Leslie and David's Wanderings: 12 May 2021 Shafer Trail to White Rim Road

When researching the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands NP, we saw several references to the White Rim Road which runs for 98.8 miles along the rim of canyons that are mid-level between the Colorado Plateau and the needles district. The road runs on top of a harder white rock layer that has not eroded as easily as the red sandstone in the layers above and below it. One reviewer said it took them 10 hours to drive the 98.8 miles since the road is rough (4 wheel drive high clearance vehicle required) and the park service limits the types of vehicles that are allowed to drive it (A day pass is required). There was a hike off the road we wanted to do in addition to driving a few miles along the canyon rims. To get to White Rim road, you must descend 1000 feet via Schafer Trail road. Schafer Trail was originally a trail by which they moved livestock from the upper plateau down to the Colorado River. When the area was opened up for Uranium Exploration in the 1940s, the trail was made into a road. The road first runs along a shelf about 40 feet down from the rim with huge vertical drop offs just feet from the roads edge, then it zigzags down the face of the cliff with 15-25% grades. This is a single lane road, with occasional “wide” spots to allow traffic to pass in opposite directions. Needless to say the car on the outside of one of these passing’s is just a bit nervous! For the Behemoth, the road was just barely wide enough. Several of the tight turns on the zigzag descent required multiple cuts. This road makes the Moki Dugway look like a cake walk! But we just kicked in the engine brake and dropped into low gear and let the Behemoth do its thing. At the bottom of the Zig Zag, the Schafer Trail turns off and heads out of the park to Potash road. White Rim Road begins here (there is a convenient outhouse here as well). The Shafer Trail portion runs about 5 miles to the White Rim Road. At 1.7 miles on White Rim, we came to the Gooseneck Overlook Trail (0.6 miles, 88ft of elevation gain), which takes you to an overlook of the Colorado River where the river has cut a gooseneck canyon through the red rock. The views are amazing! The canyons go as far as you can see. After the Gooseneck trail, we continued down the White Rim Road. It was fairly good going until we got to the Musselman Arch turnoff. From that point on, the road went over rough slickrock shelves and rough dry washes. We found a really gorgeous spot to stop and eat lunch while taking in the amazing view. We made it about 7 miles, out of the 98.8 mile, along White Rim Road. We got tired of crawling at 5MPH over rough rock and pitted road. It wasn’t anything the Behemoth could not handle, just made for a really rough ride for the passengers. It had taken us 1.5 hours to go the last 5 miles. So we decided we had seen enough and turned around for the 12 mile drive back to pavement. We cannot imagine doing all 98.8 miles like that as some reviews suggested. The drive back up the Zig Zag was exciting as the drive down. David dropped it into 4 High so we would have plenty of traction on the steep parts and loose soil turns. We seemed to hit a lot more people coming the opposite direction this time, which made for some exciting encounters. All in all, another fun day!