Oh my! Where to start? Perhaps with the end.....back to the 'bus' at 9:30 PM after starting at 7 AM. Filling a 16 gallon tank with 15.7 gallons of gas. 150+ miles in the alleged desert. Meeting some new people. Over 80 photos of the day's adventure. Had a great time wheelin' - and nothing broke!
Perhaps some clarification is due. There are always innuendos buried within these ramblings. The latest is the use of the word "alleged" when referring to the desert. While it is true that to the west for many, many miles there are no towns, few paved road and thousands upon thousands of square miles with no services whatsoever, it certainly is not a barren desert. While there are large flats between mountains that some might call boring, even they are intruiging and full of life. But once one gets into one of the many mountains, it's an entirely different world. Trees, antelope, deer, wild mustangs, old mining camps, ghost towns, cliffs, and scenery that's some of the best on this trip so far. So while it's technically a desert, it's anything but boring and anything but barren.
So a little bit about our gracious "tour guides" Keith and Jerry. Keith is retired from Geneva Steel and has a truck/auto repair shop north of Delta. He and his wife, Jerry (you can only imagine the grief she took as a kid!) close the shop and go wheelin' each weekend. Keith is one of the founders of UROC and he and Jerry are an integral part of this professional rock crawling organization. They've built a couple of awesomely trail worthy vehicles and their driving (and spotting skills) are some of the best I've ever seen. So today they've invited us to go to Bird, aka Chainsaw, Canyon and then move along to Sawmill Canyon for some reasonably challenging trails.
40 miles later, this is beginning of Bird (Chainsaw) canyon. This canyon's trail was very reminiscent of many of the more difficult trails used for the Dakota Challenge. Some of the side canyons are incredibly difficult and most likely impossible without a severely modified vehicle.
The first "minor" obstacle. To set the record straight, there is absolutely no truth to the vicious rumor that I had to winch up two obstacles. I was concerned that I might need to use the winch later in the trail and I wanted to ensure that it was working properly. And, after the first test, a second test was in order to verify the integrity of the first test. Both tests passed.
After negotiating some of the obstacles and watching Keith and Jerry climb them with little difficulty, this was a welcome respite.
This is the vehicle they use for their UROC competition. Nice flex!
After Chainsaw we moved down Marjum Canyon road to a side canyon for lunch. Turns out that Marjum Canyon road is old US Highway 6 and was also part of the Lincoln Highway until the designation was hijacked by the Wendover crew. The scenery was outstanding!
This was the view from the lunch spot. Behind us is an old cabin that a hermit lived in for many years in the early part of the 1900s.
Dust was everywhere. Often times we stayed 1/2 mile back to avoid it. The wheeling and scenery here is awesome. This could be a second Moab. The only problem is that all the good wheeling is 40 - 60 miles from the nearest town. That's a helluva long way to walk when you break!
This trip today was enlightening. I need to come back here with the 'real' tires and play on some of these trails.
Up and at 'em at 9. Met Keith and Jerry at their place and took off on a scenic drive today - and also a drive to look for rocks. The first stop, 40 miles away, was the back side of Topaz Mountain to find, what else, but Topaz crystals. There were thousands of the tiny crystals all over the ground.
Today they took their Toy - also built very impressively with a full external cage and all four fenders removable - so it's street legal until it's time not to be street legal. Marvelous design!
So we
stopped for lunch and picked up some beryllium. As we're eating, a tarantula
came rambling along, perhaps looking for lunch. A rather contrary fellow,
(I assume he was a he - I didn't look!) at one point he became somewhat
irritated with me taking photos and chased me around a little. It was hilarious.
(Well, at least I thought so!) These suckers
can move when they want to! After we were done playing, he was
encouraged to go down a hill and leave us alone as Connie was somewhat
concerned that he might elect to hitch a ride back to camp with us. While
I'm not a fan of spiders, tarantulas are pretty benign and are not terribly
poisonous. I'd rather meet one of these any day than a brown recluse or
a black widow! At least you can see these coming!
More rock collecting and then on the way back, stopped at Baker Hot Springs and watched attentively as a young couple emerged from the pool of hot water.
Headed back "home," took a short nap and then took Keith and Jerry out for supper that evening as a thank-you for their hospitality. It was not easy finding an eating establishment open in Delta on Sunday!
Obviously we had to stay at the campground again. Much to my aggravation, yet someone else was right next to us again. Damn! Time to move to the desert.
But before moving on, had to get a photo of the fuel tank on Keith's rock crawler. Yes, it is a beer keg! Adolph Coors, to be specific. I find this a most excellent use of a Coors keg, much better than the originally intended contents.
So as we leave - thanks Keith and Jerry for a wonderful time. We'll be back!
Picked up a 5 gallon gas can for extra fuel. More about that later. Watered up, sewered down. Bought some groceries. Still have real beer and some wine. All set now for a few days about as far away from civilization as one can get while "roughing it."
This is nice. Found a pretty good graveled area off "The Loneliest Road" and just on the west end of dry Lake Sevier, a 30 mile long dry lake. Poked around for a high area that's on gravel - most of the ground is clay. Thunder boomers are predicted for tomorrow afternoon and the NWS is suggesting that the flash flood potential for Tuesday is "moderate" and Wednesday is "High." We're not that far off Highway 50, about 1/4 mile or less but that's OK. There's maybe one vehicle going by every 15-20 minutes. Beautiful view of the dry lake bed and the mountains on the other side.
"The Loneliest Road"
This was the trail to the shale beds where fossils were looking for fossils.
What a nice spot. The sun is going down and the mountains across the lake are a gorgeous red - with the brilliant white of the lake bed below them. It's nice and cool inside and the Blue Moon tastes very good tonight. Took a shower and feel great.
I can hardly wait for the almost full moon to rise over the mountains across the lake. The only vehicle next to us is the Jeep. This is camping.
Today was a day of hunting, again, for the elusive JAFR and other stuff. After bypassing a number of pretty good looking 4WD trails, we wound up at "U-Dig Fossils," a commercial operation that charges $20 per person for two hours of digging. Needless to say, we only paid $20. I was the driver.
The photo to the left is the shale pile where one can easily obtain Trilobite fossils. They had these flies there that were a tremendous nuisance. After applying a liberal dose of DEET, it seemed to attract the damn things rather than repel them. I suspect these are rare "Deetus Eatus" variety of flies.
Here's the view of Tule valley from Painter Springs. The road off in the distance is about 15-20 miles long.
So got back early, about 4 and really tired. The sun was hot, even with the clouds that were forming. 6 PM now and there are some storms coming up in the southwest. Might be an interesting night.
The only vehicle next to us is the Jeep. This is camping.
As expected, thunderstorms and rain continued on and off through the night in the desert. There wasn't nearly as much rain as expected so they downgraded the flash flood potential. The lightning in the desert was pretty impressive, too bad it was 2 AM. By 8 the rain was done and there was clear sky to the west. After breakfast, headed back to Delta and spent a couple hours washing clothes. From there over to Nephi for fuel and lunch. Sprint's 3G worked there so uploaded a ton of random bits. By this time it was 3. Two full tanks of fuel, a full tank of LP, water, food, clean clothes......it's time for the second half of the trip....the mountains!
And heeere's Fountain Green. All the small towns in the Sanpete Valley were pretty nice. The roads in these towns are wide - this was by design as the early settlers wanted roads wide enough to turn a wagon around. It works for motor homes with a 70' turning radius as well. These wide streets, with nice looking homes and the fall mountains in the background are quite a change from the past week's scenery. Not that this is better, just that it's different. After all, all change is good.
Heading down the valley towards the next camping spot, the Wasatch were putting on quite a show. While again, the camera didn't capture it, the hills were alive with brilliant reds and incredible yellows and golds. Fall colors are so very pretty. Too bad they're a harbinger of months of crappy snow (back home), salt (back home) and a messy, ugly end of winter (back home) before spring somes again. I'll bet it's not that crappy here! But for now - the sights, the smell of the pines, the fresh air, the puffies in the sky, the blue sky, the warm sun -- it overloads the senses.
Ended up in Palisades State Park, east of Manti. This is in the midst of what is becoming an expensive residential area, even though it's miles away from the nearest large town. Spent the next hour cleaning the sticky desert mud off the side of the motor home. I've had super glue that didn't stick as well as this stuff. What a mess - but worth every minute of it! So this is a photo of the sunset over the lake. In the distance are more mountains. This is a nice place, but unfortunately civilization is rapidly encroaching.
So the last vestige of sunlight lit up a hill with an almost fluorescent red glow. This shot was taken from a side window of the motor home, and the previous shot was taken from the front only a few minutes earlier. Just to the right of center there's a red A-frame of a magnificent house halfway up the hill. Damn civilization!
So today ended easily. Some periodic maintenance and a nice drive. A little satellite TV, a little computer stuff. Electricity and water. Gotta say it again - I love roughing it! Tomorrow - the Wasatch!
So happy autumnal equinox. This section of the Drive was, in a word, spectacular! What a way to enjoy the first day of autumn!
Going north to south, this would normally be the last section of the Drive, probably about 1/4 of the total mileage. Tomorrow will attempt to do the middle half with the northern quarter Saturday.
So the day broke bright and sunny. Headed up to the Drive from Six Mile Canyon, a road right off the campground. Six Mile, contrary to its name, is not six miles but about 13 instead. Go figure. It's a moderate 4WD road but only needed low range and no 4WD. It took 2 hours to do the 13 miles but worth it. At about 10,000 feet Six Mile joined up with Skyline Drive.
Not quite to Skyline yet but this will give an idea of the brilliant
colors along the way.
This part of the Drive is on a ridge. Canyons are on both sides - both filled with incredible colors.
See what I mean?
So hours later, made the descent from 10,000 feet. The Drive ended at I-70 but there was yet another gravel road that paralled I-70 the 16 miles back to Salina where one needed to then pick up US 89 to get back to Manti and the camp. But on the way, there were a few surprises driving along the narrow canyon road at 20 mph with the I-70 traffic whizzing by sometimes only a couple hundred yards away.
I was not allowed to take the "Troubled Bridge Over Water." Looked like fun, though.
One of the many surprises on the way back.
Got back early, about 4. "Toured" Manti in about 5 minutes. Made it back to camp and spent a leisurely evening reading, watching a little TV and another beautiful sunset.
"A bad day in the mountains beats a good day at work." Today will be cloudy most of the day. Kalifornia seems to be shipping Utah a bunch of clouds but no storms. This drive was rich in color but much of the enjoyment was lost to the clouds as well as the beginning of the trip.
This will be the middle half of Skyline. After talking with a very nice ranger at Ephriam, it was decided to make the ascent to the Drive from Mt. Pleasant. I thought the ascent road was very nice. While the road has the easiest rating for 4WD, I only used low range in 2WD. Mountain after mountain was alive with the fall colors.
Through the side of broken metal mesh on the windows of one of the
dilapidated buildings, I was able to squeeze the camera through and
get this shot. This photo was the only way to see inside. Not obvious
is the "interesting" wiring arrangement on the bottom of
the exciter.
Along the ascent route, there were a couple of tiny power houses with small generators. It didn't even appear that Pleasant Creek had enough water to generate electricity, but apparently so. The water was brought down hundreds of feet via a metal pipe, maybe a foot in diameter. That fed the turbine for the generators. These generators looks like they're from the 30s or 40s, if that recent. Not sure how much power they provide, but it's probably not a whole lot. Pretty interesting to see these antique power houses still working, though.
Their method of cooling the power houses was, if nothing else, ingenious.
In several of the windows covered with metal mesh, they had common
20" plastic house fans in the windows circulating the air. I'm
assuming the power lines attached to the building were to ship power
out, and not to provide power for the fans. 
Dodging the "brown rocks" that were deposited in the middle of the road quickly became an entertaining sport.
Need more be said?
The views were awesome. More than a mile below is the Sanpete valley. The darker mountains in the distance are over 60 miles away, almost to Delta.
Towards the end of the day's drive, the sun poked through and as we descended via 12 Mile Canyon (which is 18 miles long) the hills once again came alive with probably the most color seen so far. Shot a couple rolls of 35mm slides which ought to capture the color a lot better than these photos.
Part of 12 Mile Canyon and the road.
So getting back to the camp at Manti, decided to pack up and move 20 miles north to Mt. Pleasant and go to one of the few remaining drive-in theaters in Utah. The Brothers Grimm was playing and was a so-so movie. I personally thought the best part of the movie was the French-bashing that occurred periodically.
The weather was delightful. The clouds cleared and it remained warm enough with the top down. A gentle breeze kept the bugs away. Now and then one could see flashes of lightning way, way to the north. The Polygamy Porter ("Why have just one?") went great with the popcorn.
Not a bad way to end week 3.
