IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Sunday, April 11, 2010 | Day 4
Monday, April 12, 2010 | Day 5

We had camped pretty close to the end of the trail the previous night, so once we were up and packed up we made our way back to the highway. I didn’t stop for anymore photos on the way out. Once back at the highway, a few of us stopped at Cal Black Memorial Airport to fuel up. Everyone else was heading back home, but I had one more day to do some exploring. On my way back towards Blanding I decided to try and head down Red Canyon to Lake Powell.

It started out as a recently maintained county road through some great scenery

Henry Mountains in the distance

Eventually the road started to get a little rougher and had not been maintained recently. There were a lot of rocks and small boulders that had fallen from the canyon walls and had to be avoided…..even one large boulder I was able to squeeze by.

Unfortunately I took a wrong turn by staying on the main road and not following the bottom of Red Canyon and didn’t quite make it to Lake Powell. By the time I realized my error, it was time to turn around and head back out, so I’ll have to come back other time to finish all of Red Canyon. There are a number of side trails in the area, so I need to go back anyways 😉

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Saturday, April 10, 2010 | Day 3

After a near perfect night camping, we were up early again so that Dave and I could hike down to Cottonwood Hill from the end of the 4×4 trail. On our way down we passed a number of grooves carved into the rock from the cables used to drag the wagons up the hills.

View of Aladdin’s Lamp along the way.

The Hole-in-the-Rock in the distance, beyond Lake Powell. Cottonwood Canyon below.

The trail down into Cottonwood Canyon. This is where we stopped and turned around.

Nice scenery along the way

Another trail marker

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Friday, April 9, 2010 | Day 2

After a cool night in Lake Canyon we were up early and broke down camp. Before heading out, Jared and I went for a hike up Lake Canyon to warm up. When we made it back to camp, we headed back out of Lake Canyon and headed towards the Nokai Dome shortcut which would take us to the Halftrack Junction.

Passed this along the way

Stopped at Halftrack Junction

When we reached the junction, we made contact with the rest of the group who were headed up the trail behind us. We continued on, knowing they would catch us soon enough.

and they did…

However, shortly after joining the rest of the group, our small group left the main group again and headed the other direction. We went down the old trail and back to the washed out section in Lake Canyon for a different perspective.

The washout in Lake Canyon from above

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Thursday, April 8, 2010 | Day 1

Late last year I finally decided to put together a trip that has been on my to-do list for way too long. I needed to finish driving the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition (San Juan Mission) Route by driving the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail. I had driven pretty much all of the other sections of the route that are drivable except for this one. This was planned as a three day trip so that we could take our time and also get in some hiking along the trail. My adventure started on Thursday, which was the day before we were supposed to meet at the trail. I wanted to take my time driving to the trail near Hall’s Crossing and also make a few stops along the way.

After stopping at Back of Beyond Books in Moab and filling up my gas tank in Blanding, I set off west on UT-95. Of course I had to stop at ‘Salvation Knoll’ since it was an important landmark to George Hobbs and the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition.

From Salvation Knoll I made my way further west to my first trail of the trip. On my maps, I noticed there was a segment of the Hole-in-the-Rock trail that I had not driven that connected UT-95 and UT-276. After some research into the route, I found that it is still a valid route that is open to motorized travel, so I figured I would give it a try.

When I reached the turnoff from the highway, I was greeted with a well maintained county road. The sign even marked it as part of the Mormon Trail

After a mile or two of the easy pretty well maintained road, it got a little rougher and crossed some slickrock sections

Eventually I reached a large section of slickrock that dropped off into a small canyon. I didn’t immediately find a way down, so I parked the Jeep and hiked around for a while until I picked up the trail again. From this point on, the well maintained county road was left behind and the much rougher and narrower trail continued. It was hard to follow in many places and required that I hike ahead first, but there were enough signs along the way to reassure myself that I was on the right track.

Marker along the route indicating this was part of the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition

Dropping down

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