Utah Arapeen Tail System Map Update

It's one of the reasons that the economies of the small central Utah towns are still solvent – the extensive offroad trail system that they have learned to promote.

The Utah Arapeen Trail System is in the Manti-LaSal forest and the city fathers of the many little towns (with a bunch of coaxing from both local businesses as well as offroaders) have come to learn just what a valuable asset the trails in the surrounding hills are to their local economy.

Anyone traveling in central and southern Utah will quickly come to realize that the towns are all spaced a day's journey by horse and wagon apart, a legacy of simpler times.

All of the towns have local ordinances which welcome offroad vehicles to traverse their roads with almost none of the hysteria or inordinate rules that accompanied similar considerations in Mesquite a couple of years ago.

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GEO-tography: Oceans

There is nothing quite like living next to, or near, an ocean. From the temperate temperatures, to the wild weather; from the (mostly) free swimming to the "magnetic" sand; from the great growing-seasons to the constantly limp and damp bed-sheets; from the… well, you get the picture.

The one thing they all have in common however, is: Grandeur – and terrific places to take pictures because of it; especially if you go a little off-road.

Just about every category of photo we've highlighted here in GEO-tography is amplified at least double near the ocean. The crags are craggier; the colors more vibrant, and more subdued; the clouds more widely varied; water more in-your-face; and the sunsets, well, let's just say that you've never seen one until you've seen one across the watery horizon.

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Offroad: Mormon Mesa-St. Thomas

This ride was a good days outing from Mesquite Nevada in a mini-van around the historic Mormon Mesa and St. Thomas overlook. The ride was 125 miles around some breath-taking overlooks and red rocks with a thousand feet change in altitude. At the time of the ride the dirt roads were dry and fairly well maintained. Lake Mead was still below the historic town of St. Thomas and hiking trails were being well used.

Seeing the Virgin River Valley from the top of Mormon Mesa with Gordon and Hugh wasn't enough for me. Even though they were dirt, the roads seem to look like they'd been scraped in the not to distant past so we decided to try to get the family van up the mesa from the Overton side so Mom and Dad could see it too.   [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home.]

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Utah Wins Best State Website

Hey… I've got some news for you. As part of running a blog for the past five years, I've had to become fairly acquainted with the issues and techniques of web development. And, as such, find myself frequenting the blogs of "opinion leaders" in the area of web design and development.

One site that I visit fairly regularly is: Design Shack run by Josh Johnson, Joel Bankhead and David Appleyard. In addition to writing articles about how to blog effectively, they occasionally scour the web themselves and give ratings and rankings to sites they find in some particular category – and they are very well thought of.

One of their recent articles was a ranking of the websites run by each of the 50 U.S. states. Now these sites are government web sites, published by the state as their "official" presence on the web – not only to represent the state but to be the "gateway" for it's citizens to contact and obtain services from the state. Just take a guess which state won the very top honor.

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Offroad: Five Canyons Trail

Forty-three miles and a full day will get you out of Mesquite and into the mountains for a great loop around the five major canyons in the Bunkerville Range of the Virgin Mountains; plus a picturesque valley thrown in for good measure.

This is a ride which can easily be done without trailering from Mesquite. It loops from Water Tower Lane in Bunkerville to North Valley before running into the Parashant via the 4,900 ft Lime Kiln Canyon and returning via White Rock Road. It also happens to be what we think is the very best get-acquainted "sampler" ride one can your visitors on.

Although there are roads and trails going up all the canyons which can be navigated by 4-WD vehicles, the trail as shown in the free map accompanying this post is best taken on ATVs, side-by-sides and single tracks due to width, camber and turns. None-the-less, it really is considered beginner level (well, one part is a "strong" beginner level due to incline). [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home.]

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S California Offroad Map: Darwin Falls

The fifth in a series, a completely new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file which is available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Darwin Falls Offroad Riding Area.

The California Master Map having been split into North and South, room for more trails exist; although, the way things are going the southern map may need splitting again shortly. One hundred and twenty-eight new GPS locations for mines and other waypoints have been added to the Darwin Falls Trail.   [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home: Southern California Master Map.]

On top of that, eighty-six new trail segments (both ride and hike) have been added … WHEW! These new additions have been submitted by an "anonymous reader" who apparently is some sort of "mine aficionado" scouring southern California for mines and their data. Credit where it is due to Mr. Anonymous; but, the data needs substantial re-working so I'll pat myself on the back as well… even if I need to dislocate my arm to do it.

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Offroad: Mesquite-Bunkerville Backroads

We've been riding the Mesquite offroad area now for, what, five years? And we've tried to figure out the easiest possibilities to get from the city to the trailheads without the need for trailering.

The absolute insane prices of gasoline in Mesquite the past couple of years makes this even more important; especially since careful price comparisons often make it more economical to drive up to St. George to fill up than at any of the local stations – even with the higher per gallon gas tax in Utah.

In years past we've run around the city on the back roads to show that it's possible to get from one side to the other – although the spiteful closure of the newly refurbished city creek wash makes it nearly impossible this year. And, we've run from the south up to both Flat Top Mesa and Whiterock Road.

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GEO-tography: Reflective

The magnificence of being outdoors is heightened by being "off the road." Offroader's prefer the destinations with a view and for many seniors the only way open to be able to see them is on an ATV or some like vehicle.

Today's collection of "Geo" related photography is about an aspect of the view which is not often noticed and in fact can be looked directly at but not seen. The human brain is funny that way.

I'm talking about: reflections. And, they are everywhere, not just in mirrors as the images below will reveal.

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How Much Water Is On The Earth

"How much water is there?" is a question that I remember asking myself (and others) back when I was in high school. I didn't get a good answer then, and it seems that other pressing issues completely buried all memory of the event until this week when I found the answer from the USGS: How Much Water Is There Really?

Falling Man Update

In a bit of unusual happenstance, Gordon and I were taking one of our last rides together on the butte this season (and still commiserating about the complete incompetence of the BLM over the "first rock" fecal "grafitti" that they have been completely ignoring for the past two years on some of the most old and rare petroglyphs in the whole area) when we saw something completely unexpected that I'll tell you about.

But first, as you may know, there are petroglyphs of several different ages at this particular site and it's some of the oldest that are being destroyed by the fecal matter being flung at them. We've posted about this before in this blog and reported it to the ranger as well as other BLM officials more than once. My guess is that either they are so misguided that they think large birds can't fly to another rock to nest; OR they are too lazy to do the minimal work necessary to "rearrange" the birds descretionary choices.

PEOPLE, birds can move (even poor little eagles) but petroglyphs can't! And, once they're gone, they're gone… FOREVER!

However, I digress. You must forgive me, for this kind of "official" incompetance stirs my soul. Back to the story.

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S California Offroad Map: Blythe Vidal Riding Area

The latest in a whole series of updated to the California maps, an entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file which is available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Blythe Vidal Offroad Riding Area.

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Offroad: Old Narrows Trail

The trail that once was: The Gold Butte Narrows. Oh… I know, those of us "Johnnie-come-lately's" still have a trail we call "the narrows," but as good as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to what "once was."

Back in the day before the National Park Service (NPS) got a burr in their blanket and decided to close off the well used trail, one could navigate up a high-walled, carriage-wide, multi-colored, serpentiginous, slick-rock canyon to everyone's amazement and absolute delight.

Today, pretty much NO-one uses it at all – except those who ignore signs.

Hikers don't – because it is really, really, really far off road from the nearest staging area, across huge amounts of uniforn, non-colorful, boring, hot and flat desert and would require them to ride an offroad vehicle to get there to hike it. And, because it was never really important to them anyway.

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S California Offroad Map: Alexander Hills Riding Area

Yet again, an entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Alexander Hills Offroad Riding Area.

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Offroad: Red Hollow Arch Trails

This is a rather unique post in that it had its origins in an email with a question: "I'm an offroader who loves to travel in mountains with my group on our my bikes and am wondering if there is a 'best way' to get to Red Hollow Arch in southern Utah," or words real close to this.

He went on to say that he was able to see the place on Google Earth, and several trails – at least what looked like trails; but, wanted to begin in Beaver Dam and travel to the arch from Arizona. He wondered if any reader had been there and submitted a recent trail.

Well, I was glad to help; but, there was one problem: I personally had never heard of Red Hollow Arch so didn't have a clue where he was talking about!

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S California Offroad Map: Skeleton Pass Riding Area

An entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Skeleton Pass Offroad Riding Area.

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