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So you just can’t do it. Try as you might, it’s just too big to capture in a picture. You walk up to a view, bring the camera up… and then you say “Nah.”
As I mentioned in our first post, one reason I bought the new truck was because of the miles and miles of unimproved roads in the Southwest. Back in 1988, we rode through this area in my trusty Cherokee and were able to visit the Anasazi “All American Man” in The Needles and the Fremont People pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon (The Maze district). Most of those roads were impassable this time.
We had the afternoon after our hike so we decided to drive the 13-mile Mineral Bottom dirt road and see if we could get to the boat ramp on the Green River. This is mountain bike country! We literally saw hundreds over the course of a few days. People would just set up a dirt bag camp for the weekend and ride, ride, ride!
The road started out easily enough, a well-graded 10-mile stretch of flat road along the mesa top with just a little washboard. We passed many camping areas along the way. You have to bring it all to camp, and you probably have to pack “it all” out as well, although there were quite a few evaporative toilet facilities scattered about.
And then, at the edge of the bluff, things started getting a little more interesting! That’s the Green River down below. The little white dot near the center is a pickup truck.
So of course we started down…
This turned out to be quite the road! All the roads were well-maintained, the challenging part is what to do if you meet someone? This was our first foray into canyon driving, and as ‘luck’ would have it, on our first hairpin turn we met the folks you see in the red circle coming up the escarpment.
Fortunately, the hairpin was wide and I was able to pull off to the side to let them by. Unfortunately, I happened to pull off to the right side….which suddenly put Patricia with quite the bird’s eye view! Sorry, no picture from that vantage point, we were looking to get back to hugging the wall as quickly as possible.
We came upon a bunch of mountain bikers, maybe 6 or 8 guys and one young lady. They had started at the river and were climbing this thing! Tough, tough, tough.
We made it to the boat ramp and the place was just beautiful! This would be an amazing place to boondock for a few days.
You remember that I mentioned swinging to the outside of the hairpin on Patricia’s side to let the other vehicle pass?
Yeah, near as I can figure, we were stopped just above the red arrow.
Time to head back to civilization for good food and a craft brew.
Oh, by-the-way, we passed all the mountain bikers on the way out. It looks like they were going to ride all the way to the main road. Impressive!