Bentonite Hills - a Torrey Tale

[Bob Palin]

After 9 days off the CRF due to an ankle injury sustained on the South Draw ride I needed a fairly smooth ride to test it out so I decided to take the well travelled road from Thousand Lake Mountain to the Bentonite Hills. The road wasn't as smooth as I remember it due to the summer rains but the ankle was fine.

 

This is Geyser Peak which you can see from the other side on UT72, the aspen have begun to change...

 

Somehow this pesky bit of scenery always seems to get in my way, I took a short jog down the zig zag into Cathedral Valley just to check the road out for possible Tundra expeditions.

 

The Serengeti - some park flunky insists on calling it the South Desert but I swear I've seen herds of wildebeast out there.

 

Future road hazard?

 

The Bentonite Hills with the Henry Mountains in the background

 

Bentonite

 

The Bentonite Road?

 

The surface is a kind of dry popcorn stuff, when it gets wet it's both very sticky and very slippery.

 

The road winds it way through the hills for about 1/2 mile, you can see it on the light coloured part just to the right of the central butte.

 

The Serengeti from another viewpoint along the Hartnet Road.

 

Climbing back up Thousand Lake Mountain offers some stunning views of the Serengeti and Hartnet

 

A short detour takes me to Windy Ridge which even on hazy days has terrific views of the San Rafael Swell to the north

 

and of Cathedral Valley to the east. I spent about 30 minutes out there on the ridge, which was windless on this day, watching the shadows lengthen on the valley bottom.

 

but eventually it was time to turn into the sun and head for the truck, the rest of the ride was a bit unpleasant headed straight into the sun, not fun on dirt.

 

I started at the left side just off UT72, you may have seen the road to Elk Horn Campground right after a cattle guard as you head north. I did the loop on Windy Ridge on the way out then just took the top road out and back on the return trip. The first picture of the Serengeti was from the overview just east of the Cathedral Valley zig zag, the second one was a few miles further east.

 

Larger scale showing the general location

[Marty Hill]

Bob,

 

You are a lucky guy to live there and have the skill and tools to go offroad in that area.

[Bob Palin]

I am very lucky Marty, not sure about any skills though.

 

If the two maps at the bottom didn't load try again, they were wrongly spelled (darned Linux servers and their capitalization rules, jpg == JPG in the real world).

[Firefight911]

Awesome, just awesome! Can not wait to taste your background next week! Tic Toc, Tic Toc!!!

[Dances_With_Wiener_Dogs]

I really need to come visit.

[Rider1200RT]

I am so jealous right now....

Cool report and stunning area to ride in

[L Rider]

You have wonderful texture in your photos. Thank you.

[Francois_Dumas]

Stunning landscapes and great pictures ! Thanks Bob

[Steve1962]

Wow,

Another world ............... beam me up Scotty !! ....methinks the Panzer would not cope with such terrain though ..........

 

Steve

[azkaisr]

I am stoked now to get up there next week.

 

Kaisr