JohnTheLuck's Adventures Thread

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 12:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

Man, I love my 4Runner so much!!!

Today was another beautiful and exciting wheeling day. Our goal, explore the Hole in the Rock Road up to the end, and some area near the end.

The Hole in the Rock road starts on UT-24 near Escalante. This is an in-out road since it ends at the Lake Powell. The road follows the pioneer expedition route to Hole in the Rock at the base of the Fiftymile Mountain. The first 50 miles or so are really easy since well graded, but with long stretch of washboard.

Along the way, the exceptional wild beauty of Grand Staircase Escalante NM is amazing at ever turn.

Almost there, near Sooner Rocks.

The first sight of Hole in the Rock from a distance, in Glen Canyon NRA. The last 10 miles are rocky, but still 2WD but high clearance in some point. It is impossible to break something, except if like me you look at the scenery for the last 10 feet before parking. The factory skid plate too a small hit, a reminder to always look were you go...!!!

Mormon pioneers carved a slope down to the Colorado River at that time to cross to the other side, saving many days of trip duration. Wagons were tied to rope, then men and horses kept the wagon to fall freely. This should have been terrifying.

We hiked a bit along the cliffs high above Lake Powell. The scenery was again awesome.

On the other side, where pioneers continued their journey. It is reachable using Emigrant Trail (NPS 450) also named Hole in the Rock Trail, but it is a lot more remote and difficult.

We the turned around and went up Sooner Slide to get a view of the region from above.

This road is in enough good condition, but recent water flow created some hurdles along the way, but no need for 4WD here again. At the top, instead of turning around and go down, we decided to deviate a bit from our itinerary and headed onto the Fiftymile Bench Road to reach Willow Tank slide, about 8 mile to the west, since we were supposed to go up and down also on this road later.

At the beginning, it was an easy ride in a cedar forest. Then things began to be interesting.

Again, the 4Runner was up to the task. Then, things began to be challenging.

But again, the 4Runner kept its promises. We then reached Willow Tank Slide, our road down to Hole in the Rock road.

Then, thinks began to be much more of what we asked for. The road was washed away in many places, with 2 feet drops an many places. We had to build ramp with rocks, which fortunately were very abundant. Our progress was extremely slow and daylight was fading (again...). In the hardest place, we progressed about 100 ft in an hour. Unfortunately, my camera decided to freeze and we don't have a picture of this difficult section.

Later on, when we reached the last critical zone, I fix the camera. This is not even representative of the previous part.

We finally reached the Hole in the Rock Road at darkness. Lesson learnt:
- The 4Runner is a very capable vehicle, even stock;
- Don't be shy to turn around;
- Investigate the road conditions before leaving;
- My wife and me are glad of our performance in this critical situation;

We are learning, and it is fun!!!

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Sounds like fun times, and the scenery is incredible!

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Sounds like fun times, and the scenery is incredible!

It is really fun, What to ask more? The scenery, the weather, and the challenge. Great adventure!

More to come...

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 13:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

Today was another day of hiking. We headed to the Hole in the Rock again, since this road give access to many excellent hiking destination.

We reached Dance Hall Rock, a large rock with a pretty level plateau where pioneers held dance and music concerts.

The top is pretty smooth and it is possible to explore without leaving the slickrock.

On the top, many pot holes are populated with some vegetation, even small cottonwood trees.

Going back to the Hole in the Rock road, we headed further to reach the Broken Bow Arch trailhead. This one of the many larges arches found in this region. This is the view from the trailhead.

After reaching the bottom of a side canyon, we reached Willow Gulch where the arch is located. Beginning as a sandy bottom, this changed rapidly due to the presence of vegetation. Then, water began to flow as a small creek. In many places, we had to walk across the creek on muddy banks.

After about 2 miles, the arch revealed itself around a corner. What a magnificent view. This one is majestic.

Past the arch, the canyon continues and form half of a tunnel.

We wanted to continue further, but the density of the vegetation would have forced us to walk directly in the water and we were not equipped for that. We then turned around and rejoin the trailhead.

You remember yesterday, going down on the Willow Tank Slide, my camera froze and I didn't get a good souvenir of this portion, well, we went back today. We drove up near to the point were the difficult passages were and hiked up. Some vehicles have passed since, probably some quads, therefore some ramps were destroyed a bit.

Seeing this under daylight, I was amazed that we were able to pass there with my stock 4Runner!
.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 14:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

I will try to keep it shorter on hiking days since it is, after all, a 4Runner forum. Wifey, like I said before, like more hiking than wheeling, so I have to respect this constraint.

But we did some wheeling, again on the Hole in the Rock road, which I begin to know even more each day I drive on it. Hills, washboard, loose sand, hole, etc.

So today, we headed to the Fortymile Ridge Trailhead parking to start our hike to see Jacob Hamblin Arch, deep inside Coyote Gulch. Since we hiked down into a canyon yesterday, we decided to follow the rim high above to see it. The arch was hiding in the shadow at this time of the day.

We then made a short stop to Devil's Garden to see Metate Arch among other interesting rock formations. We had to wait a bit that a foolish guy standing at the top of the arch moved away after taking many selfies. Please guys, don't climb on these fragile features. When they collapse, they are gone forever. Leave them for others that come after you.

After, we drove the Harris Wash road to reach the trailhead, but mostly to know if it is possible to cross the wash to reach a region called Red Breaks. Along the way, the scenery changes completely with red and grey rock, and a lot of vegetation due to the proximity of the wash.

No luck, there is a sign saying it is now an administrative road, so no access. We should be able to reach this region using another road, hopefully.
.

 

[yellowdog]

Day 14:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

I will try to keep it shorter on hiking days since it is, after all, a 4Runner forum. Wifey, like I said before, like more hiking than wheeling, so I have to respect this constraint.

Let her drive, bet that will change everything

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Let her drive, bet that will change everything

Without full skid plates and lift, NO WAY !!!!!!!!

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Photobucket seems to be having problems. None of the photos are showing up.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Ok, no panic! My pictures are not showing since I am using Photobucket for sharing and this site operates erratically since a few days. It is now down for maintenance.

I might move to another hosting service. Any suggestions?

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 15:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

The weather forecast made us hesitate to go on trails today. We decided to drive a bit onto UT12 SB, one of my favorite road, period.

The sky was not too threatening, so we decided to hike to Lower Calf Creek Lower Fall, in Grand Staircase-Escalante NM.

After the hike, we continues North toward Boulder. I repeat myself but, the scenery is simply amazing.

After a small pause for lunch in Boulder, we decided to do some wheeling by exploring Mc Gath Bench Road, hoping to get near white rock cliffs. On the way, we crossed the Boulder landing strip, with an original welcome panel, an aircraft body head down in the ground!

After a moment, we passed over a rocky spot then we reached a vintage point over the white rock valley down below. Even if it is a lot better under sunshine, we enjoyed the view, then turned back onto pavement.

Wifey as my spotter. She still needs to work on her signs which are sometime confusing! She look like praying I am not hitting something...

There was still a few hours left of daylight, so we decided to take another hike, this time toward Calf Creek Upper Falls, a smaller fall then the lower one we hiked earlier. The trail goes steeply down to reach the fall.

On the way back to the trailhead, the rain started again. Hopefully, there it will not continue tomorrow.
.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Photos from yesterday are added to the post. PhotoBucket is up, but for how long this time...???
.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 16:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

Today was another days mixed hiking and trails. We headed again, for the 4th day, onto Hole in the Rock Road. With all these washboard, my 4Runner has rattles everywhere. I am hoping something will not get loose during the trip.

Our first destination was the Crack in the Wall trail in Grand Staircase-Escalante NM, on the way to the confluence of Coyote Gulch and the Escalante River. The confluence can be seen where there is some vegetation in the following photo, as well as the Steven Arch. Trivia: Can you spot the five hikers going down the mega sand dune?

The name Crack in the Wall come from the opening which is used to go down in the canyon, on the top of the sand dune.

After a small lunch, we headed to see Sunset Arch. It is almost a miracle this arch is still standing. Unfortunately, the sun was behind clouds.

Nearby, Moonrise Arch is a bit less impressive.

On our way back, we did some easy wheeling on Cedar Wash Road, which was graded a few days ago. Driving was so smooth on soft sand, in opposition to the Hole in the Rock washboard.

Some interesting features along the way are Cedar Wash Arch and Covered Wagon Natural Bridge, an amazing tunnel-like formation on a bend of the Cedar Wash.

The road took us back to Escalante.
.

 

[TBBrewer]

Great photos.

Not just great, they are awesome! keep up the great work and show us more of your travels. Ted
:canada:

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Not just great, they are awesome! keep up the great work and show us more of your travels. Ted
:canada:

Thanks a lot. I only press the shutter, the amazing scenery does the rest!!!

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 17:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Escalante, UT

This was our last day in Escalante. During all our previous trips in the SouthWest, we always passed by without staying and taking the time to discover this amazing hiking region. We will surely come back, there is so much more to discover.

The goal for today was to explore the Spencer Flat Road and vicinity. Since we were very early, even with the change to normal daylight saving, we didn't take great pictures since this road travels east toward the sun.

Since this road is really short, we reached rapidly our first stop, the parking space for Cosmic Ashtray (aka Escal Volcano) . In fact, there is no official trail and hiking is done on sand or sandstone. Use of a GPS is highly recommended.

After a short gravel portion, the trail turns to deep sand, with cow tracks going in every directions. More than half and hour later, we finally reached some sandstone, with small pools of Moki Marbles, round dark rocks, found everywhere in this area.

Continuing, the orange sandstone gave way to grey and red striped rocks.

After near than three hours in the hiking, we had a first glimpse of our destination, on the far end of the long slope.

Even if I dislike the name Cosmic Ashtray, I will use it since it is not a volcano, as originally taught by pioneers who discovered it. It is made of sandstone, probably eroded by the wind. The view is spectacular and strange. The inside rock formation ressemble the head of an alien, and the outside has long parallel formations, like the tentacles of a squid.

We were a bit early because the sun didn't reach the orange sand. Near the east side rim, there is some steps carved into the abrupt slope down to the sand, but the section just before the steps is angled so much that our shoes were at the adherence limit. We didn't go on the sand.

On our way back, the high noon sun was making the rock glowing. What a great view!

After getting back to the 4Runner, we explored adjacent road to Spencer Flat Road, down to the Red Breaks trailhead. On our way back, the late afternoon sun was again making thing even colorful and spectacular.

We found a great spot nearby the Spencer Flat Road, easily reachable with the 4Runner. This morning, there was someone camping in its van there.

Tomorrow, we drive East toward Blanding UT for the next stop of the trip. I guarantee you there will be a lot more wheeling there. Stay tuned for more!
.

 

[TBBrewer]

Fabuloso

John: The new photos are absolutely fabulous, as ever. Great work. If you ever come west, be sure to look us up. Agassiz, B.C. in god's country. - Ted

 

[JohnTheLuck]

John: The new photos are absolutely fabulous, as ever. Great work. If you ever come west, be sure to look us up. Agassiz, B.C. in god's country. - Ted

Thanks!

It is in the plan to go back in the canadian west, maybe next summer. For sure, we plan to be in the NorthWest for the August solar eclipse (if the frontiers are not blocked by Mr. Trump...).
.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

Day 18:

Start point: Escalante, UT
End point: Blanding, UT

Don't expect too much from today's post, we did a lot of highway travel on familiar roads for us, so we didn't stop very often. Plus, after two weeks and a half on the road, we were severely due for laundry time.

We decided to do a loop from Escalante, Torrey, Hanksville, Green River, Moab, then Blanding.

We stopped in Moab for lunch at Pasta Jay's, a classic for us. Then we went a the Landromat we used to go.

After two hours, we were back on the road toward Blanding. We then saw something that reminds us that winter will be back again this year; snow begins to accumulate gently on La Sal Mountains slopes away from the sun.

Going south on US191, the classic view of a rock near the UT211 road toward Canyonlands NP Needles sector. I don't know the real name, but sometime I call it Ballerine Rock, of like my wife says, Fat Bottom Girl Rock!

We had about one hour before the sun settle down, so we went to see Butler Wash Ruins Overlook, a short distance from Blanding on US95.

Tomorrow should be almost entirely dedicated to wheeling, at last!
.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

That's Church Rock.

Those old indian ruins are cool. I'm surprised you can just walk right up to them like that.

 

[JohnTheLuck]

That's Church Rock.

Those old indian ruins are cool. I'm surprised you can just walk right up to them like that.

Church Rock, okay!!! Thanks.

I corrected my post since the name of the ruins is not Mule Canyon but Butler Wash.

The site is reached by an half a mile easy trail to an overlook on the other side of the canyon. The trailhead is at a rest area onto US95, 14 mile from Blanding.

There are many more sites in this area, unfortunately not preserved like this one. There is currently pressure from local people to make this region a national monument to help protect this heritage. Hopefully, this request will be received with the needed attention from the politicians. We will see tomorrow...

(Edit: This area is now protected by the newly created Bear Ears National Monument)
.