Back to the trip.
We went to bed in the dark and as my normal schedule goes I get up in the dark. It's one of those things that you can't switch off in a day or so. I manage to sneak out of the upper bunk with ninja like stealth so as not to wake up the boy in the lower bunk. Who am I kidding, like any twenty-something he can sleep through anything including his gorilla like Dad lumbering off the upper bunk. I grab a can of V8 out of the fridge for an eye opener and head outside. The sun is just peeking over the horizon through the pine trees. I grab a chair and my phone and get ready for the show. It's amazing how relaxing it is to sit alone in the forest and watch the sun come up through a meadow.
As the sun crept higher, the other Dad in our group sneaks out of his camper to fire up the campstove for some coffee. I surprised Ron when I came around my truck as he thought he was the only one up. We chilled for a little bit and were checking out the surroundings we couldn't see when we stopped that night.
This was the last bit we climbed up the night before stopping.
Morning in camp.
Both boys eventually made their way out of the campers and we started to pack up the trucks and get on the move again. As I suspected the night before we weren't far from Buckeye lake and the state line. It was probably only 10 minutes down the trail to the lake.
Open range area too. Many a future burger wandering around here.
One decided to take an early morning dip in the water. It looked cold to me.
Passing by the lake and the campgrounds (which looked pretty nice BTW) we pressed on for the state line. We finally made it into Utah.
Shortly after crossing the line you are made very well aware that the land the trail drives through is private. No hunting signs are on almost every tree near the trail. It's low foothills and we are switching between trees and open meadows for a while until the trail turns due south. La Sal mountain is in sight clearly and we are on the watch for the turn to make off the Rimrocker.
The southern view stretches on forever, devoid of peaks. But if you looked east you could still just barely make out the shadows of the San Juans back in Colorado from here.
We make the turn for the trail over La Sal pass and start working our way northwest. By this point the trail is still Subaru easy and we had seen a few 5th wheel trailers and other RV's set up for early hunting camps. The view is very familiar to me as it's like many of the mountain trails we run back home.
The trail starts getting more rocky. We've been climbing/gaining elevation but still nothing radical. Just a constant pull up.
One thing we both noticed through here is the groves of aspens we are driving through are thick. Not uncommon to see but the size of the aspens were huge compared to what I've seen all over Colorado. Big trunks and towering well above any I remember seen back home. Near the top the trail changes quickly. Way more rocky and really tight with trees and brush. There was no signage to indicate the summit of the pass road, one just notices the trail starts going down. The steepness is much more than we had on the climb up. Up to this point we had stayed in 2wd as anything more wasn't needed. But as steep as it was, I felt more comfortable going to 4 low and locking the hubs in for the added stability and gearing.
After winding down through the tight foilage the trail opens up to clearing across the mountain face on a pile of rocks. The trail goes across here and it's nothing but loose rip rap rocks that move quite easy under our tires. It's also the first vantage point where we can see the town of Moab straight ahead.
I'm halfway across this section when I spy a bright red JK Wrangler coming up the trail as we are coming at them. He sees us and directly proceeds to back up to find a spot to let us pass. Thank goodness he did as it would have been a major pain to back up that stuff and there was no wide spot behind us to back into anyway.
