Roost Conditions 3/24 - 3/26/11

[AJ]

Hey all,

Got out over the weekend for some fun in the canyons. Road from Green River to Moonshine and Three is in good condition. The 4wd road out towards Moonshine needs High Clearance (HC), though 4 Wheel Drive (4wd) could help some for a steeper wash crossing just before the camp spot on Shane's (Climb-Utah) map. HC helpful for the short spur road to the Three canyon exit.

The road from Moonshine and Three down through the Roost, to Hans Flat is in good condition as well. Some shallow bumps at wash crossings, and some washboarding; but overall, quite good condition. A passenger car should make it fine. (I don't remember anything too challenging, but I drive a HC/4wd, so caveat emptor.)

The road from Hans Flat up to the High Spur area had a few rough spots. HC is needed, and again, 4wd might help some folks. There was a pretty tight and deep wash crossing past Deadman's trail while heading towards NW fork of Big Springs; we made it fine with several HC 4WD's, but take it slow. There is a decent hill on the way over to the High Spur exit on the Deadman's 4wd road; but it's not too bad. Again, HC needed, 4wd may help some drivers.

For canyons, we went down Moonshine East Fork, up Moonshine West Fork, down Three canyon Northwest Fork (Shane's Exit Canyon - note: both rappels can be downclimbed), down Three canyon North Fork, and down the main Three canyon to the Green River. The only water I remember was knee deep in the West Fork of Moonshine. No wetsuits needed in warmer weather. (Although, weather rolled in, details below.)

Also note: for North Fork of Three canyon, Kelsey recommends a 47m rope, and Shane says 80'; which was a big difference. We took a 120, and was fine. I believe we had at least 20' on the ground too, so a 100 would likely work.

For the second set of canyons, we went down NW fork of Big Springs (which was really good), down High Spur - using a car shuttle which was nice, down West fork of Big Springs canyon and upclimbed East fork of Big Springs canyon (which had a few zesty spots for upclimbing.)

The only unavoidable water we ran into was around thigh deep in West fork of Big Springs. However, on Saturday night, a decent snow and rain storm came in; so we didn't do any canyons on Sunday. The sky was sunny in the morning, so we just waited for the roads to dry out, and headed out of the Roost. When we left, the roads were fine and dry again; but clouds were moving in again - so don't know if another storm hit or how much water was added to the canyons. (I speculate that the moisture we got on Saturday night would add less than a foot of water at any collection spot - as it fell mostly as snow...)


Hope it helps,
A.J.

[moab mark]

No pictures?

[AJ]

That's why it's called a Conditions report. Trip report to come later. Pictures with a trip report. However, it will be much later, as I have a tremendous amount of catching up to do; still need to finish photos from Memorial Day 2010 and forward. So, rather than wait until then to post conditions (which would be useless at that time), I figured I'd post the conditions now; and the trip report with photos later...