Gateway - Castleton Road (Gateway, CO)

The Gateway - Castleton Road is an easy road that starts off in Gateway, Colorado and ends in Castleton, Utah near the La Sal Mountain Loop Road which you can take in either direction to get to Moab. This is an alternate backcountry route from Colorado to Moab that keeps you off the pavement and off of I-70. When the route is not blocked by snow in the winter, it is also my preferred route when I head to Moab from Grand Junction.

This road starts out near the Dolores River and Gateway Canyons Resort in Gateway and takes you through John Brown Canyon. This area of western Colorado is a historic uranium mining area, and now there is currently a new uranium mine that has opened up again. After leaving Colorado and entering Utah you travel through the lower foothills of the La Sal Mountains and are greeted with great views of Castle Valley and Fisher Valley.

There are a number of roads and trails all along the Gateway - Castleton Road that you can spend much time exploring. Some of these trails include Beaver Basin, Polar Mesa, Fisher Mesa, Adobe Mesa, Dolores Point and Taylor Flat. I have spent a lot of time in this area and there are still a lot of places I haven’t been to yet.

Please feel free to leave your comments and post your pictures from the Gateway - Castleton Road below.

Gateway - Castleton Road KML Track
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Open file above in Google Earth.

Categories: Trails
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Hancock Pass (Buena Vista, CO)

Hancock Pass takes off from the Hancock Lakes trail and crosses the Continental Divide at an elevation of 12,140 feet and connects to both Tomichi Pass and the Alpine Tunnel Road. The trail gets a bit rocky and bumpy but can be driven in a stock high-clearance 4×4 vehicle. If you start out on Hancock Lakes Road, this trail takes off from the right side shortly after passing through the Hancock townsite.

The trail is rocky as it wanders through a forest before it turns into a rocky shelf road where it climbs up to the pass. Before reaching the pass, there are some great views below. After crossing Hancock Pass, the views down into Brittle Silver Basin are awesome and is a great place for taking some photos. After following the trail down into the basin it soon meets up with Tomichi Pass and the Alpine Tunnel Road.

This trail combined with Hancock Lakes Road, Alpine Tunnel Road, Cumberland Pass and Tincup Pass makes a great loop for exploring this area of the Sawatch Range with a lot of mining history to see and explore. However, if you are looking for a quick way back to the pavement after heading over Hancock Pass, you can head over Tomichi Pass to get back to US 50.

Please feel free to leave your comments and post your pictures from Hancock Pass below.

Hancock Pass KML Track
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Open file above in Google Earth.

Categories: Trails
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Just wanted to post up that I read this book a few weeks ago, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys visiting Moab or even any other western town. Jim Stiles is the author of this book and also publishes the Canyon Country Zephyr. He has lived in Moab for about 30 years and has seen how Moab has changed over the years, and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Categories: Books
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Lavender Canyon (Moab, UT)

Lavender Canyon is an easy trail that follows the sandy bottom of Lavender Canyon and heads into Canyonlands National Park. When the trail reaches the National Park boundary there is a locked gate. In order to proceed to the last few miles of the trail within the park, you need to get a day permit and the combination to the lock from the ranger station. When we ran the trail the day permit cost $5.

There are a number of arches located in Lavender Canyon and even a few Indian ruins. The two bigger arches include Cleft Arch near the end of the trail and Caterpillar Arch near the park boundary. The nearby Dry Fork Canyon just outside the park boundary also has an arch or two to check out. This trail is about 15 miles to the park boundary from UT 211 and a few more miles after that point. There is also another route that heads up West Fork Canyon in the park that can be explored. Outside of the park, there is also Dry Fork Canyon and Davis Canyon to check out. If you want to check out this trail with all of the other nearby canyons, plan on spending a very long day or camp overnight outside of Canyonlands.

It appears that Lavender Canyon is not as popular as some of the other trails in the Needles District of Canyonlands, however it is certainly worth checking out if you enjoy searching for arches and Indian ruins.

Please feel free to leave your comments and post your pictures from Lavender Canyon below.

Lavender Canyon KML Track
(Right click and ‘Save Target As’)

Open file above in Google Earth.

Categories: Trails
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I was playing around with my camera the other night and there were some cool moonlit clouds over Grand Junction that I snapped a picture of from our backyard.

Categories: Photography
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I spent a few hours today working on my Jeep with some minor repairs and routine maintenance including replacing an axle shaft with a bad ujoint. However, the biggest thing I did today was finally fix a clunk I have had for a while when I drive over bumps. I thought I had found the culprit a few weeks ago when I found a loose bolt on one of my front shocks, but I was wrong.

It actually turned out to be one of the joints on my lower control arms was loose and needed to be tightened up. Glad I finally found that and fixed it, as it was starting to really bother me

Sorry, no pictures this time…

Categories: 2000 XJ Build
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Grand Mesa from the top of my parking garage in downtown Grand Junction

Categories: Grand Valley Pics
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A little while back, Amanda said she had wanted to get a Wii for Xmas, so I agreed to go in on half the price of the Wii and some accessories and games and call it an Xmas gift to both of us. We knew with the holidays getting closer, it would probably become more difficult to find one again, so we decided to pick one up early today while were out shopping

So far we ended up getting the Wii console, Wii Play with extra remote, an extra nunchuck, and rechargeable battery packs with charging stand.

Categories: Gadgets, Personal
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Here’s a series of pictures of Greg crossing the Dolores River with my new Canon Rebel XSi on Tuesday. I didn’t do any post-process on them. Enjoy

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Categories: Photography, Wheeling Pictures
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‘Chrome on the Range’

Categories: Grand Valley Pics
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