Recently in Trip Reports Category

With the inversion settling into the valley and temps hovering just above freezing, I jumped in my Land Cruiser, that I had packed Thursday night, and made my way to the Loves in Brigham City where I would meet 19 other vehicles to kick off the 11th annual Freeze Your Tail Off. FYTO is one of my favorite trips each year!
Temps in the 30's may seem cold at first, but if you have ever been on a FYTO event, or driven into the NW desert in Utah, you know you want temps in the 20's to avoid the snotty, sticky, slick as $#i+ mud in the area. Since I haven't figured out how to control the weather, the game plan was to find higher ground and avoid mud like the plague.
As I pulled into Loves, I saw a few familiar faces topping off tanks and assembling in the parking lot. I topped off the tank, grabbed some burritos from the C-Store, and started handing out waivers and sticker packets. Once everyone arrived, we held a quick drivers' meetings and hit the road toward Golden Spike National Monument.

We hit dirt and cruised to the Transcontinental Railroad Grade. Our first stop was the ghost town of Kelton. The stretch of road between locomotive Springs and Kelton is chewed up and slow going. I am super thankful it was still frozen when we got there! By the looks of the ruts, there were many less fortunate than we were. Along the way we spotted a bald eagle chilling on a fence post. It was Amazing!

Arriving in Kelton, we circled the vehicles at the Cemetery to stretch our legs and air down tires. We paused for a bit to admire other rigs in the group, get to know one another, and take some pictures. With temps on the rise, we made the call to stay as high as possible. We set sights on Element 11, Utah's local version of Burning Man, and set out on the road slightly less traveled.

Utah DNR Trail Video

Video taken in ~12F atop the Barracks trail near Kanab Utah.

Trail Map found here: Kanab_Area_OHV.pdf

GPSr tracks found here: Fillmore-to-Salina-Richfield.gdb

On 10 June, my friend Aaron and I took off at 0630 AM en route to the Fillmore KOA. Our objective was to run the PST03 (Chalk Creek), up and over the mountain, dropping down into Aurora, then proceeding into Salina for lunch.

https://youtu.be/aexLGjA01tk

At elevation, temps were easily 55-60F, while in the low land of Salina, temps were low 90's. What a contrast in temperatures.

While up top, we decided to check out a little side trail named: Bear Hallow. What a nice run through wild flowers to a cattle pond at the base.

In about August 2014, I started planning a fall event in the San Rafael Swell. The plan was to stage at the end of the pavement near Temple Mountain. I posted an invite link on Facebook and invited many to participate.

As the week neared, the weather was looking to be perfect. Mid-70's and full sunshine were forecast for the entire weekend. It was going to be great.

I took that Thurs & Friday off and was on the road by early afternoon on Thursday. Traffic was mild and the trek south/east was uneventful, except for what I noticed on my speedometer. I truck has just clocked 111111 miles. It was an odd sight.

GPS Tracks for the weekend here: TempleMountain-Area.gdb

An interesting history of the mining in the area found here: SanRafaelOralHistoryReport4-16-2012.pdf

Upon arriving at the Temple Mountain area, I found my staging/camping location was already fairly full, but I did manage to carve out an area large enough for my rig and friends.

That Friday, I decided to pre-ride many sections that I thought could be technical. Behind the Reef and Little Wild Horse trails had a few technical rocky sections and I determined that we'd avoid the rock craw on Little Wild Horse.

100 miles ridden on Friday and only two sections that were somewhat technical. I mapped everything out with the GPS, plotted on the BLM / County map and prepared for Saturday's ride.

Saturday, the sky was clear and morning temps in the high 50's. Everyone donned their gear, with one heavy jacket in sight and off we went.

One of the many exciting discoveries had to be an accessible mine near Tomisch Butte. The mine seemed to cover the entire length and width of the mountain. We entered near the chute and would come out on another section of the mountain. Probably not advisable for us to have wandered through given it was a uranium mine..

ATV Follies III 2013 from Midnight Rider on Vimeo.

Tracks found here: Trails by Bountiful.gdb

Over the previous weekend, and after getting my Polaris Sportsman 850 XP (Limited) back from service (7 times in for the same check engine condition), I decided to ride above Bountiful yet again. This time, my goal was to stress the Polaris by riding all the extreme and/or 2track trails I could find.

From the "B" staging area, I proceed due East and up the mountain along what I believe to be the USFS 605 trail. Plenty of off-camber, ruts and rocks to get the machine and human warmed up.

After exiting the 605, I turned hard right and started the old Tuttle Loop/606 trail upward until I connected to the main county road. I followed the county road until the downhill section toward the first beaver/glacier pond, then proceeded toward Farmington Flats campground and followed the 2track trail toward the 250 and 249 trails, upward to the FAA radomes, then down to the ponds North and East of the radomes.

Reverse back to the 606 and down the mountain.

A few videos: