Day 6 4/17:
We woke up early the next morning. It was a frosty 28 degrees with a snow mix still coming down. It had snowed an inch or two the night before, mostly in the upper canyons.
We began to break down camp and it became rather apparent that finishing the rest of the trail was unlikely. With Sean's busted head and rear suspension, and the underlying fact of it being rather cold, we weren't very motivated to continue on. We turned on the radio and they were reporting highs in the 40's with a 60% chance of rain, and freeze warnings for the evening with lows expected in the low 20's. We had enough food, and likely gas to continue on, but quite honestly, we just wanted to get out of there. So onwards we went...
Snapped a few photos...
We had a met a ranger on the way out. He told us the switchbacks were wet and slippery and that he didn't recommend them. They were working on Potash but he said it was passable. We'd make the decision once we got there...
20 minutes later, we had arrived.
A Land Rover LR4 had just come down and said it was passable but to watch some sections. We were going up it, so more than likely we'd be fine. After some deliberation, we decided that given our groggy conditions Potash was the better choice. Not only that, we liked the idea of new scenery and exploration.
Onwards on Potash out of the Park.
The first section of Potash was rough, lots of rock as we finally made it to the bottom and exited out into a wash region. A little rock rash here on Sean's '05 (ripped off his light hook up for his hitch) but all in all we made it with little incident.
Regrouping...
We continued our way out. Beautiful scenery, even in crappy conditions.
Cool, big teetering rock...
Somewhere around here, Doug and Sean had rounded a bend and I came across a motorcycle rider who waived me over. I radioed the guys and told them I was stopping for a minute. The motorcycle guy began walking over explaining that he had lost his way and needed a map. Now, I'm from Indiana and even I knew where Potash led to and returned from, so I was baffled by this, but proceeded to tell him that he had about 5-6 miles until he hit the east side of the park. The guy continually approached the truck as we talked, and seemed very nervous and continually moving his hands in his pockets. Now perhaps I was just being dramatic, it was cold outside but something about him made me weary. As he got closer, I decided it was time to go. He wasn't in any real distress, and I gave him the info he needed, so I took off on him. As I was pulling away, he shouted..."What...!? I'm not going to shoot you or anything...!" Now, I'm no genius but saying something like that isn't going to make you any friends in the back country...
We continued onwards, and the sun began to break through a bit by this point.
Kind of a cool work site, in the middle of no where...
After a few more miles had passed, we hit the paved road. Aired up and enjoyed the last few miles to Moab.
We hit Moab about 1 o'clock and were starving. Found a nice Italian eatery and chowed down. We started discussing our plans for the rest of the day. We all needed a nap, a rear shock and possibly a doctor to look at Sean's head. We didn't really want to do a hotel tonight but the cold weather was deal breaker on camping, and the weather for the rest of the week wasn't all that promising. In the end, after some deliberation, it was decided to go our separate ways (Sean back to CO, and us back to Indiana). While we had only been out there a few days, the weather had basically sucked the motivation out of us for this trip.
After some handshakes, and some quick last minute laughs about our previous few days, we all hit the highway. Doug and I went South to avoid the snow storms CO was getting (a named storm, Yogi) as Sean went North back to the Glenwood Springs area. Doug and I had expectations of camping on the way home but the weather never subsided. We hit Albuquerque, NM around 10 PM EST and decided on a hotel. It was 35 degrees. So much for warmer weather.
This ended up being one of two stops we'd make on the way home. Both were hotels. We'd get back to Indiana in time for a leisurely weekend.