Cathedral Valley

My brother-in-law wants to drive down to Jeep the Cathedral Valley road this coming weekend. Is it worth doing? What are some don't miss hikes or things to see?

It's a fun drive. The initial entrance crosses a creek/river bed that could be tricky if flowing or muddy. The river banks in and out of the bed were probably the trickiest bit of driving on the whole route so pretty easy at the time as it was dry.

I'm not familiar with any particular hikes. The cathedral of the sun and moon are the primary draw. I enjoyed a few gypsum mineral mounds just off the trail. And there's an obvious volcanic dike which I thought was fun to see and walk along for a bit. I exited up through the mountains in towards Loa. Might still be too muddy or snowy for that exit. This was probably 12 years back or so.

I used one of Peter Massey's 4WD drive trail books for the info at the time. He keeps you out of the hardcore stuff mostly so it may not be what you're looking for.

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Originally Posted by phatch

It's a fun drive. The initial entrance crosses a creek/river bed that could be tricky if flowing or muddy. The river banks in and out of the bed were probably the trickiest bit of driving on the whole route so pretty easy at the time as it was dry.

I'm not familiar with any particular hikes. The cathedral of the sun and moon are the primary draw. I enjoyed a few gypsum mineral mounds just off the trail. And there's an obvious volcanic dike which I thought was fun to see and walk along for a bit. I exited up through the mountains in towards Loa. Might still be too muddy or snowy for that exit. This was probably 12 years back or so.

I used one of Peter Massey's 4WD drive trail books for the info at the time. He keeps you out of the hardcore stuff mostly so it may not be what you're looking for.

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Cool. Thanks for the info! We will be driving across the river. My brother-in-law is going to call the visitors center Thursday or Friday to get a report on the river flow just to make sure it's passable. We aren't looking for anything hard-core so, I'm guessing the river crossing will be the most challenging thing we do.

Some possible things to look for:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/5...-badlands.html