Henry Mountains

On Saturday, we took off for the Henry Mountains. Check of the weather said it would be hot and clear all weekend. Along the way we stopped to find several geocaches that were along the road. We arrived at Little Egypt past Noon and thought to have lunch. We stepped out of the car and that is when the heat hit us. We did a little exploring and decided to skip lunch and head higher for some cooler temps.

We made a few stops along the way at some cabins. In the first cabin was a large lizard that the dog had to scare off before I could get a picture. I had never seen such a big lizard in the wild before.

I had been told and read that the Henry’s receive little traffic and might run into 1 or 2 other people. It was just the opposite, there was a lot of traffic and I had to be on guard after several close encounters with other cars. The road up Bull Creek Pass was steep and my little 4 popper had a hard time climbing. I had to shift into 4 low to keep the engine from bogging down. Once on top the views were awesome. We stopped at Bull Creek Pass for some pictures and a rest. I tried to read the Mt. Ellen trailhead register but there were a lot of bees living in the box. Once I opened it they all swarmed and I had to shut it and run off.

We continued on looking for a place to set up camp, we didn’t want to camp at the campgrounds and the few spots were already taken. We finally stopped on Nasty Flats at a nice camp site. While setting up camp we could see a bunch of deer on the hillside. The sunset was nice, watching the mountainside turn colors with a red hue to them.

This was Rocky’s first camping trip so I was a little worried about him. While making dinner he walked off and we had to call for him for a few minutes before he returned to camp. After that I kept a watchful eye on him. Our other dog, Shadow, stayed in camp the whole time.

The next morning I was up to watch the sunrise light up Capitol Reef from my viewpoint near camp. I sat there for a least 30 minutes watching and taking pictures.

We left after breakfast and continued along the Bull Creek Pass Road. We passed by a small cabin that a turkey was hanging around. Soon we were passing by the McClellan Springs campground. It had a few camp trailers as well as some tents camping. The road down wasn’t near as steep but it was rough. The road dropped down and then back up to pass in front of Mt. Pennell and the Horn.

The lower down we got the higher the temperature would rise. We made a few stops but I am regretting not stopping more to take pictures. After reaching the bottom we stopped at some more old cabins near the Trachyte Ranch. We came across another lizard this one not as large and sure enough Rocky took off after it. He came back with the lizard in his mouth and his head held high. He paraded around with his prize but as soon as he dropped the lizard off it went under a rock.

The ride home was hot so we stopped as few times as we could until we were home. The Henry Mountains are definitely a rugged place but a place I want to return and do some more exploring.

Link to more pictures from the trip

Link to a GPS kml file

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