Sunday, November 8, 2009
On Sunday morning, I slept in a little later than the previous two days and met up with the remainder of the group before they headed out for their canyons for the day.
After saying good-bye, I headed out of town on UT 128 along the Colorado River on my way to the Dolores Triangle. When I reached the Dewey Bridge (what’s left of it), I turned onto the Entrada Ranch Road and made my way down to Lake Bottom, where I would find out if the Dolores River was low enough to cross. The water was not clear, so I couldn’t tell how deep it was at the ford, so I put my Jeep in 4-Lo and inched my way across. The water reached my rock rails at the deepest point, which means the Dolores was actually shallower than the last time I crossed.
Now that I was across the river and on the Dolores Triangle, I took my time making my way home and exploring some of the side roads I had passed before.
Cabin along the way
Intersection for the Dolores River ford and Granite Creek
Spur road that took me to some nice campsites along the Colorado River
I turned here and headed up onto Knowles Mesa
Great view over Westwater Canyon from the end of this trail
Rafters below in Westwater
Headed down off of Knowles Mesa
On my way back to the main Dolores Triangle Road, I lost my brakes and the pedal went down to the floor. Luckily I wasn’t going very fast at this point and I was on an easy flat section of the road. Once I pulled over and got out to inspect where the failure was, I found that the hard brake line on the rear axle had ruptured. In order to get home, I had to cut the line, flatten it with a hammer, fold it over and I put a vice grips on the end to prevent it from leaking. This gave me only three good brakes for the rest of the drive home.
All in all, it was a good weekend, and I would really like to join the group from Bogley again in the future….and maybe even do a little canyoneering next time 😉