It was a great time. Thanks for organizing and leading this Perry.
I headed out early last Monday and planned to spend a couple of days camping and sightseeing as I made my way to Canyonlands. Since it's the perfect tme of year to see the Aspens change color, I decided to take the scenic route to Utah.
I headed South on 285 towards Buena Vista, then shot West over Monarch Pass into Gunnison, then up into Crested Butte. I camped my first night on Kebler Pass, then headed Northwest over McClure Pass into Glenwood Springs, then West to Utah.
Kebler Pass pics:
Once I got into Utah I had an afternoon and evening to explore so I headed over towards Hanksville and decided to hike around Goblin Valley since I had never been there before. Very cool place.
Goblin Valley:
Perry, Daniel and Cody were planning to meet in Hanksville Wednesday morning before heading the Poison Spring road into Canyonlands. I knew they would be needing to move at a good clip to make the 60 miles of trail to our campsite. I decided to head up the road Tuesday night and camp out solo so that I could run it at a more leisurely pace. I made it in about 10 miles before it started getting dark.
Tuesday night heading up Poison Spring Canyon:
Wednesday morning I woke up at about 5:30 and made breakfast and drank coffee in the moonlight. So awesome to be out there in the desert camping. I started up the trail at 7 and watched the sun come up on my way to the Dirty Devil crossing.
Wednesday morning heading towards the Dirty Devil:
The Dirty Devil had been running extremely low at 13 cfs, so the crossing was easy. It was hard to believe it had been running at 10,000cfs only a month earlier! The trail quickly climbed up into the Orange Cliffs area.
View from above the Dirty Devil:
The scenery was amazing and I stopped often to hike around and enjoy the day. I was certain Perry and the crew would catch up to me, but I ended up driving solo all the way into Canyonlands. The Orange Cliffs portion of the Poison Springs road was a great drive and really drives home the fact you're out in the middle of the desert.
I passed this old car/trailer thing down in a wash. Looked like they had converted it into a camper of some sort. Bizarre.
This is heading out of the Orange Cliffs area at Sunset Pass and into the flats before Teapot Canyon:
From here the road into the Maze District of Canyonlands gets pretty twisty and rough. It took me a few hours to go from Sunset Pass to the Dollhouse.
Teapot canyon road:
Land of Standing Rocks to the Dollhouse:
Perry sure knows how to pick a campsite.
The Dollhouse was an amazing spot. Crazy huge rock formations over-looking the Colorado river. I arrived before sunset and set up camp.
Dollhouse:
Perry, Daniel and Cody pulled in just before dark. Here's the man-with-the-plan and his newly tricked out rtt equiped 'Runner
:
Much
was consumed and we crashed. The plan was to camp at the Dollhouse 2 nights and hike around and relax thursday.
Kurt was planning on running late and he didn't hit the Poison Spring trail until 10 PM and bombed the whole way to camp in 4 HOURS in the dark! Nuts! It took me about 8 hours.
will post more later...