Mini Expedition to the Swell 5-11-12

[sixstringsteve]

It was a beautiful summer evening. Half of us met at Cabelas and headed out on the road at 6.

We met up with the rest of the group in Spanish Fork and Price.

After an uneventful drive, we arrived at camp at dark. We had a little fire and went to bed around 12:30. Ian was a riot and kept us all entertained. What a great kid.

 

[sixstringsteve]

The next day we woke up to a beautiful sunrise.

After breakfast and some shooting, we headed out on the trail. We broke up into three groups. Group 1 headed to buckhorn wash, the dinosaur footprint, and over to the Rochester art panel. Group 2 took Eagle Canyon to Eva Connover to Devil's Racetrack trail. Group 3 went to Goblin Valley and Little Wildhorse canyon.

I was in group 2, so that's what I'll report on.

 

[sixstringsteve]

On our way to Swasey's cabin we decided to check out the lone warrior pictograph. I had never been there before, and it was right on the way.

And we saw the double rainbow:

[youtube]OQSNhk5ICTI[/youtube]



Then we headed down to swasey's cabin. We met some nice ATVers from Denver who couldn't believe that we'd be driving our trucks out in Devil's Racetrack. They couldn't imagine us getting our trucks through there without any issues. Eagle Canyon was definitely my favorite part of the trip. It was stunning, an easy drive, and very scenic. At this point my camera battery was just about dead, so I didn't take many more pictures. I will be filling in this report with others' pictures as they come in.

I don't know the name of this arch, but it's beautiful:

crossing under I-70. It was really cool to hear the steel from the bridges creak as cars passed over them.

We finished Eagle Canyon without any issues and headed over to Eva Connover trail.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Eva Connover was an interesting trail. It started out pretty mellow, and quickly turned into some slightly more technical spots as we climbed and followed the ridge. Some weirdos decided it would be a good idea to drag dead juniper trees across the trail. It only took us a second to move them, but the fact that people would go out of their way to drag several trees across the trail blows me away. He we were recreating responsibly and legally, and some yahoo decides to drag a few trees across the trail. Like that's going to stop us? Luckily there were only 4 or 5 trees blocking the road, and they only took a second to move them.

The first 1/3 of the trail was slow going. You couldn't go fast, and there weren't any real technical obstacles. It was beautiful though, and a neat area. After an hour or so we stopped for lunch.

 

[sixstringsteve]

We were starting to get worried because we were only 1/3 of the way done with Eva Connover, and we still had about 25 miles to go. It was slow going and we wanted to get back to camp before dark. We continued on our way, and soon thereafter reached a sandy river bottom. Right as we met the river bottom, we ran back into our friends from Denver. They had just completed Devil's Racetrack on their ATVs and they warned us that we wouldn't be able to make it. The ledges were too big and our vehicles were too small. So of course that just made us want to run it all the more. I remember the conversation going like this:

[Denver] "are you guys going to take these vehicles through Devil's Racetrack?

[us] "yup"

[Denver] " Are you sure? There are ledges there"

[us] "yup, we'll be fine"

[Denver] " but they're REALLY big ledges, and it gets narrow, and you're a long way from the trail

[us] "cool, thanks. We'll be fine. Enjoy your day!"


They still thought we were crazy. We were just going to have to wait and see how bad the trail was. We parted ways and started through the sandy river bottom leading us out of the south fork wash (or was it the north fork wash?). After about 30 min of high-speed sand driving, we reached the end of Eva Connover. The first 1/3 of the trail ended up taking about 3 times longer than the last 2/3. It was a really neat spot to explore. I'd love to set up a camp in there some day.

 

[sixstringsteve]

After that, we headed down the south fork coal wash (or was it the north fork coal wash?) towards devil's racetrack. We were still in the sandy river bottoms and we passed some really cool cottonwood trees in the bottom of where the river would be. After about half an hour of that, we took a break at a nice big cottonwood tree. The shade combined with the breeze made it a perfect place for refuge.

Leaving there, we found the devil's racetrack trailhead about 15 min later. This is where the fun began! Immediately we were encountered with some rocky ledges to climb up. It was nice to have a trail that required 4wd. The trail was extremely well marked. It was quite tame and slow going, with the occasional high speed sandy 2-track section. We enjoyed the scenery. As we got a little past halfway through the trail we encountered the most challenging section. Since we were running from north to south we went down the big staircase. This section proved the most challenging of the trip. I even needed a spotter twice, and had to air down my tires for more traction!

 

[sixstringsteve]

We took some time spotting each other through this section, then headed on our way. It was fun to engage the locker for a bit and push the rigs a little. From here we meandered across the rest of the Devil's Racetrack trail and popped out at Dutchman's arch. From there it was under I-70 through the culverts and back to camp. When we arrived at camp, the wind was blowing pretty strong. We met up with group 3 and heard about their adventures in Goblin Valley and a very crowded Little Wildhorse Canyon hike (200 + cars at the parking lot and lining the road!)

The wind made it easy to decide to pack up camp and head home for the night. We headed off to Main St. Grill in Price before arriving home. Another successful trip with great company, old and new friends. I can't wait for the next trip.

 

[sixstringsteve]

If you went on the trip, post up your pictures and I'll paste 'em in the right part of the story.

 

[Kevin B.]

What a great trip. This was the first time I'd been in the Swell, instead of travelling through it. It was also the first chance I'd had to wheel since I put the locker in the rear, and Devils Racetrack was easily the hardest trail I've ever been on. The 4Runner handled it all with much more aplomb than I did, and amazed myself and my wife on a regular basis (constant refrain - "Did you see what we just did???"). I definitely learned a lot about what it (and I) can do. Steve and everybody else we wheeled with were great, and very patient with this noob. Carnage was limited to a squished exhaust pipe and a tent taken out by the afternoon wind storm, a fair trade! Thanks to everybody for the welcome and the great trip, my wife and boy had a great time too.

No dash footage because my rigged dashmount didn't work, but here's some handheld video my wife took during one of the tricky sections on Racetrack - there was another trickier spot later that we were so nervous about we forgot to tape.

[youtube]zIjnvrs0CSk[/youtube]

[youtube]6sKl0kKURrc[/youtube]

[youtube]Teynw6HXI34[/youtube]

Like Steve, we got busy trying to make time after Eagle Canyon and stopped taking pics, but here's the best of what we did take:

 

[DAA]

Excellent! Happy you all had a good time.

I don't know the name of this arch, but it's beautiful:

Eagle arch. She's a beauty ain't she?

- DAA

 

[thefirstzukman]

Had a fun time, just wish my back didn't hurt so bad. I'd like to spend more time down there, maybe some day trips. I'd also like to run the devils race track into other direction.

 

[mustang_boy2001]

looks like you guys had a fun time. all of us were really sad to miss it. we went camping saturday night up american fork canyon to granite flats. found out that the back country opens memorial day weekend as well as the loop. so if your planning on going up there and im free i would like to join maybe the weekend after memorial day.

 

[sixstringsteve]

was the road to silver lake flats open?

 

[Chicken Corners]

Looks like a SWELL time. Thanks for the report.

 

[bitshifter]

Here are my pics, I'll try to sort out some good ones and comment soon (let me know if the link is broken, I didn't make the album public yet):

https://plus.google.com/photos/1079...s/5743221567196499185?authkey=CO-_-Oqh6bHpkAE

 

[FatTony]

here are some photos i took

[/ATTACH]

 

[Kevin B.]

Your 5th pic - I missed that arch completely, where was that?

 

[rholbrook]

We about got ran over by some Mountain Sheep in April when we ran the same route on motorcycles. Picture 7 is where it was.

 

[DevinB]

I finally got around to getting my pictures off the camera. I didn't take too many shots, and the ones I did take aren't too good, but I'll post some anyway.

Davy (Mesha) and I went our own way for the day. After going down the wrong road and wasting an hour or so, we drove past Temple Mountain (which doesn't even look like a temple, imo) and to a popular rock art panel. After a few minutes there, we drove through to Little Wildhorse Canyon just outside of Goblin Valley. We hiked up the popular narrows trail through all the cool stuff, then went to Goblin Valley. The hike was very easy (Davy's 3-year old daughter walked it in flipflops) and my first experience in a "narrows" canyon. Very cool. We played around at Goblin Valley for a couple hours, then came back to camp. Sixstringsteve already covered what happened at that point...

On to the pics:

A rock art panel somewhere between Temple Mountain and Goblin Valley:

My Jeep and Davy's truck:

Dirt on my tailgate:

Hiking Little Wildhorse Canyon narrows:

my son Mathias, Davy Jr, and Davy Sr.

Mathias and Davy Jr.

Mathias at our turn-around point

Mathias at Goblin Valley

It was very fun, I can't wait to go back down and see more of everything.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Great pictures Devin!

we drove past Temple Mountain (which doesn't even look like a temple, imo)

I totally agree. I wonder where it got its name.

The hike was very easy (Davy's 3-year old daughter walked it in flipflops) and my first experience in a "narrows" canyon. Very cool. We played around at Goblin Valley for a couple hours, then came back to camp. .

Cedar is hardcore. Even though she's 3 and wears flip-flops, she's already more of a hardcore camper/hiker than most of us could ever hope to be.