vacation trail: Shaffer Trail in Canyonlands

[gc2488]

(There was a vacation trail topic in the old forum discussion.)

Here's my recommendation for one that is beautiful
and dramatic but technically very easy: The Shafer Trail
in Canyonlands National Park near Moab Utah!
It's an easy trail but has nice switchbacks
on a steep grade. When you first come up the
canyon, it looks like a dead end, but the Shafer Trail
cuts into the hillside. Reached from the Potash Road
up the Colorado River a bit from Moab. Sorry about
misspelling Shafer in the title -- I don't know how to change
the title.

See:

http://www.nationalparklover.com/images/Utah-Az/canyon_lands/cl-shaffertrail.jpg

My own pictures are in a pbase album like this one:
http://www.pbase.com/utah2003c/image/17123823/original

Description of the trail:
http://www.pbase.com/utah2003c/image/17123813

[hmrlvr]

Those are awesome pictures. Cool, a new screen saver. Maybe I can photoshop my H3 in there:D

[f5fstop]

Great shots of the trail. I have traveled that area extensively that past four years, and heading that way in late June/Early July with my youngest kid. Once you get to the bottom of Shafer Trail (also known as South Fork Road on some maps) you can travel White Rim Trail, the entire trail is about two days of traveling and there are places to sleep. However, a short drive will take you to Musselman Arch and you can walk over the arch, just don't slip.

Another one in the area, technically easy, is Salt Creek Trail inside arches NP, and you can even do a hike and see Tower arch:
http://hometown.aol.com/f5fstop01/images/towerarch_web.jpg

and Eye of the Whale Arch:
http://hometown.aol.com/f5fstop01/images/eyeofthewhalearch_web.jpg

Salt Creek Trail
http://hometown.aol.com/f5fstop01/images/slide18.jpg

And for some great desert travel, Horse Canyon Trail in the Needles Area, but beware, you need a pass, and Hummers can't make the entire trip, in fact, the Jeep just made it:
http://hometown.aol.com/f5fstop01/images/slide14.jpg

On Horse Canyon, you will find Paul Bunyon's Potty (I didn't name it):
http://hometown.aol.com/f5fstop01/images/paulbunyonspotty_web.jpg

(The photos of Tower arch and Eye of the Whale arch were taken at high noon, thus the colors are washed out due to the hot July sun.)

[NEOCON1]

great shots 5 :D

[gc2488]

Yes, thanks all for the replies and I'd like to go back to Canyonlands and drive the White Rim Trail and other scenic dirt roads.

You might have to push boulders out of the way...

http://www.crum.ws/crum/H3/rock.jpg

Higher resolution at:
http://www.pbase.com/utah2003b/image/17123662/original

Ugh, this new forum software didn't work with the Mozilla browser.
I had to switch to IE to insert the image. Maybe it requires some
scripting capability that the old forum software didn't require.

Ah yes, f5fstop, we need a smaller model of Hummer for those tight places --
We need the H4!