Hiking & Biking in Canyonland

Big Spring Canyon

Today we rode our bikes out to the Slickrock Trailhead rather than drive the 5 miles. This Park is so free of crowds we feel pretty safe riding the roads. Pretty decent shoulder to ride too. 

Other Parks are not so bike friendly...either no shoulder or crazy people behind rented RV's not paying attention. Looking at you Yellowstone! Between tourons driving big rental RV's and ornery bison we never bike the actual roads in YNP. 

Elaterite Butte...13 miles away

The trail was rated 'easy' with little elevation gain and only 2.5 mile loop. These days we shoot for hikes under 8 miles so this one was a really short one. There were 360 degree views of Big Spring Canyon & Little Spring Canyon with the La Sal (37 miles) & Abajo Mountains (23 miles) in the distance. Several large Buttes could be seen several miles away on this particular morning. 

Junction Butte & Island in the Sky Messa

North Sixshooter Peak

La Sal Mountains

The Needles from Slickrock Trail

We managed to see a few lizards & the occasional bird. Even a squirrel made an appearance on the rocks...hence the name rock squirrel.

Side-blotched lizard

House finch

The trail was marked well by rock cairns until we were heading back towards the parking area. We never found the proper trail back. Backtracked to the last known rock cairn and still could not find the next marker. We finally gave up & just headed down toward the parking area. We were not the only one that lost the trail...everyone had the same problem. Maybe someone knocked it over, but thankfully we could spot the road so we knew which way to head...not a good place to get turned around & lost in the rocks.

Rock squirrel

Our ride back to camp was uneventful. Managed a total of 10 miles on the bike and 2.5 miles of hiking. 

Tomorrow we're going to bike out to the Colorado River Overlook again. Maybe I can actually ride up that steep section...we shall see how that goes tomorrow.

Plains prickly cactus

Colorful sunset

Pink sunset...finally