ROCKtober THERAPY 2017 - Back to the Basics

I'll have to remember to chat you up over a beer some time on this. Do you have to backcountry permit for the Chicken corners>Elephant hill>Beef Basin? Camping would be permit I assume?

 

when you exit lockhart basin, you will hit the road shortly and enter the Nat Park. at that time you can get your day permit for E Hill.

or you can obtain a camping permit for one of the sites back there ahead of time to guarantee access and also reserve a bad ass camp site

at the moment, once you leave the national park boundary, it goes back to BLM land and BLM camping guidelines set in...so there are many free options outside of the park limits. not sure yet how the bears ears national monument will change things over there... http://adventr.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/BearsEarsMap.jpg

you will still need the day access to the national park if you go that route...

if you come in from beef basin, you bypass the main gate and Nat Park fees...with the new permit system, you can push your luck and run E Hill in reverse without a permit, or you can get the camping permit which i believe you can print out from email and cover your butt while reserving a great site...

 

Yea, my kids would love the Devils Kitchen sites. That would make the trip for them if I could get 2 nights there.

 

We took some friends to Moab for their first time for the Columbus day long weekend last year.

October temperatures are perfect but the days are starting to get a bit shorter.
I just looked it up. ~14:50 hours of daylight at the start of June. ~10:57 hours of daylight on the 21st of Oct.

Twilight ending at about 7pm. So either plan to be off the trail by then or have rock lights.

October mornings can be a bit frosty.

Moab is also pretty full that time of year as the weather is usually pretty good and everyone is getting their final Moab fix for the year.

Sandflats was already full on Thursday morning even though the holiday was on the Monday. We ended up going to one of the private camp sites along the river near the entrance to Pritchett Canyon.

We rode HyMasa, Ahab and BarM and wheeled Kane Creek, Hells, and Metal Masher.

The mtb trails were absolutely full of people, but the 4x4 trails weren't too crowded at the times we went. But we were riding in the mornings and wheeling in the afternoons. We ran Hells on Saturday afternoon, there was a lot of traffic near the entry (a lot of people doing an out-and-back which was annoying), but there was only 1 guy in a rzr at the top of Hells Gate and no one at the escalator.

 

all great intel @Zizzle

i know i'll take a little frosty in the morning so i don't have hot as balls in the afternoon

great point on the daylight for those planning the longer trails...if you're looking to do trifecta, having extra lights will definitely be helpful as you'll most likely be using them...

luckily we'll be outside of the holiday rush, so it shouldn't be as busy as you saw it..i know when we went to scout out areas in October 2016, we didn't feel any crowding..

 

Yep, I think most people consider that October long weekend their last hurrah in Moab for the year so crowds should be down after that.

My truck has no AC some I'm all for the cooler weather.

Just need to bring some extra blankets and clothes for the evenings and mornings.

More importantly: no bitey bugs.

 

Most will be at area BFE so that simplifies the camping part.
weather wise im good either way my AC is works good in a white with tinted windows.
as far as blankets well i should have a sleeper built under my car trailer and that will be insulated.

 

Area BFE may be pay-to-play by then so I'm not sure the bulk of people will be there.

@NYCO do you have a short-list of places for RT you can share or is it all still top secret?

 

BFE is not out of the question, but we'll be exploring opportunities we saw with BLM across 191 by the dunes..a lot more red tape when we move away from private land unfortunately

 

Oh damn. Maybe we should just reserve/rent out all of kens lake. We stayed there last time and it's actually not to bad as far as price. For $30 a night you can have 2 vehicles per spot and up to 4 tents per spot. If you trailer then you just park back on your trailer at night and that counts as one vehicle, so two people can share a spot.

Edit: bonus to that plan is you can have fires in a pit and there are toilets but still now showers.

 

Yeah except when we were there this past October, Ken's Lake was the only place that still had the damn bugs!

 

Anytime I think of that drop or the one off Top of the World I also see a cartoon coyote disappearing out of sight straight down.

 

plus you can't really "reserve" sites there...the couple group sites you can, but everything else is first come....

we definitely thought about it and was a strong possibility...not out of the question, but the other two spots we're looking at would be a better fit for our group

 

Why is BFE now pay to play?

 

i don't think it is yet, but with new management, they are looking for ways to raise revenues...may not be out of the question

 

Who is the new manager? What happened to the old crew?!

 

Olaf sold out his share to the other partner (whose name escapes me at the moment).

 

true. so what other places are we looking at? I'm not against paying for a camp site or anything like that.

 

I wouldnt mind being closer to the dunes

 

LAME SAUCE!