We hopped back into the Jeep and beat feet. We made good time since there was little traffic and the roads are mostly straight and flat. I had an eye on the sky as we rocketed north and east through Hanksville past the unique Hollow Mountain minimarket that is carved into the sandstone.
-
-
We passed a pickup hauling a large cabin cruiser and saw several others along the way. All these boats in the middle of the desert seems incongruous until you remember that you are on the main road between SLC and Bullfrog on Lake Powell. While the weather seemed fine now, if the pattern repeated today, thunderstorms would probably start bubbling up in the afternoon.
-
We made it to the turnoff to begin the 30 miles of dirt that would take us to the trailhead. We passed the sign warning that ‘the road will become impassable in a storm’ and proceeded as quickly as the road allowed. The 30 miles of dirt road was in pretty good shape since it had been recently graded to repair flood damaged areas that looked a week or so old. Good news/bad news.
-
After an hour on this dirt road, through scrub and across sand, we made it to the trailhead. As expected, there was no one else there and the logbook showed that only one couple had hiked in and out the day before. We loaded our packs with a couple of gallons of water, some trail mix, binocs and raincoats. Of course the camera gear was charged and ready in our hip packs as well.