- First Name
- Tyler
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2021
- Threads
- 7
- Messages
- 197
- Reaction score
- 641
- Location
- Eagle Mountain, UT
- Vehicle(s)
- F250
- Your Bronco Model
- Base
- Thread starter
- #1
My 17-year-old son and I spent two days exploring the San Rafael Swell. We did Behind The Reef, Wikiup Loop and Black Dragon Trails.
Behind The Reef Trail is a 27 mile loop the traverses a wide variety of terrain. You start by climbing a steep, narrow shelf road. There aren’t any overly difficult obstacles here, but in some spots the trail is just barely wide enough for the Bronco. The steep drop of a couple hundred feet can make for a few butterflies in the stomach.
The middle section of the trail is fairly easy. There are tons of views to be seen and great vistas from the ridge lines. We stopped at an old cabin and explored around for a bit.
The last section is a wash you follow back toward the start of the trail. This was a fun section with a few moderate shelves to drop off, but nothing too difficult. Since it’s the bottom of a wash, I imagine this part of the trail is different after every heavy rainstorm. Lastly, you must traverse back down the steep shelf road.
The trail took about 6.5 hours to complete with a few stops to check things out and have lunch. My son drove the majority of this trail, and it's great to see the confidence he's developing for offroading. We finished about 3:30 in the afternoon, and since we were so close to Goblin Valley State Park we went and checked it out as well.
Wikiup Loop Trail is a 16 mile loop trail and took us about 2.5 miles to complete. I don't think this is a trail I'll do again. There wasn't really anything neat to see and the trail spent a lot of time in Juniper trees. There weren't really any challenging spots on the trail either. As I looked back through my pictures, I only took one on this trail.
Black Dragon Canyon Trail is a 17 mile point to point trail and took us about 2.5 hours to complete. This trail is right off of I-70 and would be a great trail if someone was just passing through and had a couple extra hours on their hands. We did the trail from West to East. The first half of the trail is easy and doesn't have a lot to see. For the second half, you drop into Black Dragon Canyon where the trail gets more scenic and challenging. There was one big ledge we had to go down, and ended up gettting high centered on the gas tank skid plate, mostly due to a poor line choice by me. With a little manuevering we were able to get down the ledge and continue on.
Overall, it was a great couple of days, and me and my son had a lot of fun.
Behind The Reef Trail is a 27 mile loop the traverses a wide variety of terrain. You start by climbing a steep, narrow shelf road. There aren’t any overly difficult obstacles here, but in some spots the trail is just barely wide enough for the Bronco. The steep drop of a couple hundred feet can make for a few butterflies in the stomach.
The middle section of the trail is fairly easy. There are tons of views to be seen and great vistas from the ridge lines. We stopped at an old cabin and explored around for a bit.
The last section is a wash you follow back toward the start of the trail. This was a fun section with a few moderate shelves to drop off, but nothing too difficult. Since it’s the bottom of a wash, I imagine this part of the trail is different after every heavy rainstorm. Lastly, you must traverse back down the steep shelf road.
The trail took about 6.5 hours to complete with a few stops to check things out and have lunch. My son drove the majority of this trail, and it's great to see the confidence he's developing for offroading. We finished about 3:30 in the afternoon, and since we were so close to Goblin Valley State Park we went and checked it out as well.
Wikiup Loop Trail is a 16 mile loop trail and took us about 2.5 miles to complete. I don't think this is a trail I'll do again. There wasn't really anything neat to see and the trail spent a lot of time in Juniper trees. There weren't really any challenging spots on the trail either. As I looked back through my pictures, I only took one on this trail.
Black Dragon Canyon Trail is a 17 mile point to point trail and took us about 2.5 hours to complete. This trail is right off of I-70 and would be a great trail if someone was just passing through and had a couple extra hours on their hands. We did the trail from West to East. The first half of the trail is easy and doesn't have a lot to see. For the second half, you drop into Black Dragon Canyon where the trail gets more scenic and challenging. There was one big ledge we had to go down, and ended up gettting high centered on the gas tank skid plate, mostly due to a poor line choice by me. With a little manuevering we were able to get down the ledge and continue on.
Overall, it was a great couple of days, and me and my son had a lot of fun.
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Cheers to more fun adventures with your Bronco!
