![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
White Rim 2019
May. 2nd, 2019 04:08 pmOur friend Ryan puts a White Rim trip together pretty much every year, and because she likes us :-) we get to go pretty much every year: I've posted here about 2017, 2016, and 2013 (and we also did it last year, though I only mentioned it briefly in a general post, and we did it twice with other groups when we lived in Boulder in the 1990s). This year's trip was only two nights as opposed to the three we had always previously taken for the ~100 miles; we went clockwise, which we'd only done once before (in 2013). It was just three couples: me and Britt, Ryan and Steve, and Kristin and Rolfe, with whom we have done many vacations before but never the White Rim. Rolfe had done it solo as a one-day trip several times, but this meant he'd never stopped at any of the interesting side-hikes, while Kristin had never been here before, so we were all looking forward to showing them the amazing sights. We also opted to take our Sportsmobile as a support vehicle, which was the first time for it as well.
The reason for compressing the trip into three days, and going clockwise, was so that we could camp at White Crack, which is usually a lunch stop for us. But this meant that the first day would be on the order of 46 miles, so I cheerfully volunteered to drive the first leg from the staging area at the Mineral Bottom Road: paved road to the turnoff for the Shafer Trail just inside Canyonlands National Park (the ranger gave me some shit for using Britt's parks pass for the rest of the group riding behind, and apparently gave them some shit as well, but she eventually let everyone in without making anyone pay extra); then down the Shafer Trail switchbacks, which was fortunately not too exciting - I did have to jockey around one tight switchback, but luckily I could see ahead enough to use the pull-outs to avoid oncoming traffic, as I wasn't too thrilled about the possibility of having to back up to a pull-out, as uphill traffic has right of way on these twisty one-lane roads; and then along the 4wd shelf road to Musselman Arch, where I traded off with Kristin.
Even after having driven the first 17 or so miles, it was a long way to camp, especially since the weather was dark and threatening; there was a bit of drizzle and a lot of wind, which (of course) was usually in our faces. But it made for some dramatic photos, as the Indian paintbrush seemed to glow against the dark clouds:
( More photos and blah blah )
Flickr album with these plus a few more photos (and no blah blah)
The reason for compressing the trip into three days, and going clockwise, was so that we could camp at White Crack, which is usually a lunch stop for us. But this meant that the first day would be on the order of 46 miles, so I cheerfully volunteered to drive the first leg from the staging area at the Mineral Bottom Road: paved road to the turnoff for the Shafer Trail just inside Canyonlands National Park (the ranger gave me some shit for using Britt's parks pass for the rest of the group riding behind, and apparently gave them some shit as well, but she eventually let everyone in without making anyone pay extra); then down the Shafer Trail switchbacks, which was fortunately not too exciting - I did have to jockey around one tight switchback, but luckily I could see ahead enough to use the pull-outs to avoid oncoming traffic, as I wasn't too thrilled about the possibility of having to back up to a pull-out, as uphill traffic has right of way on these twisty one-lane roads; and then along the 4wd shelf road to Musselman Arch, where I traded off with Kristin.
Even after having driven the first 17 or so miles, it was a long way to camp, especially since the weather was dark and threatening; there was a bit of drizzle and a lot of wind, which (of course) was usually in our faces. But it made for some dramatic photos, as the Indian paintbrush seemed to glow against the dark clouds:
( More photos and blah blah )
Flickr album with these plus a few more photos (and no blah blah)