Limestone Bench

We shivered through a cold (10 F) night in our gooseneck trailer.  Actually, we were warm enough wearing jackets and covered with blankets and down sleeping bags. The first rays of sun rising over the San Rafael Swell began a slow warming. 

The horses spent the night in a sturdy corral, built by ranchers who have cattle leases on the BLM land.  The horses look happy, but Daisy seems a little guilty.   I wonder what she has been up to...

The drinking water left outside overnight was frozen solid.   Fortunately, we had another water container in the trailer that was slushy, but pourable. 

The horses drank from a stretch of the San Rafael River that flowed near our camp.  There was ice along the bank, and they weren't too sure about the getting close at first.  As you can see, Mischief has been rolling in the dirt again.

We decided to bag the rest of the trip and drive straight home.  However, the desert warms quickly, and it was 40 degrees before we reached the highway.  We couldn't pass up a ride on Limestone Bench.  All that open territory was just too inviting. 

We came across this old camp, complete with stone benches and a stove.  With that fired up, campers would have been comfy. 

Someone went to a lot of trouble to build a sundial in the middle of nowhere.  Boy scouts, maybe?

We had a nice ride across the bench, covering about 8 miles, just a taste of this vast territory.

Cane Wash

A glance at the weather report shows a good enough stretch for a 2 night, 3 day trip to the San Rafael Swell in central Utah.  We head for the part of the Swell north of I-70.  Click here for Wikipedia information on this geologic uplift formed 40-60 million years ago.

On the first day, we ride through sandy Cane Wash. 

About mid-way to the San Rafael River, we come to some free water and a lot of ice.  The horses learn to tippy-toe across the ice, placing each hoof carefully so they won't slip.  We aren't worried about breaking through because the water is only a couple of inches deep. 

The San Rafael has ice along the banks, but plenty of free-flowing water in the middle.

A window in the rock overlooks the river.   We look for petroglyphs but don't see any. 

On the return trip, Daisy finds a petrified log.  She would love to fetch it, but it's a little heavy.  It's probably 250,000 million years old, from the Shinarump formation.

We discover the detritus left over from an old mining claim, including a storage room built into the hillside.  We think it may have been where the miners stored dynamite.  In case blasting caps might still be lying around, we do not enter.

and a rusted International pickup. 

We complete the 16 mile ride at nearly dusk.  Little do we know, the weather report lied.  Instead of night time lows of near 30, temps dip to 10 F that night, a little cooler than we bargained for.