Robertson Pasture, Twin Peaks, and Spring Creek Trail

Manti-La Sal National Forest

Click for map.

The roads seem to be increasingly dominated by rough things, at least on the map, so I wasn't sure what I could do. I plotted out a loop of 4WD road and (motorcycle) trail and a little bit of paving from an easily accessible overlook for a get-to-know-the-area exercise and figured I should have more ideas later. The easily accessible overlook is the Harts Draw-Canyonlands Overlook, or so it says on the map. It lacks any road signs to point it out, but once there has a nice set of sighting tubes to point out the landscape. That can't be bad. It includes Canyonlands!

A series of tubes for sighting things like Shay Mountain there on the left, which is hard to miss, and a few things down in the canyons to the right.

Lots of canyons below, some of them part of Canyonlands National Park.

So on to the first little bit of paving before turning onto the first bit of 4WD road. There's plenty of shoulder and the cows have pounded a path on one side to make travel on that shoulder easy. There are a few discrepancies between what I see on the ground and the Forest Service quad as I get to that first turn. Spring Lake is actually signed as Foy Lake and I've never seen such a nice 4WD road. The paving is old, but quite complete. It is marked with an "easiest" level ATV trail sign, too. I have about a mile more of paving than I thought. The cows have walked the side of this one, too, but sometimes beneath low branches.

North Peak and various bumps mostly hiding Twin Peaks.

The turn to Foy Lake. Looks like it's been this way for a while. Someone isn't keeping up the map.

Foy Lake is a big tank with earthen dam on two sides and quite full of water. Shay Ridge (ATV) Trail heads off next to a bathroom and a map marking area OHV trails and about four dispersed camping areas, this being one of them. The second bit is good for me to know since I'm looking for a better campsite.

Foy Lake, called Spring Lake on the map, looks nice but gets a bit full of soap bubbles when the wind whips it. People fish it, but the soap isn't good for that continuing.

The paving quits just past the lake and as I keep left, the road doesn't last much longer. Through a ranch gate is a large area occupied by some well spaced massive RVs and a skinny little pair of ruts ending at the trailhead for Robertson Pasture Trail. Hikers, equestrian riders, mountain bikes, and motorcycles all get to use it until Oct. 1 when the wheeled ones have to quit until May 15. Is winter really coming so soon here?

Here starts Robertson Pasture Trail.

A bright red to help signal the fall that is here.

The bears are still out. Motorcycle trail it may be, but it looks like the last user here was on four feet.

There is chaparral here similar to that which I know from southern California, but it is the high mountain sort getting taken over by trees which are a mix of aspens and deciduous oaks and less familiar pines where I would see live oaks and ponderosa. Still, it is feeling more like a desert and so it is nice to see the little creeks with a little bit of water as I go climbing the easy way up toward the pasture.

Water! One of a few branches of a creek flowing across the trail.

Getting to a bit of pasture, which is to say meadow adjusted by the passage of cattle.

The pasture is indeed pasture. Cows have been here changing the landscape. They do more than just crop the grass down like living lawn mowers. In some places it looks as though ditches have been dug to try to keep the aspens out of the meadows, so the cows might be getting help with halting natural changes.

A row of peaks working toward North Peak and Twin Peaks.

Shay Mountain with distant La Sal Mountains for which the forest is named. They have been out there from the start.

It looks plenty pasture like up on North Peak (right) and north of it, but maybe it is really this sage and other low brush like around the trail here.

I believe the wooded peaks south of Shay Mountain are Shay Ridge.

While the maze of canyons visible between the mountain and ridge are coming off Dark Canyon, the local wilderness area that is left and higher. I'd like to get there, but the maps suggest the roads won't be kind to the little car.

The pasture is prettier than I expected and the canyon views are quite exquisite. I had tried to turn a trail called "Red Ledges" into part of my route, but it was getting too long with that. I'm not seeing much in the way of ledges, perhaps a bit red, in that canyon. Maybe you have to take the trail to see them.

A tight huddle of aspens has me wondering what has restricted them to this one circle.

The canyon ahead has a few aspens getting into the fall mood.

Not seeing the red ledges makes it easier to skip the trail as I come to the junction down a wooded canyon. It looks a little rough, but gets more use than the further bit of Robertson Pasture I start up along instead. There are more trees along the way now and even more as the trail makes an unexpected turn and seems to be going around the mountain instead of up and over a higher pass. As it gets further and further from the grassy hill side the map says it is climbing, I get to wondering if it is even the same trail. It sure doesn't feel like what I signed up for. Perhaps what I wanted has been abandoned. I think about backtracking to a split I noticed in passing where some long unused trail was climbing a grassy hill side. The trail finally breaks out of the trees into a grand view before turning back.

A view down Indian Creek to the canyons below. The far side of the creek (give or take, the boundary is annoying not on my maps) is Bears Ears National Monument and Red Ledges, the spot the trail passes, is somewhere directly below but maybe behind a little bit of hill.

Since the trail has turned back, it must mean to be climbing. I am still not entirely certain that it is. It is all long rolling dips between climbs that feel like flat. It is two steps forward and one step back with the forward progress being questionable the whole way. The next few switchbacks are shorter to help give me better assurances that I am indeed going up and might still be getting the climb I signed up for. Above me is a mountain biker running back to get his camera on a tripod after getting a shot of himself riding down the hill. I would be embarrassed that the trees witnessed it if I were to try that. Maybe it's just that it's so much not a part of being here, now and when I see the results I tend to feel like reality is being tampered with. Staged reality. But he does happen to be a Forest Service employee and, more importantly, worked on the reroute a few years back, so he can assure me that it is really going to get where I want to be. I can't help pointing out that it has already added more than a mile to the route to get up what is really not a very big climb. He says it's much more fun for mountain bikers and motorcycles this way. I'll give him mountain bikes. They like this sort of interminable shallow climb that makes stock grade look strenuous. But I've seen a few motorcycles pointing themselves up hills they weren't sure their bikes would hold onto just because it would be fun. I think they're all for a slope. Since he should know the right person to contact, I tell him he's in charge of reporting the downed tree he's about to encounter. The forest is a bit thick through here and there have been a lot of trees that needed to be cleared, some quite recently. Anyway, onward and upward and finally to the saddle at the top.

Getting that new view. Antennas across the way are on Abajo Peak, the high point of these, the Abajo Mountains.

The saddle is my best launch point to grab a peak, which is why the prospect of missing it was really annoying me. To my left, North Peak. To my right, Twin Peaks. The closer of the Twin Peaks is higher and has a benchmark on it, so that is the one I'm feeling most like going after. Right means going into more forest. I quickly find a trail going my way. I actually had expected some little bit of trail, but this is cut through the downed trees and has had a motorcycle or two on it. Not recently and there are a few trees that will need to be cut before the next illegal rider comes up. It makes for an easy walking trail, first up to a gravel covered shoulder suitable for landing a helicopter, then through more trees up to the open peak.

The two peaks of Twin Peaks with the higher, nearer one on the left.

It is surprising to see insulators for a telephone line on the way up. The higher peak is quite close, so I wouldn't expect a fire lookout to be up this one. The top has benchmarks and an old fence and no signs of other construction. If there was a lookout, it has been completely removed including the footings. It might explain where the second reference has got to. I can only find the station and reference #1. There could be only one, but usually singles don't get numbers. I walk around a bit and take in the view. Abajo seems more like a taller peak from here than from below.

On top of Twin Peaks. The TWIN benchmark and reference are hard to miss, but I miss any second reference.

The smaller Twin.

Abajo Peak, the local high point for these mountains, sits 350 feet higher.

Shay Mountain is well separated from the rest.

Someone has found a salsa jar from the "salsa twins" to hold pages for a peak register. Themed. Cute. I head back down to the saddle and then continue on over it toward the road below. It is another 4WD but looks nice enough for me to drive. It's never a good idea to judge these things from a distance, though. Just before getting there, I turn along Spring Creek Trail, which stays high of the creek and gets higher as it rolls along.

The grasshoppers with the giant spike on the end are here, too, but they come in a variety of shades from bright green to red-brown to black. They make lots of noise, too.

There really are some rather large aspen along this trail.

Somewhere down there among that tree abstract is Spring Creek.

Prairie Dog Knoll up ahead with La Sal Mountains behind.

I know I don't really have time to go for it, but when I hit the minor saddle with Prairie Dog Knoll, I turn to stand on it, too. There is nothing to it except that someone actually named it and that name actually got on the map. It's still and extra quarter mile each way as the shadows get long. Admittedly, those long shadows are really picking out the texture of the canyons below.

I had to get out the bigger, cleaner, actually still works the way it's supposed to telephoto to take in just a little more detail. (Click to embiggen.)

Someone has stacked up a massive cairn at the top of the knoll. That probably doubles its prominence from what it was originally. It is certainly a good spot to look out on the plain and the patchwork farming and what looks a little like wispy smoke. Drift smoke. Below me is a popular dispersed camping area for the big rigs and I can see a bunch scattered like tiny houses.

The plain out here was mostly hidden throughout the day. Monticello (pronounced to make an Easterner squirm) is out there toward the right and the distant peaks are probably La Plata Mountains.

But I can't spend too much time at the cairn, so I scamper back over the mildly rocky terrain back to the trail as quickly as feels safe. Heading down again, there are only some tiny reroutes. I was promised that I could get back to going straight up and down hills again, which seems to be almost true, but I do like to make some compensation for drainage. At one point I eye a deep gully to the side and wonder if that was the original trail. A deer shoots past, almost safe for the evening. Somewhere below there is talking as someone packs up for the day. Close one, deer.

A pair of rocks at the end of the trail to help the ATVs understand they aren't welcome.

The trail ends in a proper 4WD road. Well, you'd at least want high clearance. A little sign says there's an overlook 2 miles back and a road sign advertises Prairie Dog Knoll 1.5 miles back. I'm not sure what the overlook is. Maybe it is the knoll and the half mile is rounding error. I'm more interested in finding out what "The Racetrack" is somewhere down this road.

Shay Mountain, now under some delightful clouds, has come back to be part of the view.

The Racetrack seems to be a long downhill of open space pointed at those canyons below. They're really pretty as the light changes colors and I'm spending too much time looking at them instead of the ground as I walk this rough road hoping not to trip or roll a rock underfoot. My luck holds, perhaps because there is a bit of ATV traffic as hunters make their way to their temporary homes for the night. It does tend to bring my attention a little back to the road.

The sun picks out the sides of the canyons as the light turns red. La Sal Mountains are really standing out now.

The Racetrack has a reservoir too, which would be pretty but it is somewhat occupied by cows and smells of something dank and oxygenless. The road travels along the earthen dam which is showing some weak spots.

Ah ha, the reservoir. I found Racetrack Reservoir.

Reflections of one of the smaller peaks north of North Peak on Racetrack Reservoir. A little yellow stick catches the sun.

It is only a short way more down to the paved road below and another short way along the road back to the overlook. It is getting a little too dark to enjoy it now. I wouldn't mind watching the sun come up on it again, but I think it would be better to pack up and get this one spot I picked out in the morning by Foy Lake which is sheltered from all directions that there is likely to be a generator heard and a pleasant quarter mile walk to the toilet. The day proved to be something like 17 miles, a little longer than my original 13 mile estimate, but that was without the peaks and reroute.




©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 20 Oct 2019