Day 3: July 8 Saturday — Mineral Point to Spring Canyon Point

Highlights: Visit dry reservoir; steep hill out of wash; Dubinky Well; camp on Spring Canyon Point; rum and coke.

The night on the rocks went well for most of us, but I got buzzed in the ear by a couple of gnats or mosquitoes that kept me up for hours. But this gave me the opportunity to look up in the middle of the night after the moon set and see the Milky Way and incredible stars. By morning my grogginess was augmented by a slight headache due to excessive consumption the night before. Most people were up before sunrise, at 5:30 a.m. when the sky started to brighten. The temperature was 71° and of course it was clear. The gnats lingered through the first part of breakfast but were only a minor annoyance.

One of our morning rituals is to put the beers and juices left out last night into the drink cooler. As long as there is enough ice to prevent a total melt down, the idea is to keep the coolers completely full, each morning putting in more drinks as the melting ice leaves space. A full cooler stays cold longer and permits less bouncing around of the contents. We have a rule to add objects to the coolers only in the morning when they were still cool from the night, never in the middle of the day.

After a breakfast of Morrie’s Mexican omelette (using Pace, of course) and bacon, we packed up the jeeps and took a brief hike from the campsite along the south rim of the point (the north rim of Mineral Canyon) to view the canyon and gawk at the campers below.

Despite our dallying around site until mid-morning, the Swedish Bikini Team didn’t find us, so reluctantly we decided to depart. Before moving on we took drinks back out of the drink cooler that we expected to use before lunch and put them in soft insulated six-pack coolers that we carried in our jeeps. This avoids opening the drink cooler and exposing it to hot air while traveling.

To get out of here we had to retrace our path back the way we came by following the trail of distressed shrubs, since our jeeps left no trace on the slickrock. The trip out seemed harder and more eventful than coming in, probably because it was slightly uphill, but we got back to the Mineral Point Road in only about a half hour.

During this time Ed and Mark noticed that Harpoon’s transmission was making a rackety noise and there was a strange smell. Upon further analysis, the noise only happened as the clutch was being applied—never while it was fully out. I reasoned that this was a burning clutch, combined with noisy synchronizers or something like that, and it was burning because Mark was unconsciously feathering the clutch on difficult stretches. We told Mark to keep his foot off the clutch, and sure enough, after considerably more driving, the symptom went away. Driving a jeep in 4L takes getting used to: you tend to think that if you let the clutch all the way out, you will suddenly speed up too fast, but in fact in first gear, even with the engine revved, top speed barely moves the speedometer. In 4L you can idle your way up a steep, rough hill going no faster than baby’s crawl. You don’t need speed to get power, and there’s almost no limit to how slow you can go.

Instead of returning all the way up the Mineral Point Road back to Hwy. 313, we decided to explore some spurs to the north that would take us closer to Hell Roaring Canyon which forms the northern outline of Mineral Point and is almost as big as Mineral Canyon. According to the topo, one of these spurs leads to a small reservoir about a mile away, which I figured might have water because it had rained so much recently. But it turned out to be just a normal Canyon Country reservoir: a dry depression. The sizeable juniper trees growing in it meant that it hadn’t had water for many years, though the grassy ground looked like it occasionally developed a shallow flood. In light of this, the earthen dam for the reservoir was massive overkill—about 20′ high and 500′ long, fully sealing in the upstream quarter mile of its little canyon. One wonders whether the ranchers who probably built the reservoir for watering cattle made a big mistake with a dam across a wash that is never wet enough to make a lake, or whether it was once much wetter here. In any case, they must have had cheap labor for such a large construction project.

The jeep trail went right up to the top of the dam, and a very obscure trail went down the other side into the dry reservoir and most of the way to the head of the wash. We took drove that trail until it became impassable. Beyond the end, over the trees, I saw an overhang high on the rim that promised a pouroff and a possible plunge pool below, a common characteristic of the heads of these little canyons. I went ahead on foot, just a hundred feet more to the end, with the others following. There was indeed a pouroff about 80′ high, but the only water in sight was a five foot muddy puddle at the bottom. It now seemed even more remarkable, given the heavy rains recently and the swollen rivers elsewhere, that this wash could ever have formed a reservoir. While it was not very wet, there was nice cool shade in this overhung area with mosses growing on the rocks at numerous seeps half way up the walls. However, we couldn’t stand here more than a few minutes because the mosquitoes were vicious, so back into the 100° sun to our jeeps we went.

Driving back over the dam we noticed a terrible-looking trail to the east, angling up the side of the little canyon, that was not described by Bickers, but which was a dotted line on the topo that connected to a network of trails above if we could get up. We could see that the first part of the trail was steep and sandy, so we decided to go first with Pequod, as it was the most capable jeep. If Pequod didn’t make it, there was no hope for the others; if it did, then it could tow the others if they got stuck. The strategy here was speed: start out on the flats by gunning it in 3rd gear while in 4L, about 20 mph. This worked easily for all three jeeps.

But the worst part of this trail was not the steep slope that we originally saw, but a foot high slickrock step further up with sand at its base. A jeep can negotiate a step like this on slickrock due to the high friction between rubber and sandstone, but it can’t get much traction when the rear wheels, which carry most of the weight when going uphill, are in sand. Nonetheless, Pequod, under Terry’s control, made it on the first try without assistance.

Mark enthusiastically followed in Harpoon, but, alas, it failed miserably. The first couple of times it simply recoiled off the step, wheels spinning in the air as it bounced back. It was probably not Mark’s fault: he tried to duplicate Pequod’s move, but since Harpoon is lighter, it needs more speed. By now the trail was in much worse condition, with deep ruts from the spinning tires. Instead of battering Harpoon and all our supplies to death with more forceful attempts, we decided to do some road work by building a ramp of rocks for the right tire. It looked like a terrible ramp and it was: Harpoon sped up the ramp, but instead of driving over the step, the spinning wheel simply flung out the rocks under the tire, one-by-one, until all the rocks were gone. The difficulty was exacerbated by the need to place the left wheel precisely on top of a sand ridge at the outside edge of the road, beyond which was a cliff. On each attempt, the sand bar wore down, the dropoff got closer, and the large rocks we laboriously placed below the step flew away. But little Harpoon finally made it on the fourth try after Mark gave it a heroic burst of speed.

Great White, operated by Lou, had as much difficulty as Harpoon, taking four or five tries, with road reconstruction between each one. It was not clear whether Great White’s problems, as compared to Pequod’s ease, were due to differing capabilities of the vehicles, the drivers, or deterioration of the road, but the trail was in such bad condition when we were finished with it that I offer my apologies and condolences to the next party. Unless someone brings a bulldozer, I think it’s time for the USGS to erase this dotted line from their maps.

Once on higher land on the rim of the wash, we aimed for trails that might take us around Hell Roaring Canyon toward our next destination to the north. After some aimless driving, during which I was sure we were lost, we unexpectedly found the trail I was looking for, one that would take us down into and maybe back out of the head of Hell Roaring Canyon. This time, there was no dotted line on the map, but from the looks of the neighboring trails on the map I suspected there was an old trail here across the wash.

While there was indeed a trail, it was thoroughly eroded, with ruts that would swallow a cow. For the descent, gravity might have helped as we careened over the 2-foot cliff at the top and through the trenches beyond, sliding down the trail on our bellies with wheels barely skimming the ground. But if we couldn’t make it up the far side of the wash, a quarter mile away, we would be stuck at the bottom with no way out, probably not even if we had a winch. Rather than risk spending the rest of our vacation camped in the head of Hell Roaring Canyon watching the vultures circle, and too lazy to walk across to check the uphill side, we turned around to seek an alternate way.

The only alternate trail was to the southeast that did not go in the direction we wanted, and soon we were right back on the Mineral Point Road. All we accomplished in the last three hours was to drive a big loop that we could have bypassed in ten minutes on the main road—but this is jeeping. Within minutes we were back on Highway 313. I was a little disappointed to be here, as I was trying to maintain the wilderness experience by not hitting a paved road for three days.

It was only three miles up Hwy. 313 from Mineral Point Road north to our next turnoff, but the 60 m.p.h. ride was incredibly intense for Pequod because we were too lazy to put up the windshield for that short distance, and for some reason Terry didn’t want to drive slower. I suppose motorcyclists can remove their helmets to experience a continuous sonic boom in their face whenever they want, but this three-minute drive is one I will not soon forget.

When Hwy. 313 chickens out and bears east back to Moab Valley to avoid the canyons, the Dubinky Well Road continues north. This graded dirt road provides the major access to the remote and little-visited desert and canyons between Moab and Green River north of Canyonlands.

The next two canyons north of Mineral Canyon are Hell Roaring Canyon that we just skirted and Spring Canyon, and in between the two is Deadman Point. The Deadman Point Road leaves the Dubinky Well Road and is a spur to the end of the point just like the Mineral Point Road is a spur to Mineral Point. While Deadman Point was originally on our agenda, it was now past noon and we had made little progress, so I decided to skip Deadman Point and aim for the next point to the north, Spring Canyon Point, nestled between Spring Canyon and Tenmile Canyon.

Unlike most of the other canyons (Mineral, Hell Roaring and Tenmile), there is a jeep trail down into Spring Canyon, the Spring Canyon Trail, that begins at the rim, takes a few switchbacks down, and goes along the bottom all the way to the Green River. There the trail forks, with branches that go for several miles both upstream and downstream along the Green River. The upstream fork reaches mouth of little Hey Joe Canyon at the interesting abandoned Hey Joe Mine. It’s an exciting drive down and back up Spring Canyon, bringing back fond memories of Greenshit ’87 when the rear wheel drive failed on one of the jeeps, and we were forced to careen at high speed up the trail in reverse, and again when Greenshit ’89 was thwarted by dense tamarisks along the Green River. This time we were bypassing the trial into Spring Canyon and taking the next trail to the north, Spring Canyon Point Trail, which travels on high ground, parallel to Spring Canyon, to Spring Canyon Point, hoping to get glimpses of our former trips 600′ below.

The Spring Canyon Point Trail branches left off the Dubinky Well Road a few miles north of Hwy. 313, but we first drove a few hundred yards further to visit Dubinky Well, which consists of a windmill, two very large water storage tanks, and a watering trough. Like most artifacts we found in Canyon Country, this facility was abandoned and looked like it hadn’t seen water in years. The windmill, though still standing and taller than anything for miles, seemed hopelessly rusted.

Back on Spring Canyon Point Trail we had a slow, but easy 2WD ride about twelve miles to the end of the point, this time without having to make our own trail. Near the end I thought we had an opportunity to get the jeeps a few feet further at the lip by driving up a short but very steep man-made slope, so I forced Mark to take Pequod up. But there was no way to go from the top—it was a dead-end hill—so I took control to get Pequod back down. Instead of driving, we just walked a few feet to the rim. Here again we had a view of the Green River 600′ below, with Labyrinth Canyon on three sides. The outstanding view was similar to Mineral Point’s but with different twists and turns of the Canyon.

I wanted to camp at this rim, but it would have been very hard to get the jeeps close enough to the edge. I didn’t sense much enthusiasm from the others for another difficult ordeal. Also, since the temperature was in the mid-100’s, the others lobbied for shade, which we were unlikely to find along the west-facing rim. So we returned up the Spring Canyon Point Trail looking for other options. Spring Canyon Point is only about a quarter mile wide here, with the main trail down its center. We might have found good campsites along the nearby north or south rims, but instead of spending a long time looking for them we found a small overhang by a wall on the left near the main trail, in a little cul-de-sac on some red slickrock. There was no view, but there was shade that would increase as the evening wore on. Properly positioning the jeeps in the tight space was tricky, but after they were safely nestled in their parking spots everyone just sat on their chairs in this limited shade, exhausted by the heat and not wanting to do anything, least of all starting a fire for dinner.

We tried to treat ourselves with some “real” beers purchased at the liquor store, but were devastated as we pulled them one by one out of the cooler. The caps of the bottles leaked as they crashed around in the cooler, and the beer was either gone or replaced by dirty water. Even the ones that looked full and unopened were mostly water. There were not enough intact beers for all of us.

Luckily, I was able to cheer us up with a surprise I found at the Moab City Market: a shrink-wrapped plate of ready-to-eat shrimp elegantly arranged in a ring surrounding a tub of cocktail sauce. This refreshing appetizer was just the thing to perk us up, as we passed it around, shrimp by shrimp, in order to draw out the period of enjoyment. When we polished that off, we were ready for business, so we quickly downed a bottle of rum with Coke and lime. I had foolishly expected that bottle to last two nights.

Thoroughly refreshed, we were now really ready for business. Bolstered by collective pyromania (a well documented male disorder), we gathered wood and built a huge fire, even though it was still over 100°. Preparing a good bed of coals requires a lot of wood to be burned all at once—if you add wood later you just lengthen the time you have flames while the previously formed coals burn out. However, maybe we overdid it a little, as we rapidly got a six foot blaze that drove us from the campsite. Fortunately the risk of a brush fire was minimal because we were on slickrock and the plant life in the vicinity was too sparse for flames to spread.

Dinner began with a cool salad followed by steak and baked potatoes. The potatoes were individually wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in the coals. The big fire presented a challenge because we could not get close enough to turn the potatoes, so we kept puncturing the aluminum foil trying to manipulate them with sticks. Nonetheless, the potatoes were some of the best I have prepared in a campfire.

Despite our fire that could be spotted for miles, this was a relatively obscure campsite, so we didn’t expect the Swedish Bikini Team to find us. Dinner was turning out to be uneventful, so to liven it up I brought out my 1-ounce poly bottle of Dave’s Insanity Sauce (“The hottest sauce in the universe”), asking if anyone wanted to inspect it. Mark opened it, smelled it, and with Ed’s concurrence, put one bulbous drop on Ed’s baked potato, ignoring my violent objections that it was enough to kill an army. Ed took a bite, and within seconds released a blast of the loudest hoots and hollers man has ever uttered. His yells reverberated for miles, echoing off the ionosphere. His face became red as the sandstone. He probably discharged gallons of sweat, but we couldn’t see any of it because it evaporated as fast as it formed. This was not simple torture, but an extended, slow death. Occasionally during this episode you could make out intelligible remarks, like “Boy, that was good!” After about 10 minutes Ed calmed down, letting out only isolated howls of torment for the next few hours. Through the remainder of the trip he accused us of trying to kill him that night. But it was still good.

The bugs again came out at sunset, and because of the suffering last night, Ed and I set up the tent on blazing hot ground, while most others slept outside. During the night the bare ground cools off nicely, but under a tent it remains hot, so that the inside of a tent is always much hotter than the outside. Nobody was comfortable: us too hot and the others too bugged. For the outdoor people, using repellent while sleeping provided mixed results. A dose of 100% DEET works for a long time, but is greasy, smelly, and permeates your sleeping bag, while 20% DEET feels and smells more like hand cream but needs to be replenished every hour.