Trip Report: Utah Backcountry Discovery Route October 17-22

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Tuesday night, October 16.

FatTony, Jentzman and I left Lehi around 6:00 PM, headed for our first night's camp spot near Bear Lake. Aroud 103rd S, it started to pour. The wind was gusty and it was raining like crazy, and we were a bit worried about the weather for the trip. About 20 minutes later, the rain stopped and we headed for Logan. After some dinner and a last-minute stop to Walmart for ammo, we started up Logan Canyon. It was dark by this time, and the wind was still blowing hard.

RotBox and Medsker were hopefully already at the campsite by now, making sure the hunters didn't beat us to our spot.

Our GPS took us right to the campsite, and we met Medsker and Rot Box aroud 10 PM. They picked a great campsite that was sheltered from the trees. They told us of their adventure of the day, battling hail, rain, and strong gusty winds, but they were in good spirits and the fire was already burning for us.

It was late and cold and windy, and we were tired so we hit the sack.

 

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DAY 1

Bear Lake to Uintas.
It’s 7:30 AM. I wake up to an ice-frosted camper shell. Outside, Medsker’s thermometer registered a chilly 17 degrees. Fender was up and ready to get going, so we climbed out of the truck to start our day.

Soon after, everyone awoke with a smile on their face. Even Medsker, who's air mattress had gone flat on him during the night. With such strong winds and cold temperatures I was surprised to see everyone so cheery. Everyone had a great attitude and they were clearly there for the right reason.

after a quick and chilly breakfast, the camp came alive.

We packed up and got ready to hit the road.

 

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The road in this area was incredibly smooth. We blasted through the occasional ice-crusted pothole at the tune of 30 mph. The initial scenery was quite like west desert, with small shrubs covering the landscape. Soon thereafter we entered a pine forest. Not more than 15 minutes after that, we were in an Aspen forest. Not much later, we found ourselves surrounded by red rich dirt. At one point, we had desert shrubbery behind us, aspens on the left, pines on the right, and red dirt ahead. It was amazing to see all 4 of Utah’s landscapes in one scene. It was a sight to behold.

As we meandered through the forest, we twisted and turned through valleys and hills, passing the occasional hunter. After an hour or two, we started climbing a sweeping turn and suddenly the skyline dropped and we could see all the way into Wyoming. The contrast from dense forest to wide open mountaintop was stunning and the vista just comes up all at once. It was breathtaking. Pictures cannot do it justice.

We worked our way towards the highway, blasting through dirt roads. Due to the intense windstorm the previous night, several trees had blown across the trail. With hatchets, tow straps, and strong arms, we cleared all the trees to make the trail passable.

Once on the highway we headed for Evanston. Andrew had to head home, and after much weeping, the rest of us continued on. In Evanston we gassed up, ate lunch, medsker picked up a new sleeping pad. We then made our way across the pavement to the northeast corner of Utah: 3-corners.

There we found a simple adobe monument built in 1873 that was still standing. It was pretty neat to see that piece of history.

From there we hit dirt again and headed to our destination in the Uintas. We passed through quite a few aspens. It was beautiful country.

There were more frozen puddles to splash through. There were a few muddy sections that covered my truck. That’s what I get for having tires that stick out past the fenders.

We worked our way through to the Uintas and stopped at a lake briefly.

From there, we headed to provo falls. The water flow was meager, but it still made for some beautiful scenery.

 

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We then headed up to trail 041 to find a wonderful campsite. This whole concept of arriving at camp while it's still light is new to me.

It was another chilly night and the fire only kept the fronts of our legs warm, but it was better than nothing. The company was great. At the fire, we had the pleasure of hearing Medsker tell the poem of Sam McGee and the story of old Eph. He’s a great storyteller and it was fascinating to hear about stories from the area we were staying in.

After we couldn’t take the chill any longer, we headed to our tents and went to sleep…


Day 1 video:
[video=youtube;CdZN4iE_HOY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdZN4iE_HOY&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

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DAY 2​

Uintas to Wellington

Once again, we awoke to freezing temperatures. I think we were up to 25* this morning, an 8* improvement over yesterday. We took a little hike to a frozen spring that turned into a lake.

On our hike we passed a rock that looked like petrified wood. Calling all geologists/science teachers. is this petrified wood?

Medsker, being the good steward of the land that he is, collected an entire trash bag full of carbage from previous campers.

 

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We left the campsite and headed south. We soon came to Mill Hollow reservoir.

We continued further south and we found ourselves on dirt roads that rode along the tops of ridges. The vistas were incredible. We were just north-east of Strawberry and we could see for miles in all directions. We could even see the back side of Timp and Mount Nebo.

Continuing on, we arrived a Current Creek Reservoir a few hours later.

While there, we stopped by the bathrooms for a break, and a pseudo ranger came to harass us. He told us we needed to pay $7 ea to enter. We told him we were just passing through, and he said it didn't matter, we still had to pay. Our national parks passes weren't acceptable here, and he wanetd $7 from each vehicle. Medsker gave him $5, and he took it (shady!) and one other car paid $5 as well. Later on, we realized that there were pit toilets about 1/4 mile down the road, and we would have happily used those to avoid this guy posing as a ranger. He didn't have any markings on his vehicle, and he wasn't wearing a uniform, so we later questioned if he was just a desperate man looking for money. What kind of park ranger would take $5 when the fee is $7? It all seemed a little shady to us.

 

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From there we followed Current Creek. It was a beautiful drive, with lots of yellow aspen. At one point, we came across a cattle drive, right across the road. It was fun to watch the dogs whip those cattle into shape.

We turned off the highway before we got to Duchesne, intending to catch the second half of 9 mile canyon. We passed by the Strawberry pinnacles and had Lunch.

We consulted the map, and realized that our route would skip most of upper nine mile canyon.

We later realized that this canyon borders a Native American reservation. There sure were some beautiful sights. This was my favorite section of the day.

In order to make detailed trip reports, it takes a LOT of gadgets in the car. My wonderful wife was always charging something, or uploading images/videos, or saving files. You can thank her for her hard work. this trip report wouldn't have been possible without her.

 

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Continuing on, we began to climb up a really neat canyon, through a section called "cow hollow." It was still a little bit wet on the trail. Even though we were so far from logan, it felt very similar in the way it was a wooded forest.

Continuing to climb...

... we continued to border various reservations, and soon found ourselves at 10,000 feet, on top of the highest mountains as far as the eye could see.

There were trails EVERYWHERE. You could spend a week here and still not travel half the trails. I really want to come back to this area to explore more.

We continued to ride the ridge for an hour or two more. All along the ridge we saw what looked like Teepees. They turned out to be stacks of beetle-infested pines that had been chopped down. There must have been over 100,000 piles standing at least 30 feet tall. There was some serious work done here, and it took an insane amount of labor.

I'll insert the picture once I get it from my passengers.

Soon we found ourselves in the Ashley National Forest. This is another area I want to explore further.

 

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A few miles past Ashley National Forest, we came to a highway, and turned on a clay road that took us past several scout camps and dumped us out halfway down nine mile road. This was a fun scenic drive with some interesting sights. We ended up seeing some wild mustangs up this canyon, along with lots of cows grazing.

The road popped out right at nine mile canyon. There was a lot of road construction here, and we came to find out that they're paving the 9-mile canyon road. This was a major dissappointment. Additionally, a lot of the dust that was being made from the construction ended up covering and fading a lot of the rock art.

Where we intersected the highway, there were only one or two more art panels and old buildings left to see. If I were to do this trip again, I would have travelled up 9 mile canyon for a few miles to see the pictographs and sights. i didn't know we had passed the good stuff until it was too late. But that's ok, because there were far better ruins and art panels to see on this trip.

9 Mile canyon ended up dropping us off right outside of Wellington, at our favorite Chevron/Subway. We gassed up and headed down the road to enter the northern swell.

We crossed the price river and had a nice camp there.

After a quick shower, I was ready for bed. Since it was warmer and there wasn't much vegetation out here, my wife and I decided to sleep under the stars.


Day 2
[video=youtube_share;ncMgYtIdoL0]http://youtu.be/ncMgYtIdoL0[/video]

 

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DAY 3​

Little did we know that we'd get so much dew sleeping in the middle of the desert. Well, when you're a stone's throw from a river, there's a lot more moisture in the air than you'd expect. We all awoke with more ice on our bags/tents than any of the nights before. That meant we had to wait for the sun to dry out our gear.

I quickly started a fire to get things going.

We didn't mind moseying around a bit more, we enjoyed the company and took some time to get some target practice in.

I don't know how a dog can sleep through all that.

 

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It took a while for the sun to come up and dry everything out, and we were having so much fun shooting that we lost track of time. We hit the road aroud 11 AM, making our way towards the north end of the swell. Trevor had never been to the swell nor seen the Buckhorn Panel, and it was only about 20 min off our route, so we modified our plans and headed into the heart of the swell.

On the way to the Buckhorn panel we came across a small cemetary called "Victor Cemetary". We didn't know what to expect, but it was very touching to see these graves. We were more emotional than we had anticipated. I am so glad that we made this short detour, it really set a great tone for the day. I'd like to learn more about the cemetary and its history.

From there we passed the dinosaur quarry and headed towards the buckhorn panel. Of course, we had to stop to check out the dinosaur print:

We found a fresh panel. It was tough to tell if it was made recently or if it was ancient. We all had our theories.

 

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We continued down the road to the Matt Werner inscription. I had never found it before, and it was exciting for me to finally see it.

Then on to the Buckhorn Panel.

Then on to the old swinging bridge.

We continued on to I-70. Around 2:30 we arrived at Green River for gas and lunch.

There I saw this beauty, and the toyota lover in me couldn't help but take a pic.

 

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Leaving the Chevron in Green River, we headed out on the bumpiest road ever – old hw 6. I'm not kidding, I must have bottomed out my rear suspension at least 50 times on this road alone. It was bumpier than any of the offroad we had done yet.


After a while it turned to dirt and we saw all sorts of browns and the many different colors in the hills. After a long drive at a pretty slow pace, we took a wrong turn down a cool canyon. I’d definitely re-route the trip that way in the future. Turn around, go to Sego cemetery, ghost town, and sego art panel.

We saw a really cool rain collection system to give water to cows (or really big dogs??)

From there we moved on to the Sego Cemetery. It's always sad to see infant graves.

From there we went to the Sego Ghost Town.

 

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Next up was the Sego Art panel. Fantastic panel, probably my favorite panel I've ever seen.

We headed south to 70, through an old town that is on its way to becoming a ghost town of its own. i wish we'd had a good 30-40 min to explore this town and take some pictures.

The sun was setting fast, and our late start to the day was taking its toll. We moved on south, scoping out potential camping spots on the Dome Plateau.

We found a cool old mine site and called it a night. We were tired and we hit the sack pretty early. It was a MUCH warmer night.


Day 3

[video=youtube;BgmQI2Xs7j4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgmQI2Xs7j4[/video]

 

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Day 4​

It's Saturday morning. We slept really well, and it was a toasty 30* outside when we awoke. We ate a quick breakfast in an attempt to make up for lost time on Friday.

Some people like mines, others like art. I like old cars rusting to pieces (maybe it's the Toyota lover in me)

We had camped just east of Arches National Park. 1000 more points for whoever can identify this arch.

We were flying along, and soon after we came to an old abandoned mine. We explored around for a bit, took some fun pictures around the site.

1000 points for anyone who can ID this logo.

 

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From there we caught the highway and headed to Dewey bridge.

The Deweys built a cool one-room house right into the rock.

Medsker caught a small leak in one of his tires. Some small rocks had lodged themselves in between the rim and the sidewall. I think that hemi would get me a lot of flats. He had all the tools, and in about 10 min the spare was swapped in.

From there we hit the road and headed for Onion Creek, near fisher towers.

Onion Creek was super cool. Pretty busy, but very cool. i wish I had more pictures of it.

From there we headed up past the turnoff to rose garden hill and headed out east of the La Sals. The road was really tough and bumpy up past Rose Garden Hill. At the benches of the La Sals we hit smooth roads and saw lots of hunters.

It was really beautiful.

Even in the middle of nowhere we couldn't escape the chemtrails.

By this time we had hit a lot of different colors of mud. It looked pretty cool to see them layered on top of each other.

 

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We popped out south of the La Sals in the town of La Sal. There was a small gas station there, but we were all above a half tank.

From there we headed east of 191 for some lunch. We ate lunch atop a hill overlooking the area.

We had a great view of the Needles District.

I'm a sucker for old rusty cars.

We were running a bit late so we skipped newspaper rock and headed straight to Montecello for gas.

 

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Trevor and I gassed up at the Texaco and both of our Check Engine Lights came on 1 mile after. I'll never gas up there again. From there we headed west towards the Abajo Mountains, also known as the Blue Mountains. This ended up being my favorite part of the entire trip.

We wound our way through the Blue Mountains and soon found ourselves above 9000 feet again. An hour or two later, we were on the ridge of the Blues. We were greeted with the most incredible views. This was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen in my life. Pictures cannot do it justice.

It felt like we were looking down on an ancient village that had been overtaken by a jungle.

 

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The amazing vistas didn't stop. We weren't beginning to get bored of them. I could travel that road for hours.

We searched and searched for a good campsite, but we struggled to find any authorized sites up there. We passed some great meadows in the pines, and we saw a few deer (and a few hunters). We ended up camping at an area called "butt point" or something like that. It was a great site.

It was dark by this time, and we were tired. It would be our last night on the trail, and after a quick fire, we hit the sack. It was also the warmest night we had experienced yet, despite our high elevation.

[video=youtube;cKCFmBYubIQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKCFmBYubIQ[/video]

 

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For the first time of the trip, there wasn't any frost on the ground when we awoke. Before we left, we found the reason for Trevor's CEL, a split air intake hose:

We got to put rescue tape in practice. Medsker had a roll. I was expecting it to be sticky, but it really just acts like a thin rubber tape. It reminded me of a super thin bicycle tube. It definitely did the trick, I need to get a roll for myself.

It was a beautiful morning. Being on the ridge, the sun rose quickly.

We wound our way down the mountain.

There was a beautiful grove of yellow aspens below.

We ended up driving through those aspens to Comb Ridge. We drove along the east side of comb ridge, randomly looking for rock dwellings. Unfortunately we didn't find any on the East side of Comb Ridge.