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.
We thought was only one Jeep. Nope, as usual where there is one Jeeper, there is more. Turned out there was 3 and then a pack of top shelf modified 4 seater side by sides right behind them. The Jeep guys made room without much fuss and we thanked them for doing so as we passed by. The SXS guys were accommodating, but were showing they were slightly more than annoyed to see a couple of full-size trucks hauling campers on a mountain trail. We thanked them anyway and continued down hill in the thick brush that was pinstriping both sides of the trucks at the same time.
The views outside of the brush were showing us yet another landscape. One Robbie, Ron and Mason had not seen before. It's crazy to look down from the pass into Canyonlands and the greater Moab area.
Dropping in elevation, the trail still had some challenges to discover. I came up to this section with a large rock on the passenger side, crawled over it and radioed back to Ron to be ready and I'd spot him. I suggested to go to 4 low if he hadn't already been in it. Just for the added control that came with it.
Ron was about 50 feet from it and made multiple attempts to get into 4 low and it didn't seem to go into gear. Well, kinda. Ron felt it get into low range and as soon as he started to creep to the target the t-case came back out of gear and was in neutral. I walked back to see what was up and we agreed to just handle it in high range, granny and go carefully. He wheeled it just fine.
We continued down the pass and started moving a little faster as the trail opened up out of the thick brush.
Still there was some areas you had to tiptoe through that were fun to navigate.
Once we got below this section we found a wide spot and took a quick break for lunch and to stretch our legs. The trail turned into a graded dirt road and eventually pavement. We were mere miles out of Moab and got onto 191 and booked it into town. Pavement was a nice smooth change of pace after the all the dirt we had been on. Plus we saw the temp rise a solid 25 degrees since getting off the mountain so running at highway speed helped our 2-65 a/c systems in both trucks. Knowing Friday on Hell's would start early we headed into town to stock up on supplies and fuel before hitting the campground. I had cooking duty since Mason took care of us the night before. I had fajitas to cook but neglected to bring tortilla shells, cheese or peppers. So we got what we needed and headed to camp. Even still we got in early, like before 4:00 and many were still out playing on rocks when we pulled in. We set up camp and chilled out in the shade with some cold drinks.
We spied on our neighbors...
