I just got home from a 2 week trip to Moab and after years of hearing about it I finally took the time to run Elephant Hill and hike the Joint Trail. Absolutely amazing is all I can say. The main reason I've never run this trail before is that it's about a 2 hour drive to the trail head from town, so you have to leave very early in the morning, unless you camp overnight like we did. I'm thinking of trying to get a group together to do another run this year during or before ZuZoo. The trail isn't very difficult, but it does have a few obstacles. We took a locked Jeep TJ on 35s and it walked right through anything. I'd say any Zu with at least one locker and 32's would make it fairly easily.

The trail itself isn't much to speak of, but the scenery is by far the most spectacular I've ever seen. It makes the rest of Moab almost look plain and boring.

Once you get to the end of elephant hill you can park and hike The Joint Trail. After a bit of hiking through rocky wilderness you get to a huge rock slab with a vertical crack just wide enough to walk through. Follow the crack for about 1/4 mile and you exit to a short trail leading to the Chessler Park Overlook. Huge beautiful rock spires surround the area. This is where many famous Ansel Adams photographs were taken.

I'd also like to take a trip over to the Confluence overlook while we're in the area. From the overlook you have a view of where the Green and Colorado Rivers meet, from hundreds of feet above. Whats cool is the rivers are 2 very distinctly different colors and dont mix for a very long time after joining.

It's a long day of driving and hiking, but totally worth it. So is anyone interested? I'll volunteer to lead in my moms Amigo (since the buggy isn't registered and isn't supposed to be driven in the park).

Dallas

Heres a few pics from my trip last week.













Dallas

Definetely a worth while trip!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Dallas...

Good to see you again.

There is a group of us running Hole in the Rock trail Sun/Mon, and on the way to Moab, heading up to do the Elephant Hill/confluence overlook hike, and if time allows, heading back to town via Lockhart Basin.

Elephant Hill rocks, scenery wise. The trail is moderate 3.5, nothing outrageous but fun.

I and some of the MWIOR crew are already planning to run it, but haven't decided if we want to tag along with the VX crowd on Tuesday (the VX "only" run is going there then) or not...we could move along faster with a smaller group. But we are going Monday or Tuesday if you want to group up.

Planning on getting on the trail just prior to them (need to find out when they are planning their departure), as I would imagine a smaller group would run faster, and I want to do it a la Hells Revenge style. Slow enough to see everything and make the hike out to confluence overlook, but fast enough to get off the trail in a reasonable time and hit Lockhart Basin out.

Monday simply wont work as I will be on Gray Mesa overlooking Lake Powell/Hole in the Rock Monday morning.

That would work...although if ZuZoo is going to be entirely informal this year, we could go any day of the week.

I plan on hiking the Joint trail, and hopefully going to the confluence overlook as well if time allows. I have been there twice but the Joint trail is so cool we never made it to the overlook.

Keith, check the maps. I beleive there is a route to enter the Elephant Hill area from the south on BLM roads. You would exit through the National Park but your enttrance would be unannounced and cost free. Not the point, the point is travelling the less travelled route.

The last time I was there, we followed a road south till we hit some signs and a boundary marker. Steve was there too, I think.

Heh, yeah...we definitely hit the park boundary but I had no clue what direction we were going. I guess since we didn't run into the river, south is a good guess.

Turn off of UT95 on to Cottonwood wash trail. You can run that all the way to Blue Mountain Trail, make a left drive s short distance and take a right on Cottonwood Canyon Trail, drive that for a short distance then jump on Beef Basin Trail, run that until just before the loop and catch Bobby's Hole. From the last two calls that I got harder than Elephant Hill more scenic and will take you straight to Elephant Hill. The only variation would be at the beggining instead of runnin Cottonwood Wash Trail all the way to Blue mountain, jump on Elk Ridge but that way is a heck alot longer. I'll have the mileage in a second after I get done figuring it out.