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| View toward Devil's Kitchen |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
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| Abajo LaSal Mountains |
On the fourth day of Road Trip 2021, the Fab Four drove up to Monticello and turned left to take a gorgeous drive through the foothills of the Abajo LaSal Mountains. Much to our surprise and pleasure, we had to wade through a large herd of small mule deer, a large flock of wild turkeys and several roaming free range cows! The trees on the slopes of the mountains were changing into their fall foliage costumes and we got our first view of The Needles District from a road overlook.
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| Sweet Deer |
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| Needles Overlook from Abajo LaSal Mountains |
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| Newspaper Rock |
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| Needles from Entrance Road |
After our road descent down into Indian Creek Canyon, we made a short stop at Newspaper Rock, a petroglyph panel right next to the road. An exploration of the Hamburger Rock Campground encouraged us to think about camping next time. Then we stopped at the Visitor Center to ask about the weather forecast for the coming week. Yes, there was rain expected maybe on Tuesday and probably on Wednesday. This was supposed to be a somewhat zero day but we changed our flexible plans and decided to do Chesler Park. It was a late start and a hot day but we were excited about getting in as much hiking as we could at this beautiful place. Next stop, Elephant Hill Trailhead!
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| Starting out from Elephant Hill Trailhead |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
We scored a parking place near the trailhead and started up Chesler Park Trail being immediately faced with a lot of climbing in the form of class 2 scrambling in a wonderland of red rock formations. It is one of the most beautiful parks of sandstone that I have been to. The worn trail was well marked with cairns. During the three days we were in the park, we never lost the trail. This section of the Chesler Park Trail climbed up and undulated through the rock, flowed down through a long slot between huge rocks, and scrambled down into the Elephant Canyon wash. The wash is the junction for the Druid Arch Trail that we would be following the next day. Today, we crossed the wash and began another scramble up, over desert then up again. That last scramble was a doozy!
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| Small Scramble on Chesler Park Trail |
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| Lizard on Cairn |
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| Elephant Hill Slot |
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| Chesler Park Trail |
This is the area that we found a lot of other hikers resting in the shade either on the trail or at the top of the hill. The top of the hill was the overlook of Chesler Park which had a large expanse of desert grass/sand terrain between it and our perch. It was a hot day.... At Tim's urging, we hiked down the sand dune for about half a mile to see what was around the corner. We found more shade for a rest and decided to turn back instead of trying to complete the Devil's Pocket and Kitchen Loop. It was a hot day. Next time. So, we returned to the overlook, took our group photo and started down that last hard earned scramble. It was strange that we seemed to run into more hikers going in the opposite direction as we returned. There are campgrounds dispersed throughout the trails and I believe that some of those hikers were simply returning to their campground after a day of hiking. Like a large hiker community with suburbs! The ranger at the visitor center actually told us that it is better to camp than drive in from Monticello just so you can get earlier starts on the trails. (We didn't have a problem rising early for the drive just so we could get that warm soft bed and a nice shower!)
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| Scramble down to Elephant Canyon Wash |
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| Scramble Up |
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| Heading toward last Scramble Up |
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| Chesler Park Overlook |
So, we scrambled up to the Elephant Hill Slot, squeezed through then climbed and scrambled up and over the formations. As we were starting our descent into the trailhead, we heard a lot of commotion coming from car engines and yelling people. The Sunday evening entertainment had begun! There was a small train of cars that were, one by one, climbing up the 4WD HCV Elephant Hill Road that starts at the trailhead. A small group of onlookers had gathered at the bottom, at the top and in the middle of the hill watching the cars and giving encouragement to the drivers. Although there were a couple of nice looking Jeeps, the majority of the trucks were an ugly bunch! We watched for a few minutes then went back to Monticello for some grub!
Stats: 6.5 miles; 1150' gain; 4.5 hours
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| Fab Four at Chesler Park Overlook |
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| Returning down Slot near Trailhead |
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| Sunday Evening Entertainment - Watching cars climb Elephant Hill Road |
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