With spring “break” on us and a lack of good camping options we are knocking off a bunch of destinations on our list. These are the ones that are both close enough to not warrant a weekend but too far for anything less than all day. Given that most weekends we can’t dedicate a whole day to wandering they haven’t been done.
The first was last week when we went out spiral jetty.
This week was to head out on the pony express trail to Simpson springs and then on to the Dugway geode beds. It’s a LONG drive. 210 miles round trip and over 130 those on dirt. it’s VERY remote.
Frankly it’s as remote as any place I tour.
I’d been out to simpson springs before, in the winter, but we turned around there for time not knowing where the beds were.
We’d also wanted to see the spring foals of the wild horses out here. I would guess (without looking it up) that these herds are descendants of the pony express horses. We found some by driving a little cross country, but we never got close enough for good pictures annnnnd im an idiot and didn’t bring anything for pictures but my phone.
Still, super cool to see wild, never broken horses doing wild horse things.
After a brief stopover at simpson springs (a pony express station) we continued on another 25 miles to the geode beds where we stopped for a spot of lunch. Perfect weather. No wind, mid 60's and sunny.
Too hot? slip under the awning, too cold move into the sun. I balanced my heat by letting my jeans sun and my upper body and face enjoy the shade. Lovely.
The beds are hardly a secret anymore and with it being spring break and people looking for remote places to recreate there was actually a fair amount of traffic out here. I didn’t mind too much because as much as I trust the cruiser when it comes to the family its nice to know it wont be days before another car came along should something terrible happen.
What was amazing to me was the cars out here. Like...Camry’s, minivans, Jettas, etc. The main road is a breeze other than the BRUTAL coregations for long stretches. We saw 2 people repairing flats. Cars aren’t meant for this kind of abuse. I have e rated 75 aspect tires aired down to 20 psi, ICON shocks and long travel coils and its still brutal. When I stop the aluminum bodied shocks are toasty. What really blew me away though was the cars that took on the trails to get into the beds. There are easy and hard ways, but even the easy ways means momentum and scraping with anything other than 4 wheel drive. Crossovers were scraping.
Naturally we took the hard way, which not only got us a prefered spot to hunt for geodes but was just way more fan. There was one hill that was a total bypass that was DEEP sand and FUN!
I never get a chance to drive deep sand (strange right?) and this was deep and fun.
once at the beds we met the crowds, though when I say crowds remember that we are 70+ miles from the nearest paved road.
found some car buddies to park responsibly distant from.
smashy smashy
We definitely found a few
It was a long long day (left at 10 AM got home at 630 PM) but fun.