johnnyspoke
06-08-2008, 07:08 PM
So, with my wife heading up to Logan to participate in Little Red Riding Hood and the associated festivities on Friday, this seemed like a good opportunity for a guy's weekend. All the usual destinations were among the likely candidates.....Moab, Fruita, Panquitch, St. George. But sometimes, I'll start looking at maps and wondering, "what's there?" Such was the case this last weekend so we decided to check out the Newfoundland mountains.
If you're going to google earth to see where the heck this is, I'll save you a little bit of time. They're west of the Great Salt Lake and quite a ways north of I-80. No man's land. To get out there involves crossing an active Air Force bombing range and <cough> trespassing <cough> on the railroad right of way. However, venture forth we did with map and gps in hand to explore this seldom visited corner of the state.
We arrived late in the evening, and the first order of business was to find a place to camp for the night. A mining ghost camp seemed to be the ticket, and soon we had a good fire going and brats and chips were being consumed. After a good but windy night's sleep, we awoke the next morning and did a little geocaching while hiking up to explore the mines along with the related equipment. We then headed out on the bikes on a fairly uneventful, but primitive road. There were several side canyons to explore with old disused equipment, vehicles, etc. Speaking of vehicles, it looks like when they broke down, they were just left out there. RV's, dump trucks, sedans.... crazy. However, a note of caution. If you WERE to break down out here, it would be a tough job to retrieve your vehicle. It just might become a permanent resident!
After hitting the Air Force range barrier (and setting up a gag shot) we headed back. In another canyon we found another geocache near an old rock structure with a remarakable view. The photographs don't really do it justice.
All in all, this was a pretty cool place to spend the weekend. No, there was no killer singletrack, the riding was really pretty tame. There's lots of killer singletrack in the state though, and very few places like the Newfoundland mountains. It made for a great adventure.
If you're going to google earth to see where the heck this is, I'll save you a little bit of time. They're west of the Great Salt Lake and quite a ways north of I-80. No man's land. To get out there involves crossing an active Air Force bombing range and <cough> trespassing <cough> on the railroad right of way. However, venture forth we did with map and gps in hand to explore this seldom visited corner of the state.
We arrived late in the evening, and the first order of business was to find a place to camp for the night. A mining ghost camp seemed to be the ticket, and soon we had a good fire going and brats and chips were being consumed. After a good but windy night's sleep, we awoke the next morning and did a little geocaching while hiking up to explore the mines along with the related equipment. We then headed out on the bikes on a fairly uneventful, but primitive road. There were several side canyons to explore with old disused equipment, vehicles, etc. Speaking of vehicles, it looks like when they broke down, they were just left out there. RV's, dump trucks, sedans.... crazy. However, a note of caution. If you WERE to break down out here, it would be a tough job to retrieve your vehicle. It just might become a permanent resident!
After hitting the Air Force range barrier (and setting up a gag shot) we headed back. In another canyon we found another geocache near an old rock structure with a remarakable view. The photographs don't really do it justice.
All in all, this was a pretty cool place to spend the weekend. No, there was no killer singletrack, the riding was really pretty tame. There's lots of killer singletrack in the state though, and very few places like the Newfoundland mountains. It made for a great adventure.