Lunch break, ... a great day to be out

My wife and I are going to ride Casto Canyon tomorrow in our 50" wide UTV, which is an all black Maverick Trail.  We hope to leave the trailhead at about 10 AM.  If anyone else is going to be in the area feel free to say hi, or to tag along.

We had a great time today.  Here is a picture from lunch stop, coming back down the canyon, at the only place we could find to stop without snow.

It is still a little early in the year to be trying to get very far into the mountains to ride.  There was a whole lot of snow still on the ground, and we were the first to break trail to the top of the canyon this year.  We followed a full size Polaris sport UTV into the canyon, after he came around us when we stopped at the bathroom facility at the start of the trail.  He turned around when the snow started getting deep though, and came back out after just a half mile.  We had to cut a path in snow the rest of the way.  I had wanted to turn south on the Fremont 02 trail, and go to Tropic Reservoir, but the deep snow in the trees up on the Fremont was just too much work to get through, and cutting a path up Casto Canyon had eaten up too much time anyway.

This little Maverick Trail worked fantastic today though, I was real impressed with it.  The 28" bighorn tires turned out to be really good snow tires.  And the 4-wheel drive system of the Maverick Trail was perfect for today.  There are a lot of sections on this trail that are narrow, near 50" width, that are on a sidehill, right next to a 6 foot drop into a canyon bottom.  When those narrow sidehill trails are covered with a foot of snow it gets kind of dicey, because if you slip off the trail you are done for.  Having a 4-wheel drive system that does not require the rear tires to slip before the front tires start to pull was nice.  You don't want your rear tires slipping on that snow covered sidehill.  Having an aggressive limited slip front differential was better than having a front locker too, for the same reason.  If a locked front end slips on a snow covered sidehill the whole front end slips, which you don't want.  This little Maverick Trail did fantastic in the snow today, and really surprised me with the places it was able to go.

We were the first up the canyon, but on the way back we passed three other rigs heading up the canyon, so the snow is well tracked down at this point.  We passed a 4-seat Polaris party bus (Ranger), another full size Polaris sport UTV, and a couple riding double on their Polaris ATV.

Heading to Panguitch yet again this weekend (property shopping), but we're going to overnight Sat at Blue Pine Motel and then run Red Canyon, and as much of the Fremont02 as we can before we get stuck in deep snow (if the winch doesn't keep us moving).

If you're in the area, come say hello.. we'll likely dinner Saturday night at the Cowboy steakhouse.

Yeah, its looking like 4" of snow in Panguitch this weekend. Come on over and visit!

You taking your ATV

Its the wife's birthday weekend and she wanted to do his & her Jeeping.. [/quote]

Tell Trish happy birthday for me!

I didn't plan on "riding", but I got a call of a stuck Jeep south/east of I-80 at the Delle exit. It took me about an hour of driving through the mud-flats, but I finally found him. He was in a swamp, high centered and above the frame rails in unreal thick mud/water.

I stretched out about 250' of tow line and my winch, used my Pull-Pal (Land anchor) as another winch point (along with my snatch block), but only succeeded in pulling my Jeep closer and closer to the stuck rig.

I'm hopeful Utah Offroad Recovery team is en route, and that they brought a tracked vehicle with them because this guy is MAJOR STUCK. No photos or videos because I was deep in the mud and had no time.

We'll start to haul our crap to Panguitch tomorrow. If I bring the 5th wheel, its clear that I'll bring my ATV. I'll be running Casto then on Saturday afternoon!  

From lunch stop on todays ride, ... and a great time was had by all.  

Now that I'm ALMOST settled in the Panguitch area, I'm going to make a point to try to get out riding nearly every weekend..

BruteForce wrote on 06/13/21 at 20:20:20:

I too found some great trails the other day south of Paiute system.  I also spent three days west and southwest of Beaver in the Black/Mineral mountains.   Fantastic two track trails hidden in that area.

My wife and I are planning to take the fast camel to the Silver State OHV Trail system for a fast camel cruise this weekend.  Should be a lot of fun.

Riding from my front-yard to the Markagunt and into Cedar City today. Should be interesting..

We made it 95% of the way to the top 72" gate that leads down to  Yankee Meadow Reservoir..

There, we found an entire family in a Toyota Tacoma off to the side of the trail with a blown tire. His bottle jack wasn't nearly tall enough to lift the heavily loaded Toyota (packed full of camping gear).

When asked where they were headed, they replied "Salt Lake City".. and I informed them they were heading the wrong way..

Spent the next hour or so getting creative in lifting the rear end off the ground, but we got it done.. then into Cedar City for lunch at Applebees.

HOT in Cedar, while it was ~70F up at Brian Head area..

It has been really wet in that area.  I saw on the news that they have received 5" of rain in the last ten days near Tropic Reservoir.  We were there last weekend, and it rained most of both days we were out on the trail.  I'm glad we took our UTV with a cab, or we would have been covered in mud as well.

We came across a group of what looked like a hundred UTVs and ATVs at the outhouse next to the boat ramp at the reservoir.  I've never seen that big of a group, except at a Jamboree.  I wonder what group that was?  A big ATV club, or a Facebook group ride perhaps?

Heading out at ~10am to run from my front yard up/over Powell Point and into Escalante for lunch.

Note: Rode my house to Mayrsvale and the Fremont02 between Panguitch and Circleville has been decimated by the rains. A dozer was used to clear the trail, but did that ever decimate the trail further. What used to be a smooth as butter trail is now a field of rocks and tree roots and flash flood debris!

I did some exploring just west of Cedar City today.  I developed a trail called Wild West trail, which was a Jeep rock crawling trail, back in the 1990s.  I quit the Jeep based rock crawling about 2003, and had not been to this trail since then.  Today I went to ride the trail in my Maverick RC.  The RC does stand for "Rock Crawler" after all.  To my surprise, the trail pretty much doesn't exist anymore.  It doesn't look like anyone has been on it in decades.  Here is a picture from today.

A couple of the boys from Southern Cali came up to my property last two days. Yesterday we rode from the front driveway, up to Panguitch Lake, down to Yankee Meadow, down into Parowan for an outstanding lunch, over to Paragonah, then back up the mountain via Bear Valley and RTB.. Just about 95 miles with perfect weather!

Anybody getting out this coming weekend? Weather forecast is looking great Fri-Sun. I'm thinking about taking the SxS's out (CanAm X3 & Yamaha), maybe head toward Escalante or Kanab..

I might be talked into it.  What have you got in mind?

What trail(s) did you hit, Phil? I was hoping to take the CanAm down to Logandale, but one of my dogs had another idea and decided to escape, so I had to make a quick run back home from Mesquite. No riding for me this weekend unfortunately!

Finally getting out this coming weekend.. San Rafael Swell in the CanAm, staging in Green River. If you want to link up, DM me.. going to be just a couple of us.