IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Friday | October 8, 2010

On Friday morning Amanda and I loaded up the Jeep and headed to Beef Basin for a three-day weekend. I had been planning this weekend for a while since I wanted to spend some quality time exploring Beef Basin. We made it to Monticello to fuel up and then took UT 211 towards the Needles District of Canyonlands, where we turned off onto the Cottonwood Canyon Road. I had been worried about the condition of this road with all the rain we had recently, but we found it in good condition and it was dried out (I’ve been on this road when it was wet before, and it’s no fun). We climbed up towards Horse Mountain until we reached the Beef Basin Road turnoff and dropped back down into House Park where we setup a basecamp for the weekend.

Once camp was setup I headed straight for Middle Park to find the granaries there. They were easily found but the lighting was bad when we arrived, so I figured I’d head back later in the evening before it got dark out. We continued on into Ruin Park and stopped at some of the ruins along the way.

A tower in Ruin Park that I planned to visit later that night

Farm House Ruin

We took the Bull Valley Spur all the way back to the Gypsum Canyon Spur where I found the arch located near the end of the trail.

The arch near the end of the Gypsum Canyon spur…..bad picture because I was shooting right into the sun

We hopped on the Beef Basin Loop Road from there and headed back to complete the Homewater Spring Loop before heading back to Middle Park. This time the light was better, so I took some photos.

View across Beef Basin

Double-Stack Granaries in Middle Park

The Upper Garnary

My favorite granary in Middle Park to photograph

Photo from further back

We headed back to camp for some dinner and to take a short nap until it was dark out. Once it was dark we headed back over to ruin park to shoot some star trails.

Here’s one Amanda composed

..and here’s mine. Probably one of my favorite photos from the weekend.

It was a good way to start a nice long weekend of camping and exploring 🙂

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 | Day 4

Tuesday morning we were stuck in our tents until there was finally a short break in the rain. It had rained pretty much all night and we were a bit sick of camping in the rain. During that short break we took down and packed up camp….just in time for the rain to start up again.

Our view during the short break in rainfall as the sun was rising….The Straight Cliffs in the clouds

Ready to take down camp

Our drive back to Escalante on the Hole-in-the-Rock Road was a little adventure. The road was pretty saturated and flooding in places, but we were able to make it back to the highway. I later found out that the Hole-in-the-Rock Road had washed out in places and was closed by the county. When we made it back to town we went over to The Prospector Restaurant for some breakfast (which was pretty good), and to figure out what we were going to do next. We checked out the weather forecasts for a number of Southern Utah destinations, and it appeared that many of them were getting hit with storms, rain and flash floods. Moab only had a 30% chance of rain and was currently sunny, so we decided we would head that direction.

After breakfast we had to go see if Jared could retrieve his car from the Boulder Mail trailhead which had become muddy from all the rain. Luckily with his snow tires and some momentum, he was able to drive it out of there and I didn’t need to get out a tow strap. We fueled up and hit the pavement on our way to Moab. When we started climbing Boulder Mountain we entered a thick fog and noticed there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. I pulled over and took a few photos of the aspens through the fog.

As we made our way towards Hanksville we noticed the Fremont River was flowing pretty high and all the normally dry washes were flooding. Between Hanksville and the Goblin Valley turnoff there was a section of the highway that was flooded and covered with an inch or two of sand. Before reaching Moab we turned off on UT 313 towards Canyonlands Island in the Sky district and setup camp at the Horsethief campground. Once camp was setup we headed over to Aztek Butte. This hike was high up on both of our to-do lists. We climbed up the butte and took some photos of the ruins and arches as another storm rolled in on us.

Jared getting his flash ready

Arches & Ruins

Since it was raining again, we decided to head into town for some dinner instead of trying to have dinner out int he rain at camp. Jared suggested Miguel’s Baja Grill which was pretty good. We then headed back to camp for another rain-filled night.

Wednesday, to be continued….

Monday, October 4, 2010 | Day 3

OK, before I get started on Monday’s trip report, it appears that my memory may be incorrect and I jumped the gun on Sunday’s trip report. Jared has informed me that it was the night before Monday that we had the vehicle driving down the Hole-in-the-Rock Road that woke us up with it’s constant buzzing sounds. So instead of fixing the previous report, I’m just going to insert this correction here. Now onto Monday!

Monday morning we woke up to rain. We had a quick breakfast inside the Jeep to stay dry. The sky to the south looked clear, so we headed in that direction to hike down Willow Gulch to Broken Bow Arch. When we arrived at the Willow Gulch trailhead we got lucky and the sky was indeed clear here with the sun shining….so we grabbed our backpacks and headed down canyon.

Mortar Board Rock

View into Willow Gulch as we descended

A short ways down Willow Gulch we headed up a side canyon and found some petroglyphs.

There were quite a few petroglyphs, but most of them were fading away pretty good. After taking some photos we continued on to Broken Bow Arch which required some bushwhacking along the creek.

Broken Bow Arch was pretty impressive when we reached it

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This weekend Amanda and I finished up our Laccolith Tour this year by heading up to the Abajo (Blue) Mountains. We started out by heading west out of Monticello to North Creek Pass.

Then we followed Indian Creek and Johnson Creek to the Nizhoni Campground.

From there we made our way up Dry Wash to do a little hiking and find some ruins. While hiking, Amanda decided that she wanted to sit down and rest while I continued on a little ways. Shortly after we split, I heard a noise off in the trees ahead of me. I stopped and listened, but did not hear the noise anymore, so I decided to carry on. Right after I started hiking again, the noise in the tress started up again, and two large bears started crossing the trail about 20 feet in front of me. At that point I turned around and safely got out of there!

We made it back to the Jeep and followed another spur road in Dry Wash that did lead us to some ruins high up in the cliffs.

We then left Dry Wash and continued on across The Casueway

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On Memorial Day we packed up camp and headed a short ways down Comb Wash to check out some ruins in Lower Mule Canyon.

There were a few petroglyphs here as well.

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