Boondocking in Rabbit Valley - Day 3: Exploring BLM Trails

 Thursday, September 24

Decided to explore some of the trails I'd spotted while riding to/from the Knowles Overlook Campground on Wednesday.  Trail #2, which I began enroute to Knowles Campground, turned out to be not much in terms of scenery.

I cut back to McDonald Creek Road and instead of turning left to go to the campground, kept going straight on a road which led to a locked gate at the Utah border.  On the way to said gate, I had spotted an interesting rock formation so I turned around and parked Yagi there to explore a bit and get out of the sun for a bit:

I then walked to the right of the above rock formations and found myself a nice rocky alcove with interesting wind-carved niches on the sandstone walls:

Here's successive shots of the alcove, going back a bit each time to give you some context:

The above rock formation formed a wide arc of stone, after a bit I got back on Yagi and rode to the other end of the arc:

I then returned back to the locked gate, capturing yet another end of another arc of sandstone formations:

Here's Yagi at the fence line with the locked gate, that rock formation in the background is in Utah.

You can see a bit of the Colorado River flowing into Utah

Back to the Alcove Rock location, another view of the alcove and more wind-carved niches:

After a bit, I headed on over to the Knowles Overlook Campground and found a spot where I could the telephoto lens to "bring in" the distant rock formations:

Rode on back to camp, had lunch and relaxed in the shade of the RV/Awning during the hot part of the day.

At 5 PM, I got on Fiona and rode out to check out the BLM roads on the north side of I-70 accessible via part of the Kokopelli trail and a couple of underpasses under the super slab.  Nice BLM roads, soft dirt and bit rocky but quite Uralable.  I rode along windswept prairie, way up high, above the traffic on the super slab down below.

Sorry, no pics of Fiona, it was just windswept prairie and I couldn't get a good angle on the traffic below due to the height.

This high mesa area is quite wide, and I ended up exiting BLM land on a paved road that you can take to the small town of Mack, CO.  Instead, I went the other way to pick up BLM Road 728 which was more high prairie riding for me and Fiona until we eventually reached the High North Campground!

Fiona and I then descended back down to the level of the super slab, crossed over it using the overpass that is part of the Rabbit Valley exit and returned to camp.  The campsites are filling up, I now have neighbors on both sides within line of sight.  I guess it's good that I'm going home to Centennial tomorrow!

Really enjoyed the last three days here in Rabbit Valley, highly recommended!