A weekend in the San Rafael Swell | Saturday

[IntrepidXJ]

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Last weekend I spent some time with my friends Ryan and Clint exploring the San Rafael Swell. They arrived early Friday, but I was stuck working until 5:30pm that day, so I arrived after the cover of night....and after taking a wrong turn and getting down a narrow bumpy road with my truck and trailer.Once I found a place to turn around, I arrived at our campsite under Cedar Mountain sometime after 9:00pm.

After a good nights sleep in the back seat of my truck, I woke up early and repaired a minor coolant leak before heading out for the day. Once the repair was complete, we get loaded up and headed for Devils Racetrack. One our way there, we crossed the San Rafael River at Fuller Bottom and sped through the desert along The Red Ledges until we finally reached Coal Wash.

Repairing a coolant leak before leaving...



Crossing the San Rafael River at Fuller Bottom



All 3 of us in Coal Wash



A little ways down Coal Wash, we stopped to check out The Drips (a seep that was dripping from the square shaped wall of the canyon). A little further down the wash we stopped for lunch in a nice open area beside a large side canyon. After lunch we finished winding our way up Coal Wash and then continued up it’s North Fork. We finally arrived at the entrance to Devil’s Racetrack trail.

Ryan climbing out of the wash



North Fork Coal Wash



Where we were headed all along




The trail started out with a quick ascent out of the wash with a few off-camber sections and then weaved it’s way through the desert terrain over slickrock, rocky and sandy trails with a few flat and high-speed areas to break up the slower sections of trail.

[IntrepidXJ]

The trail eventually winds it’s way around and ends up high along the edge of the North Fork Coal Wash canyon, it got a little more difficult with some ledges and off-camber sections, but nothing I would consider difficult.





Wind carved rock along Devils Racetrack







Once we neared the end of the trail, we stopped at Dutchman Arch for some minor climbing and photo ops.

Dutchman Arch



Ryan on top



From there, we sped across Oil Well Flat and ended up back at Buckhorn Draw Road, where we stopped at the San Rafael Bridge for a few more pictures. From here we headed back up to our campsite where we had dinner, sat around the fire and eventually went to bed.

Oil Well Flats



San Rafael Bridge