return (again) to fins 'n things

Milton certainly prefers the weekends when we don't go MTBing.  With the truck still in the shop, and with no hitch on the Subaru for the bike rack, this was another one of those weekends.  We went back out to the Sand Flats Recreation Area to knock off a section of Fins 'N Things that we hadn't done yet.

Milton in motion 

We parked at the radio tower again and walked in on the cut-off.  When we got to the Fins 'N Things 4x4 trail, we turned right(-ish), walking against the direction of traffic and towards the turn-off for the Grandstaff Canyon overlook.  At that intersection, however, we stayed on FNT, heading in a south-ish direction, and following a very pretty wash.

A branch of Grandstaff Canyon

This section of FNT was mostly sandy, with a few sandstone humps and ledges to get over.  It is well-mapped with clear signs at most intersections so even though we didn't know where we were going, we mostly knew where we were.  Milton, of course, didn't care where we were because the lizards were out for him to chase.

Back to the sandstone fins

We connected with the Porcupine 4x4 which took us to an overlook over what we assumed as a fork of Grandstaff Canyon.  There was nobody out there and it was awesome.  After walking the gravel roads a while, we reconnected with FNT (more sand, more slickrock fins) which eventually took us back to the Sand Flats road, right across from the Pinyon Trail interpretive hike. 

No vehicles out there, just us

To make a loop out of it, we walked back (1+ mile) on the Sand Flats road.  In normal times, this would have been made miserable with choking dust from all the recreational vehicle traffic; this time, however, only two or three vehicles passed us.  It was so quiet we almost could have let Milton off his leash.

We collected the truck and drove back to the Slickrock trailhead parking lot for our snacks and beers.  There were a few other folks there and as the wind picked up, we watched a couple of them trying to launch kites.

Hike stats: 7.08 miles; moving 2:24 / 2.9 m.p.h.; overall 2;49 / 2.5 m.p.h.; 810' elevation