White Rim Trail

 we arrived at canyonlands on friday about 11.

 only a few people with a beautful blue sky and red and off-white spires of sandstone all round...about 6000 feet. 

We decided to go for it and booked two campsites along the white rim trail. 

 one at potato bottom b and one at gooseberry a.  We had full fuel tanks and drove back to the start of the drive...we thought...but three hours and twenty miles later we determined we had followed the hell roaring jeep trail out to the very rim of the green river canyon.  Very rugged trail..so we went back and determined we had missed the start of white rim (mineral bottom road) by about 150 feet and off we went...a bit late.  

8 miles later we reached the start of white rim trail...a very rugged

 1500 foot drop of hairpin turns and switchbacks..enough to make you close your eyes and pray if you were so inclined...big, big rocks....drove to the bottom and reached the green river only to find we had some miles of "shelf" road to negotiate (read a very, very narrow shelf of rock overhanging the river...leaving perhaps a foot between the tire and a long, long..very long drop into the river)...and at times this road had inclines of well over 20 degrees..maybe 30 degrees when you could see nothing but hood of the vehicle...and a lip coming up.  

I becaome very familiar with diff lock and low range..and we never even slid a wheel..but mom and i both still have "nightmares" of the images at some critical moments...and in theory we could have met a ca

r coming the other way.  we reached potato bottom about 5 in the afternoon...cooling fast...and getting dark...  

quiet..although a car arrived about seven thirty and scared us..folks lost looking for a place to camp (we saw only 4 people the whole time).  slept ok but dreamed about the murphy hogback ahead..book said it was tough.  off we went in the morning..and after another 25 miles or so reached murphy hogback..and we did really well and congratulatged ourselves and turned a corner...whoops!!...the last part of the hogback was still to come and impressive...probably 30 degrees up, loose scree, a sheer dropoff on my left, and...a LIP at the top to climb over.  we both sat quietly in the car. no words were spoken..put it in low range

, locked the diff, pulled up to over 3500 rpm and went for it hard.  a minute later we were on top.  stopped to pee....added engine oil...high fived and started down the steep other side.  

after about 20 more miles of driving along the edges of the canyon, and i do mean the edges, we found our second campsite about 2 pm and stopped to rest.  pretty tired.  saw two other folks.  the canyons are beyond description..made you want to just disappear into the wilderness.  the colorado and the green rivers have carved deep,deep circuitious canyons through multiple layers of rock varying from current to about 250 million years old. some layers are old beaches withripple marks from the ocean, others contain uranium. the layers vary in resistance to erosion so there are wild, wild features resembling forts and turrets and pillars and faces..

all in a variety of colors.  today we were up early..this morning was probably about 30 degrees..much warmer than previous day.  we finished the white rim trail and then exited another 40 miles of winding dirt road.....into moab.  moab reminded me of bend....on steroids...new motels everywhere. ugh..we decided to go back to sleepy, tiny town of green river.  pressure washed the car to reduce the weight of the mud...don't worry..we are going back for MORE.

Near, Far, and In Between...