@Herzog and I were able to meet up and check out Hunter Canyon yesterday, we staged at the start of Behind the Rocks Road, across Hwy 191 across from the turnoff for Area BFE. We went in on BTR Road, deciding even though that route is longer it would probably be faster. The road was decent, but had plenty of rough spots along the way, with a handful of challenging ledges tossed in. I didn't time the route in, but I believe it took us about an hour and 15 min or so... and we were running at a pretty quick pace.
Eventually we ended at a 3 way intersection, one route coming out of Pritchett, the BTR Road we came in on (most often used to get out of Pritchett) and the less traveled Hunter Canyon route.
We headed in and it was obvious that Hunter doesn't see much travel. The trail runs thru the bottom of a small, tight canyon with a lot of tamarisk and plenty of other green brush & trees. Winding thru the canyon was awesome, there was a decent bit of water in places as well, but Moab has had some recent storms. Much of the trail was bombing in & out of the wash, then at times running up the wash itself for a ways. There was a lot of sandy two track and the wash itself had a mix of sand & small river rock.
The first real challenge was climbing out of the bottom of the wash, up to a small overhang. It wasn't a crazy climb, just tight with the overgrowth and the overhang.
The next obstacle was a rolling slickrock climb with pretty steep transitions. There was water & mud on the approach. I opted for the easier route around it, but Herzog took the more challenging route and walked right up it.
We bombed up the trail and came to a tight right hand turn, with a large ledge climbing out of the wash. Again, the buggy cruised right up, while the Gladiator needed some spotting & line selection. At this point, we had started our climb up onto the mesa. The fun, tight little canyon section of Hunter was over all too soon. As we continued on, there were a few more small climbs, then a massive one. The main route climbed up a good 30', with 3 massive ledges and several large boulders. The buggy cruised right up, but there was no way the Gladiator was going to make it without serious damage and a ton of work. There was another route option that wandered around to the right, so I went to check it out. My best option was a steep climb with a tree blocking the easiest approach to the hill, about 30' up and a small ledge at the top of it. I made it, but it wasn't pretty.
At this point, we ran across a group of dirtbikes and then a dozen or more SxS's.... we hadn't seen anyone since the Pritchett intersection. We were back to the well traveled trails of Moab and all the crowds.
We picked up the Behind the Rocks trail and started working our way back to the start. Once we reached White Knuckle Hill, we had to split up.... it's GNARLY and steep!
@Herzog walked right up it, but as big as the ledge was I wasn't making it up. The bypass took me miles out of the way, we eventually met back up on Behind the Rocks Road and headed back.
I will say this about Hunter Canyon.... its neat, the trail reminds me of Moab from the mid 90's. But
I don't think the Juice is worth the Squeeze, IF you only want to see Hunter Canyon. Shane and I talked about it and I believe we decided that the best way to run Hunter is by running Pritchett, IF you can buzz thru it quickly and have time in the day to take both Hunter and Behind the Rocks out.
