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