Roadtrip

Cinnamon is bad on the beginning and end, with three or four switchbacks each. This is not good for "heavily loaded motorcycles". You might think about renting a Jeep in Ouray or Silverton. I think that they are going for a hundred bucks per day or so, and they have Rubicons at the Triangle Service Station in Silverton. Ask for Bill, tell him you know me, and maybe you will get a discount.

The train actually leaves from Durango, CO, about a hundred miles south of Ouray. Working steam engines, narrow gauge track, you can't get much more historical than that. Wear safety goggles on the train. The coal smoke is full of cinders, and drifts right into the passenger compartment.

It could be warm, but it could be cool too. It's been over eighty (hot for us!) in Silverton, but the Channel Nine weather girl says it will cool down Saturday.

Earle

I have ridden over the passes a few times on the highway, but there is no way i will be fire-roading a fully packed goldwing on this trip. My friend Tom and i have negotiated quite a few dirt roads, but I'm not leading our wifes, who have far less experience as riders off of the hardpan. We booked the train trip for the 3rd, i rode it as a kid and have spent a lot of time woring on a Mallet Locomotive in San Diego. We are going to leave camp in Ouray at 5:45, ride to Silverton, take the 7:30 bus to Durango, and the steam train back, still giving us half the day to goof around. Earl, is that your house with the 3 or 4 jeeps in front, I think Blair St? Maybe I'm thinking Model Ts. If it's OK I may knock on your door on the third to say howdy. We may rent a jeep, but that's not definate. I was thinking of bringing mine out next summer and going to Moab, visiting the inlaws in Mancos, then going to Silverton.

Paul Calman, Hathaway Pines, California

Paul Calman proclaimed:

Have you been down to Crystal Geyser yet, near Green River? Any local can tell you how to get there. Lotsa honey onyx right on the bank just to the left of the geyser and up on the small ridge to the right behind it. Also lotsa dinosaur bone [soft, speciman quality] along the cliff behind the geyser. Actually several bone areas along the dry washes as you head down to the geyser. You pass the old missile base and thru a small canyon, then on the right you have the clay formations called Maggies Teat [after a former cafe owner downtown]. Then a rather large jumbled pile of stones a bit bigger than a car on the right, stop at the next wash to the left. There is bone all over the north side of that wash in pinkish and green variety.

From the town of Green River, head up the west side of the river to where the road ends just as the river comes out of the canyon. On the east side, they've paved much of the old road and in the process cut off access to the old mining roads that cut along the cliffs and end up several miles east at Thompson Junction... on bikes you might be able to get thru.

A bit more obscure: About 14 miles east of Green River, watch for Floys Wash. Head south a few miles and stop just past the old corral. Facing more or less south, turn left and walk until you come to a drop off with a huge butte a few hundred feet on the other side. The top of that butte is pretty good agate.

Arrowheads all over the place out there, as is small hunks of carnelian.

Between Green River and Thompson Junction, about half way, there are old roads leading off to the left to some old ghost mining towns up against the lower flanks of the Book Cliffs.

If you get down to Moab, ask the locals how to get to the old Fowler mine up in the LaSalles at the old ghost town of Miners Basin. Used to be some halfway decent amethyst up just to the left of the old cabin. Don't pan the gold from that creek, it is moderately radioactive, as is the air in the old mine shaft which may have been borded up by now.

Paul- If you get to Thompson Springs, UT you can get off I-70 and go north about 3 miles (on paved road) up the canyon to the ghost town of Sego. There you will find the remains of the old coal mining town. Also, there are some fairly extensive petroglyph panels, well marked and easily visible from the road. Some Fremont work, with other more recent images over the top of it in some places. A couple of picnic tables and an outhouse that might come in handy, too. A short, easy side trip but well worth it, IMO.

BTW, Lon - thanks for the info on the geyser. I remember seeing it several times as a kid, as it was just a few feet off the old highway, but then I-70 went in and I lost track of just where the geyser was. I'll have to get out there this fall and check it out after the weather cools off.

Gary

I have been to the Thompson springs petros, there are some even better ones a little ways beyond the fence, but I suppose you could get shot at trespassing.

The Crystal geyser sounds very interesting. What is the road like? We expect

100+ temps, and one of our party doest walk so well. The cemetary in Green River was interesting, a lot of cool whirlygigs and stuff there.

Guys, I'm interested in petroglyphs & pictographs ; if you have any pictures to share, please email me !

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

here's 3 shots from near Boulder, Utah in 2002.

have some from Thompson, let me see about posting them online Paul Calman, Hathaway Pines, California

These are interesting because they are right on the shore line.

If I can find the photo album from fifteen years ago, I will post more.

Earle

Gary proclaimed:

The easiest way to get to Crystal Geyser is to go into Green River and cross the river on the main drag. Just past the motel row, there is a turn to the right that goes down around the old Utah Launch Complex. It wanders and curves around for a few miles, then just past the old meteorology site, another road crosses it. One way heads up the hills about a mile to the north up to the old highway. Turn right and head thru that small cut in the rocks. Once you get in there about a mile, the road splits, with one going off toward the ranch, the right turn there takes you along the south side of the small clifflike stuff toward the river, where the geyser lives.

Someone kept filling the old pipe, so someone else blew the pipe off pretty much at ground level. Don't get too close, some folks think it is funny to drop big rocks into the geyser to see how high they'll fly.

If you haven't been there in a while, the land is sorta puffed up a bit with smaller secondary geysers around the bigger one, and if the river is low, you can see the line of bubbles of the under-river outlet for the gas geyser.

Fall is a good time for rock and bone hunting.

If you go down toward Hanksville, a coupla the big washes that the highway dips down into have geodes and a blue/orange agate bed upstream against the hills on the right.

Paul Calman proclaimed:

I've got pictures of my MGB taken at the geyser. You can drive right up to it easily, just watch out for flying rocks when it goes off.

The terrain at the geyser could probably be done with a wheelchair if necessary.

Yeah, coupla friends of mine are whirlygigging in the Green River cemetary.

So many of the wheelers have been all over the place around Green River and Moab it is difficult to find new territory, even the road from the old Potash road up to Dead Horse Point is too well travelled any more. In Green River, you can hop over the railroad tracks not too far from the state park and head south along old trails as far as your vehicle and nerves will allow...

I made it to green river early enough to see the geyser, pretty cool. I'm in Ouray now, got some heavy rain near teluride today, but i dry well. Great trip so far, no weather extremes, actually cooler in the big deserts than at home