  The grade was mostly gentle, with some steeper, steppier sections, especially on corners.  It seemed MTB rideable, though, with not too, too many hike-a-bike parts.

Adventure dog

Milton once again ranged around, even flushing out a big rabbit at one point.  H called him off it - or, more likely, it was savvy enough to go to ground where he couldn't see it any more - but not before he had burned a lot of energy in the chase.  He's pretty fast when he wants to be.  Luckily, the rabbit was faster.

Have you guys seen a rabbit around here?

One trail runner passed us, and we saw him further ahead having branched off onto another trail.  At around three miles in, there is a junction where several trails intersect, including, we believe, the newly-installed Falcon Flow.  Falcon Flow is the first of a series of new trails meant to be single-track options to bailing out of the Whole Enchilada, for MTBers too fatigued for the technical bottom half.  We haven't checked it out yet (either on foot or on wheels) but we saw a number of MTBers at various points along the trail and it looks like a good one.

At just under four miles we paused, took in the scenery and started retracing our steps.  The Porcupine Rim 4x4 trail deadends at five miles, at a scenic overlook.  We were being conscious of our mileage, since we had spotted a wash we wanted to explore on the way back, and anyway the whole dang trail is a scenic overlook, perched as it is on the edge of upper Grandstaff Canyon.  It would probably be simpler if they just put signs where it isn't beautiful.

Hike stats:  7.8 miles; moving time 2:46 / speed 2.8 m.p.h.; overall time 3;06 / speed 2.5; 1,030 feet of elevation

porcupine rim, part 2

Back in December, we did the bottom portion of the Whole Enchilada trail: the Porcupine Rim trail from the Colorado River to the rim of Jackass Canyon.  It was chilly, with blustery winds and spits of rain, and we had the trail largely to ourselves, other than a MTBer. 

 Coming up one of the slickrock ledges

Two Sundays ago, we did some of the middle portion of the Whole Enchilada trail:  the Porcupine Rim trail from the water tanks on the Sand Flats road to the High Anxiety view point.  It was chilly, with blustery winds, and we had the trail to ourselves on the outbound leg, only stepping aside for a few MTBers on the return.

Grandstaff Canyon

This section of trail can be very busy - in better weather / less of a pandemic - as it has MTBers linking the top/La Sal mountains portion of the WE with the technical ride down along Jackass Canyon, as well as riders who either rode up from town themselves on the Sand Flats road or took a shuttle.  There is a decent parking area and a pit toilet at the trailhead, as well as maps.  The trail itself is well-signed to keep riders on the WE trail, as opposed to the Porcupine Rim 4x4 that dead-ends at a Grandstaff Canyon overlook (see next post!)

La Sals rising out of Castle Valley

We got on the trail mid-morning, seeing no need for an early start given the chilly weather and generally deserted trails.  Milton ranged off-leash, with just slightly less get-up-and-go than the day before; there must have been some cumulative fatigue after Pritchett Canyon.  We did keep an eye on him as it gets cliffy in places and we don't want him to hurtle over the edge after something small and scurrying.

View!

The trail is double-track, dirt and stones and slickrock ledges, and is used by hikers, MTBers and OHVs along the stretch we did.  It also climbs pretty steadily from the trailhead to the Castle Valley overlook, which must be a bit of a shock to the system after the long descent out of the La Sals.

Right along the rim of upper Grandstaff Canyon

The High Anxiety viewpoint is marked by a sign: VIEW!  And what a view it is, looking out west over the bowl of Castle Valley some 800-900 feet below, with the snowy La Sals looming overhead.  It was stunning scenery - and we had the dog on the leash the whole time we lingered there.

We continued a little further past the VIEW! but turned around when it started to descend.  As we retraced our route, we started to see MTBers grinding their way up the trail.  They seemed to show up in distinct groups, which made us think that shuttles were dropping their passengers regularly, now that it was after noon.  Those riders had a long way to go still - for us, our cooler full of beers was just minutes away.

Hike stats:  7.4 miles; moving time 2:27 / speed 3.0 m.p.h.; overall time 2:44 / speed 2.7; 1,620' elevation

when the world intrudes

Oops!  The week got away from me: I fully intended to have our Porcupine Rim hike post up and running for last Friday, but last week was a little stressful - for everyone! - and I didn't get around to it.  We're fine, still healthy and social distance-ing like champs.  And now I have TWO Porcupine Rim hikes to share with you, plus our first MTB of the season.  The next post should be up late tomorrow night.

So stay well, stay away from people and keep washing your hands! 

pritchett canyon

Yeah, the country/world has gone completely mad since my last post.  But we had a couple of soups in the freezer and a bunch of beer so we went to Moab on Friday. 

Ready. For. Anything.

Social distancing is not difficult for us: we scarcely go out to eat since we went vegan and we try really, really hard to find trails that don't have many people on them.  The only real change for us  was that this time we didn't go hang out at Woody's - which saved us some money.

The Brickyard obstacle

We knew where we wanted to hike on Saturday: Pritchett Canyon.  H had been watching some jeeping videos in that canyon - it has the highest difficulty rating of all the April Jeep Safari trails - and noticed how pretty it was.  We wanted to check it out before OHVing got into full swing.  You do have to pay a small entrance fee to access the canyon because the trail crosses private land, but after you walk through the campground, you're back on BLM land.

Milton in cruise mode

What makes Pritchett Canyon so difficult?  The eight+ obstacles that will stymie the average rig.  Many of these obstacles have winch anchors; most of them involve step-ups over five feet high.  There are lots of off-camber angles to deal with and rollovers are more common than not.  For hiking, it's straightforward since it's a jeep road, but the footing is mixed, with sand and cobbles and slickrock and ledges, and it's fairly long.

Milton and me atop Chewy

When you're on foot (two or four), these obstacles are no big deal.  But they are impressive to look at as you climb up them.  We were hoping that we would see some vehicles attempting them on our hike back out (if you're hiking, this is a 9+ mile out-and-back; if you're in a jeep, you can make a loop out of it.

Rocker Knocker: double ledge, nearly impossible if wet

Pritchett Canyon is also very, very pretty.  There was more green than I expected, even though the creek doesn't run year-round.  The canyon walls are high and there are numerous side canyons and rock features.  We heard canyon wrens trilling their lovely songs for nearly half the hike.

Arch in the wall after Rocker Knocker 

Since this trail didn't have too much slickrock, we weren't planning on making Milton wear his new shoes the whole time.  We put the front ones on, intending to have him wear them for a couple miles, just to keep getting used to them.  He lost one of them a half mile into the canyon but, incredibly, H found it.  Buying bright red dog shoes was a good idea!

Axle Hill: the black is from all the tire rubber

Towards the head of the canyon, it gets narrow again, rocky and steep.  The final few obstacles are incredible: I can't imagine driving a jeep up them.  And then, once we climbed up Yellow Hill to the saddle, the 360-degree views were phenomenal.  The clouds started to break up a bit and the sun came out long enough for us to have a snack.  Simply gorgeous up there.

Rockpile or Son-of-Rockpile

That's Yellow Hill, the last obstacle

We retraced our steps from that saddle and as we made our way back down, we began to see some more people: a couple of dirt bikes, ten jeeps and about eight hikers just as we were finishing up.  That's really not too many people for a 4+ hour hike on a popular trail.

View back down Pritchett Canyon

We didn't encounter any jeeps on any of the infamous named obstacles but we did watch three of them playing around in the slickrock area below Rocker Knocker.  It is truly amazing what these vehicles can do.  And not a little terrifying.

The guy on foot had broken his own jeep's axle

the day before so he was scouting

We finished up the hike under a few passing rain sprinkles but it was windy enough to move the clouds past in short order.  Milton zonked out - if we people did nine miles, he must have done at least twelve - and H and I snacked and drank some beers while watching all the parking lot activity around us: trail runners with dogs, old school ATVs, lots of dirt bikes, jeeps and OHVs either getting set up and starting out or finishing and loading up.  This is a very popular motorized area, with Pritchett Canyon, Amasa Back and the Kane Creek Road all in one centralized spot: there's plenty to do and there's plenty to watch.

Hike stats: 9.2 miles; moving 3:36 hours / 2.7 m.p.h; overall 4:34 / 2.2 m.p.h.; 1,530 feet of elevation

a little goes a long way

It's cliche but what a difference a day makes!  A little storm moved into the area Saturday evening and although Brighton over in Big Cottonwood Canyon got the most snow out of it, Alta managed about 4" at the base and what seemed more like 8" up at the top.  The snow was fairly dense and heavy, which meant it got tracked out and bumped up quickly, especially given how busy it was, but it also made all the difference in the conditions.  Sure, the high traffic areas got scraped off down to the crusty stuff.  But if you could score fresh tracks, it was creamy and smooth.  We even heard some hootin' and hollerin' from the Stonecrusher area!

Views were ... limited

Funnily enough, the Collins lift line was the most treacherous terrain anywhere: the heavy, wet snow was quickly compacted and iced over smooth as the scores of skiers shuffled their way through the line.  The singles lines, on the far left of the corral, were on a bit of an incline and people were skidding and sliding into each other, even as we were all just trying to stand there.  If we'd had edges on our skis, it would have been fine.  But we haven't had our skis tuned since last season so there was no edge to dig in.

Because the snow was heavy, my legs tired quickly - I am in terrible shape this season!  The low visibility made things tough too as we couldn't really see what we were skiing on until we were skiing on it.  But the new snow made everything better and everyone happy: there were many more locals in evidence on Sunday, brought out by the promise of freshies, however small; and the tourists, who don't know any better, were all smiles too.  Even though we always want to ski in the sunshine, this new snow was very welcome.

warm and windy

There has been very little snow recently and when we went skiing Saturday morning, H remarked that it's been years since Alta has been this skied out.  It was warm (ranging from 29 to 43 F such that I didn't even wear my boot covers), cloudy and blustery.  Off piste was crusty and hard, never really softening up; steep sections, like Challenger, were so scraped off that even H side-slipped the whole way down.  The groomers were okay, and down towards the base the snow got soft and a little slushy.  With all the clouds, the light was very flat - you'd think we'd be used to that by now.

Crowd-wise it was about medium.  The lifties were running Collins a little slow so it took a long time to get through that lift line.  It looked to be lots of tourists/Icon pass-holders and mid-range skiers on the hill ... because all the good local skiers think the conditions aren't worth it.  H and me, we'll ski on anything.

I look like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in this jacket

We stuck to Collins for the morning, cruising groomers, alternating between Mambo and Main Street.  H had the good idea to go to lunch a little early lunch (I think he got hungry), which meant that the Supreme lift line had pretty much cleared out when we went back out.  The wind picked up in the afternoon, however, and the temperature dropped as the day wore on.  After a couple of Sugarloaf runs, we were bored with the groomers, as well as getting a little chilled, so we went back to the Goldminer's Daughter and had a couple of beers (Loose Boots IPA in cans) before catching the bus down canyon.

For those of us who ski Alta all the time, this was sort of a meh kind of day.  But even with the meh conditions, we still saw tourists who had never been to Alta before, oohing and aahing over the scenery, just loving the place.   That's good for us to see as it reminds us not to take Alta for granted.