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Here's a rundown of a recent trip to the San Rafael Swell. I don't know if the other three (four, including Oliver) participants were members of Mojave Underground, but I am, and the summary includes some info. on the San Rafael mining district, including the M-K Tunnels, so here goes:
We met at Gilly’s convenience store early on Fri. and assessed our three vehicle’s conditions. Kevin’s red Jeep was doing fine at the time. Andrew’s Toyota was emanating vibrations from the overheating, grease-slewing rear axle but he had driven it all night from his home near Logan, so how bad could it be? My ’81 CJ-5 Heep, meanwhile, was getting cruddy mileage, down 4 mpg from a high of 18, which ate into my range.
But if we put off our journeys until our vehicles ran perfectly, there would be no journeys. So Andrew bought some axle grease and I bought some new spark plugs and we headed for the Swell.
The weather was warm and the roads were dry. Kevin and Nan lead us down South Coal Wash toward the Eva Conover Road. Here there were precarious overhangs and high sandstone walls. Conover was a little rough but I don’t think we even put our vehicles in 4WD. We came to I-70 and rode east about 10 miles then cut south on the dirt road for the southern Swell. Since we still had daylight to burn, we drove into what I believe is the North Fork of Temple Wash. It was fantastic—a creek bed about as wide as a city street with vertical walls on either side. It was like a 4WD narrows.
It took us a while to find the right road but when we did, it took us over a pass behind Temple Mountain. We checked out a big iron headrail and a few shacks and other leftovers from the uranium boom. If you haven’t been to the area lately, the mines have mostly been cemented closed or blocked with rebar gates. The picturesque stone cabin at the mountain’s base continues to crumble. I think there’s only one wall still standing. The water tank half-track once perched on the mountainside was shoved from the slope long ago and then hauled away, probably by the BLM.
Speaking of the BLM, they’ve built a campsite, complete w/ outhouse, at the bottom of the mountain, plus plenty of wood fences and a parking lot near the Reef’s edge. Makes the place uninviting. But we found our wilderness camping spot a mile or so down Behind-the-Reef road. I drove back to collect a bed-load of firewood, during which excursion a u-joint strap screw sheared in two and left the front driveshaft spinning free. On a level dirt road. How does something like that happen?! With only the rear driveshaft, I now had a car.
We ate dinners and discussed the various exploits and foibles of our youths around the campfire. Then we went to bed. I was the only one who slept in the open, within my extreme-weather sleeping bag, covered over by the vast Milky Way. But the galaxy was no substitute for the wool blanket I had left at home and I paid the price, which was chattering teeth and cold feet.
Next day, the agenda was narrows. But not before we paid a visit to Goblin Valley. This was Andrew’s first trip to the Swell and we wanted him to see the sights. We strolled through the valley, beneath, above, around and between the goblins, and converged on the high ground in the center. What a weird view! Gets even weirder at night, I told my partners in crime. A few decades back, my brother and I and a friend hiked the Valley of Goblins by the light of a full moon. We followed an entrada/mud narrows through the valley’s back wall. The rock around us was filled w/ incipient goblins awaiting their release.
We rode on to Little Wild Horse Canyon, a famous slot in the reef, and began our hike. The canyon narrowed to the width of a thin human and widened and narrowed again. We came to a long puddle with only one stone in the middle, at which point only the long-legged, who could make the jump, might continue. That was Andrew and me. We followed the canyon another half-mile perhaps, through a few more grotesque rock-twist galleries but were finally satisfied we’d seen the best of it and turned back.
Next stop: Ding Canyon, of Ding and Dang Canyon fame. We had to hike in a mile to reach the mouth but the short narrows and deep potholes made it worth the effort. Unfortunately for Kevin and Nan’s golden retriever Oliver, the canyon had plenty of dog-stopper obstacles. Olly managed a few of them in four-wheel drive, with an occasional assist from mom and dad but after a while the three of them chose a higher, less obstacle-prone route. Andrew soon joined them, leaving me to slog up the stone creek bed alone.
Ding Canyon is steeper than Little Wild Horse, so I knew that after about 45 minutes of hiking, we must have been getting near the top. With the sun sinking beneath the rim and a high cloud haze wafting in, Kevin figured it was time to turn back, and shouted his decision from on high. But I kept going another half-mile to the end where I could view miles of broken purple hills and the high edge of the Reef, in the form of a pyramid, which I guess marks the head of Dang Canyon. I reversed course. We all met downcanyon and exited to our vehicles and back to camp, which we had to relocate in the dark. No matter: we rebuilt the fire, ate hearty meals, told tales and crashed into heavy slumbers.
None slept heavier than I. I woke at 10 or 11 a.m. It was disgraceful. By that time, Andrew was trying to bleed the evilness out of Kevin’s increasingly recalcitrant hydraulic clutch system. They fixed it to where it was functional and we took off on the main road north. We crossed I-70 again and joined up with Buckhorn Wash, where we paused to peruse the Archaic pictographs and the Fremont petroglyphs. It’s a sublime panel, chock-full of horned monsters, councils of thin phantoms, bird-men, snakes, antelope and abstract art.
Onward. After some searching, we found the road to M-K caves. According to Kevin, the caverns were carved by the military, which was looking for a place to store ammo. and other supplies in case of nuclear attack. After completing the massive excavation, however, a few sticks of dynamite set off on the surface convinced them it would be curtains for the military personal, and more importantly, the supplies, if a nuke landed anywhere in the general vicinity. A work crew was in the process of fixing the road and, we suspect, closing the caverns. Andrew and I rode his Toyota down the rough road to the cave entrance while Kevin, Nan and Olly walked. There was a big pile of thick rebar near the cave mouth, leading us to believe, despite assurances to the contrary by the construction employees, that they were in the process of blocking it.
Kevin noted that this was a typical result of the BLM mentality. Making the wilderness safe for the stupid, bungling, lawsuit-happy public, I suppose. More of your tax dollars well spent!
When we’d had our fill of the cold-war experiment, we headed off to the Wedge, a.k.a. “the Little Grand Canyon.†More fantastic views, this time of the San Rafael River Gorge.
Then it was back to civilization. Kevin aired our tires from his onboard compressor near Castledale and we went our separate ways. Andrew’s rear axle was behaving badly by then and I don’t think he made it past Spanish Fork. Rumor has it he broke down and his tires were gnawed off by rabid weasels. Kevin and Nan made it back to SLC and Kevin is now in the process of fixing his clutch. Est. cost: $900. My Heep struggled to get over the Wasatch Plateau. The mileage problem turned out to be a result of the engine disintegrating internally. It is now knocking and I fear it’s time for a replacement.
We met at Gilly’s convenience store early on Fri. and assessed our three vehicle’s conditions. Kevin’s red Jeep was doing fine at the time. Andrew’s Toyota was emanating vibrations from the overheating, grease-slewing rear axle but he had driven it all night from his home near Logan, so how bad could it be? My ’81 CJ-5 Heep, meanwhile, was getting cruddy mileage, down 4 mpg from a high of 18, which ate into my range.
But if we put off our journeys until our vehicles ran perfectly, there would be no journeys. So Andrew bought some axle grease and I bought some new spark plugs and we headed for the Swell.
The weather was warm and the roads were dry. Kevin and Nan lead us down South Coal Wash toward the Eva Conover Road. Here there were precarious overhangs and high sandstone walls. Conover was a little rough but I don’t think we even put our vehicles in 4WD. We came to I-70 and rode east about 10 miles then cut south on the dirt road for the southern Swell. Since we still had daylight to burn, we drove into what I believe is the North Fork of Temple Wash. It was fantastic—a creek bed about as wide as a city street with vertical walls on either side. It was like a 4WD narrows.
It took us a while to find the right road but when we did, it took us over a pass behind Temple Mountain. We checked out a big iron headrail and a few shacks and other leftovers from the uranium boom. If you haven’t been to the area lately, the mines have mostly been cemented closed or blocked with rebar gates. The picturesque stone cabin at the mountain’s base continues to crumble. I think there’s only one wall still standing. The water tank half-track once perched on the mountainside was shoved from the slope long ago and then hauled away, probably by the BLM.
Speaking of the BLM, they’ve built a campsite, complete w/ outhouse, at the bottom of the mountain, plus plenty of wood fences and a parking lot near the Reef’s edge. Makes the place uninviting. But we found our wilderness camping spot a mile or so down Behind-the-Reef road. I drove back to collect a bed-load of firewood, during which excursion a u-joint strap screw sheared in two and left the front driveshaft spinning free. On a level dirt road. How does something like that happen?! With only the rear driveshaft, I now had a car.
We ate dinners and discussed the various exploits and foibles of our youths around the campfire. Then we went to bed. I was the only one who slept in the open, within my extreme-weather sleeping bag, covered over by the vast Milky Way. But the galaxy was no substitute for the wool blanket I had left at home and I paid the price, which was chattering teeth and cold feet.
Next day, the agenda was narrows. But not before we paid a visit to Goblin Valley. This was Andrew’s first trip to the Swell and we wanted him to see the sights. We strolled through the valley, beneath, above, around and between the goblins, and converged on the high ground in the center. What a weird view! Gets even weirder at night, I told my partners in crime. A few decades back, my brother and I and a friend hiked the Valley of Goblins by the light of a full moon. We followed an entrada/mud narrows through the valley’s back wall. The rock around us was filled w/ incipient goblins awaiting their release.
We rode on to Little Wild Horse Canyon, a famous slot in the reef, and began our hike. The canyon narrowed to the width of a thin human and widened and narrowed again. We came to a long puddle with only one stone in the middle, at which point only the long-legged, who could make the jump, might continue. That was Andrew and me. We followed the canyon another half-mile perhaps, through a few more grotesque rock-twist galleries but were finally satisfied we’d seen the best of it and turned back.
Next stop: Ding Canyon, of Ding and Dang Canyon fame. We had to hike in a mile to reach the mouth but the short narrows and deep potholes made it worth the effort. Unfortunately for Kevin and Nan’s golden retriever Oliver, the canyon had plenty of dog-stopper obstacles. Olly managed a few of them in four-wheel drive, with an occasional assist from mom and dad but after a while the three of them chose a higher, less obstacle-prone route. Andrew soon joined them, leaving me to slog up the stone creek bed alone.
Ding Canyon is steeper than Little Wild Horse, so I knew that after about 45 minutes of hiking, we must have been getting near the top. With the sun sinking beneath the rim and a high cloud haze wafting in, Kevin figured it was time to turn back, and shouted his decision from on high. But I kept going another half-mile to the end where I could view miles of broken purple hills and the high edge of the Reef, in the form of a pyramid, which I guess marks the head of Dang Canyon. I reversed course. We all met downcanyon and exited to our vehicles and back to camp, which we had to relocate in the dark. No matter: we rebuilt the fire, ate hearty meals, told tales and crashed into heavy slumbers.
None slept heavier than I. I woke at 10 or 11 a.m. It was disgraceful. By that time, Andrew was trying to bleed the evilness out of Kevin’s increasingly recalcitrant hydraulic clutch system. They fixed it to where it was functional and we took off on the main road north. We crossed I-70 again and joined up with Buckhorn Wash, where we paused to peruse the Archaic pictographs and the Fremont petroglyphs. It’s a sublime panel, chock-full of horned monsters, councils of thin phantoms, bird-men, snakes, antelope and abstract art.
Onward. After some searching, we found the road to M-K caves. According to Kevin, the caverns were carved by the military, which was looking for a place to store ammo. and other supplies in case of nuclear attack. After completing the massive excavation, however, a few sticks of dynamite set off on the surface convinced them it would be curtains for the military personal, and more importantly, the supplies, if a nuke landed anywhere in the general vicinity. A work crew was in the process of fixing the road and, we suspect, closing the caverns. Andrew and I rode his Toyota down the rough road to the cave entrance while Kevin, Nan and Olly walked. There was a big pile of thick rebar near the cave mouth, leading us to believe, despite assurances to the contrary by the construction employees, that they were in the process of blocking it.
Kevin noted that this was a typical result of the BLM mentality. Making the wilderness safe for the stupid, bungling, lawsuit-happy public, I suppose. More of your tax dollars well spent!
When we’d had our fill of the cold-war experiment, we headed off to the Wedge, a.k.a. “the Little Grand Canyon.†More fantastic views, this time of the San Rafael River Gorge.
Then it was back to civilization. Kevin aired our tires from his onboard compressor near Castledale and we went our separate ways. Andrew’s rear axle was behaving badly by then and I don’t think he made it past Spanish Fork. Rumor has it he broke down and his tires were gnawed off by rabid weasels. Kevin and Nan made it back to SLC and Kevin is now in the process of fixing his clutch. Est. cost: $900. My Heep struggled to get over the Wasatch Plateau. The mileage problem turned out to be a result of the engine disintegrating internally. It is now knocking and I fear it’s time for a replacement.
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