Island in the Sky, The Needles, Moab, and BLM

Benchmark atlas ordered.....now to find those rare backpack hikes with a water hole at the end. ...
 
I have some of the Charles Wells books on offroad trails. They are very helpful and have trail ratings that are pretty accurate. There is a nice easy road from Gateway to Moab called Castle Valley road. Took my Subaru Outback on it with a side trip to Thompson Canyon to camp. We stayed at the Hideout primitive site, very nice. Stayed on Thompson canyon to Onion Creek road to Moab.
 
Looked at castle Rock road might be a bit dicey with a rental. ....anyone backpack to golden cathedral in neon canyon? looks like a great spot
 
ETAV8R said:
If you go to Island In the Sky and drive the White Rim Road counterclockwise on the map there is a great campsite called Taylor. It is a single site and not on the main road. It does have a small trailhead parking area for maybe 3 vehicles but only one campsite. There is a pit toilet too. From there there you can hike quite a bit if you like. I hiked to Zeus and Moses. The two prominent stone monoliths nearby.






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Moses is such a cool formation. I biked from Island in the Sky in the 80's to overlook Moses from the rim. Friends of mine had done ascents of the tower, but we just looked.
 
So much to see, so little time! Any suggestions for rout es getting to Neon Canyon from Cathedral Valley, and then up to Canyonlands? Rt 12 looks to be it and I'm not sure how our where to cross the Escalante without some serious backtracking back up Rt12, along Rt24, and then down Rt95. We're hoping there's a more practical route even if it's not paved.
 
mrfritz44 said:
So much to see, so little time! Any suggestions for rout es getting to Neon Canyon from Cathedral Valley, and then up to Canyonlands? Rt 12 looks to be it and I'm not sure how our where to cross the Escalante without some serious backtracking back up Rt12, along Rt24, and then down Rt95. We're hoping there's a more practical route even if it's not paved.
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If the ferry is running you could always turn off at Boulder and drop down the Burr Trail and the Notom-Bullfrog Rd then take the boat across to Hall's and up to 95. Won't be any faster, but you'll see some new country.

Information on the Hall's Ferry can be found here, looks like it's scheduled to start up again the end of March but have an alternative in mind...
 
It seems the ferry only runs Friday to Sunday which unfortunately won't work for us as we would be passing through this area on a Monday or Tuesday.....

We might have to reconsider our plans.
 
If you came in counter clockwise on the Rim Trail, is the road to Taylor before Labyrinth, accessible by F-150 4x4 or is a higher carriage recommended? The road looks fairly good to Mineral Bottom.
 
longhorn1 said:
mrfritz44, See if Benchmark makes a Utah Atlas. They are awesome for finding back country roads, forest land, BLM land, places to camp. We purchased Wyoming & Montana Benchmarks and they helped get us to some very remote places. I will be ordering Colorado for this fall.
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I have the Delorme Utah and Idaho Atlases. Are the Benchmark products much different or better than Delorme?
 
BillTheHiker, we haven't used the Delorme atlases so we can't comment. The Benchmark atlases have been awesome. I will have the Benchmark open and the bring up Google Earth and zoom in to look closely at back country trails. You might PM Foy to see if he has experience Delorme. jd
 
Anyone drive Upper Muley Twist Canyon Trail to shorten the dice between Escalante and Hite? Our goal would be primarily to not backtrack so it's understood it could be a long drive.
 
I should have said the Burr Trail! It seems this road is passable to 2WD cars in dry weather, but has anyone here actually done it?
 
If dry 2wd is fine.

This fall the road from the bottom of the switchbacks to Bullfrog had the worst case of washboard I've ever had the misfortune to be on.
 
ETAV8R said:
If you go to Island In the Sky and drive the White Rim Road counterclockwise on the map there is a great campsite called Taylor. It is a single site and not on the main road. It does have a small trailhead parking area for maybe 3 vehicles but only one campsite. There is a pit toilet too. From there there you can hike quite a bit if you like. I hiked to Zeus and Moses. The two prominent stone monoliths nearby.






Click to expand...
I second the White Rim but you will need a permit if you want to camp/drive down there now unless you do it in one day (at least last year or the year before you did). Regulations change so I'd check first.
 
Yeah I had to have reservations for all the campsites we used. The ranger suggested Taylor. He was like a travel agent with his recommendations.
 
If you want road reports for GSENM there is a link on the right side of that page that will take you to a .PDF file with the most current report.

The last report dated 3-08-17 shows the road to Bullfrog Marina, The Notom-Bullfrog Road and The Burr Trail all recently graded and passable to 2WD. Of course a good storm can change that quickly so it's worth keeping an eye on things.
 
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