So Much for Utah

Not As Advertised

Utah has been a major disappointment as far as off-roading is concerned.  We kept moving from place to place, based on the State of Utah’s tourism information about the Arapeen and Piute Trails. 

The Piute Trail was developed forty years ago, when the only recreational off-road vehicles were four-wheelers which are about 48 inches wide.  The good, fun trails (read STEEP, ROCKY, CHALLENGING) have 54” wide gates to prevent any vehicle wider than the old four-wheelers from entering the trail.  My new Polaris is 52 inches so I can scrape through the gate but Mike’s Wolverine is 63 inches. 

Umm...maybe not.

Fillmore UT

We left Ferron, UT, arriving in Fillmore just before Independence Day. Same situation here:  it was miles to the trailheads and all the good trails were restricted to 50 inches or less. 

The city of Fillmore was experiencing a sufficient drought that watering was restricted to every other day.  Nonetheless, fireworks started July 3, continued through July 4^th until midnight, and then July 5^th in the morning.  Mike’s old dog, Indy, isn’t bothered by loud noises.  He slept through all of it.  Lola and Muppet were increasingly frantic, drooling, panting, pacing.  Even a doggie sedative didn’t help.  Finally at 11:00 pm on the Fourth, I loaded them into the truck and drove out to the edge of town to get away from the noise.  After an hour or so when the racket subsided, we returned to the park.

After a week in Fillmore, we were more than ready to move on.  I still find it incomprehensible that a town with such dry conditions would allow fireworks for three days.  This is forest fire country. 

Marysvale, UT

Next stop, for a month, was Marysvale, Utah, at the heart of the Piute Trail network.  

Our neighbors took us for a run up the mountain behind the park one of the first days we were there.  First stop was the Bully Boy mine, moderately interesting but with a surprising sign:

The Daltons in NM????

We had one good ride, down Deer Creek.  It was a narrow, steep trail which ran along a stream, sometimes a few feet above the water, sometimes twenty feet above it.  As we worked our way down, the stream was on our immediate right, and a steep slope to our left; in other words, no passing another vehicle.

We dropped down and saw a Suzuki Samurai parked on the trail and two guys with fishing rods walking around to the trunk.  They waved at us, finished loading up, and drove down the trail ahead of us.  O dear…coming up the trail was a group of three or four off-road vehicles.  The standing rule is the the vehicle descending the trail must back up and give right of way to the one coming up.  Obviously the folks coming up didn’t know this rule and they backed down the trail until they could find a spot wide enough to allow the Samurai to get by.  For one heart-stopping moment, I thought the Samurai was going to roll over into the stream, which by this time was probably 15 or 20 feet below the trail.  The driver had moved too far to the right and his right back wheel dropped into a low spot at the very edge of the trail.  Fortunately, he had it in four-wheel drive and recovered.  We learned a few days later than a tree had fallen across this trail and it was no longer accessible until the Forest Service removed the tree.

We got tired of riding twelve miles to the trail head for Dry Creek Canyon to just run gravel roads up and over the mountain.  The second week we were there, the rain started, turning many of the roads into mud.  And with the rain came hordes of flies.  Sitting outside in the later afternoon became unpleasant; either it was raining and blowing hard or the flies were swarming.

One of the last few days we were in Marysvale, we took the gravel road over to the town of Monroe and then up the mountain road to Monroe Peak.  Dicey weather when we left and when we arrived at the peak, there was rolling thunder in the distance and black clouds headed our way.  A quick look at the scenery and we got off the mountain top with dispatch.

(Note:  We also ran over a different mountain to the town of Koosharem to have lunch at the Koosharem Cafe.  If you find yourself in that vicinity some day, stop in.  Great burgers and the best root beer float I've had in decades.)

The couple across from us for the last couple of weeks, Karl and Joy,  are retired law enforcement officers.  A new Class A rig from California arrived one afternoon and parked next to Karl and Joy.  The next morning, the driver of that rig, next to the officers, was outside smoking pot at 5:30 am.  Karl mentioned it to the park owner, Jim, who promptly went down to inform said toker that pot is illegal in Utah and not to smoke outside his rig.  (When Jim’s wife Terri found out, she went into their computer system to put a note on toker’s information to keep him out of the park in the future…and she said if she had known about it at the time, she would have told Mr. California to pack up and leave immediately.)

The wildflowers here are spectacular.  Have no idea what most of them are, but I am enjoying them all.

Stay tuned for another post shortly about riding in  north central AZ and west-central NM.