Rating: 3/10

Ran on April 12, 2004

I had been wanting to run this trail for the past few years in the worst imaginable way. Something about being a really long trail that is almost expedition-like, and seeing grand scenery the whole way through was getting to be a bit to much to bear. Really, the only thing that was holding me back was the fact that I felt I should run this with someone else my first time on it. My good friend, Pete ("Claw" on Colorado4x4.org, with a modified '02 TJ), and his wife from Ridgway, CO, had also been wanting to run this for quite some time, and we were finally able to mark this on the calendar. We ran White Rim in a single day, though two days is recommended to have time to really enjoy the area. It is really a 2WD road the whole way through, though I did put it in low range about three times while descending some grades. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth doing a report on as the scenery is superb.

The official White Rim portion is 68.4 miles in length.Add to that 5 miles on the Shafer Road at the start, and another 14.5 on the Mineral Bottom Road before arriving back on Highway 313.

We departed Ridgway at 4 AM and drove the 2 hours and 15 minutes to Moab. We were at the turnoff to Deadhorse and Canyonlands at sunrise. After airing down shortly after turning off for the Shafer Trail, we are well on our way to having a great day. Skies were clear all day, though that makes for harsh light, and thus not providing as good of pictures as I would have liked. But, that just means I'll have to go back and do this again! The temperture couldn't have been better. We made poor time along the Shafer Trail section because we just had to keep getting out and taking more pictures! After descending the Shafer Switchbacks, and reaching the sign marking the start of White Rim, we took the short 2.5 mile side trip to go to the head of the Colorado River gooseneck, which has a wonderful overlook. This is the area you're looking down on from Deadhorse Point, the classic western scene. Here's one of my pictures from there. Be careful at this overlook area that you don't get too close to the edge! I guess I should heed my own advice because I like to see what's straight down there on those big drop-offs! By this point, we've spent a good two hours and we aren't even on the White Rim yet!

We finally make our way back to the Shafer/White Rim intersection and we're now officially on our way. It's about 115 miles back to Moab going this route, even though it's about 15 miles away as the crow flies. We make some more progress and we reach the Walking Rocks overlook next. Shortly thereafter, we come to Musselman Arch, which is just a short (~100') walk from the parking area. Yes, I walked the arch. No biggie!

7.5 miles later, we're at the turnoff for Lathrop Canyon. This spur descends 3.5 miles and goes right down to the Colorado River. This road is rougher than anything on White Rim, yet I would only rate it as an easy "4," maybe a hard "3." Along the way, as I was backing out of an area, I was an idiot and wasn't watching where I was going and ended up ramming up and over a 14" rock at a pretty good clip, and blew up one of my tires. Oops! I hit the rock pretty hard, and the back tire made it over fine. The front was the one that didn't fare so well. It seemed to hit a sharp corner on the rock which did it in. I swapped it out and we were on our way again in a few minutes. At the end of the road, there is an outhouse along with a few picnic tables. We arrived around the noon hour, so we stopped and ate a quick lunch. Walking down to the river level, it is almost refreshing seeing all that water in an otherwise extremely dry region. We're burning daylight, so we gotta keep movin'.

Once back out on the White Rim road, it's more of the same, that is, canyon after canyon. That also means, stop after stop. Hope the door hinges are holding up! While we're moving, we're trying to go at a fairly good clip so we can see the whole trail in the light. All but a couple of spots along the whole route are 2WD, as I mentioned, so we were able to go 15 MPH, and sometimes 20, through most of it.

On the southeastern corner at the Monument Basin area, I look up and happen to pick out some people walking around, some 1,200' above, at the Grand View Point Overlook. It helped that one of them was wearing a white shirt! I got out the binoculars, but they seemed to be oblivious to our presence, though vehicles can easily be seen from up there. I do a quick honk, then we're on our way again. We round Junction Butte at the southernmost point of the road, but elect not to drive the 1.4 miles back into the White Crack Campground area, partly because we know we'll need to keep moving. I'll have to go back there another time.

We slowly make our way back to the north while still taking time to stop at every spot where a canyon comes in to meet the road. Around the time we reach Hardscrabble Hill overlooking Labyrinth Canyon, the light is in it's late afternoon stage and looking mighty fine on the canyons and buttes. Once we get to the Taylor Canyon intersection, we ponder for a moment wondering if it would be best to skip the 5 mile spur back to the east, or drive it. We decided to bypass it, so we'll just have to do it another time to visit the Zeus and Moses formations at the end. We carry on, and as the sun is starting to set, we're ascending the switchbacks on the Mineral Bottom Road. By the time we're back on top of the plateau, the light continues to dim. We ride the dirt road for a ways longer and decide to air back up as the road is smooth at this point. We get out to turn our compressors on and watch the orange and blue glow fade away as the sun has done its work for the day.

Whew! This road is loooooong! Sunrise to sunset, and we're still at the same spot! What a trip, though! White Rim definitely lived up to its billing from everything I had read in my books and online. It was what I expected, and I enjoyed it as much as I expected. You can bet I'll be doing this at least a couple of times in the next year. We saw a number of bikers, as is very common in the area, and only a few other vehicles. I will not hesitate running this solo in the future, and as I write this, I'm already thinking about when I can go back.

Here are some videos from the trip:

Colorado Gooseneck panorama (6.6 MB)

Walking Rocks overlook panorama (2.6 MB)

Monument Basin area panorama (3.9 MB)

Murphy Basin area panorama (7.5 MB)

Driving along the Green River, accompanied by Sonia Dada playing on the radio (7.9 MB)

There are 218 pictures on the following pages, which probably makes this the largest online gallery of White Rim, so take off your coat and enjoy the ride!