Calamity Mesa Airstrip Trail

By Jerry Smith

September 3, 2011

I had been down on myself for failing to find the road(s) to the airstrip on the top of the mesa on the last trip to Calamity Mesa. The computer maps showed a road to the upper end and another to the lower end of the airstrip.

That's what happens when you live by what Yogi Berra said -- "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!" You get sidetracked.

Blue Creek Gorge from the Calamity Mesa Loop Road

The road from the lower end I had convinced myself that I had found on another trip, but that road had a long piece missing in the middle that would require some serious work to get around or through. The Colorado geology and weather can be very rough on roads in the backcountry.

Most often you just have rocks or trees falling down onto the road from above or places where the runoff has cut a channel either across or along the road surface creating serious obstacles.

But then there are the times when the whole hillside simply sloughs off down the hill. I’ve seen two places where the hillside slipped down and the road surface was literally intact downhill several yards (30 to 40 yards) from where it had been constructed. It’s a strange site to happen on.

When that happens, it’s hard to convince your Jeep to just take the road where it is. That vertical jump down and then back up can be puzzling.

This time the whole hillside had moved, totally destroying what looked to be 100 yards of the road altogether.

That finding had been late in the day so I did not take the time to explore what it was going to take to get around this obstacle.

A few days later, I was dropping off some CDs of pictures I had promised Hugh Phillips of Safari Ltd, a Toyota service shop.

Hugh and I got to talking about our trips during the last Rock Junction event back in early June and Calamity Mesa came up. I mentioned that Mike Click and I had made the attempt to find our way to the airstrip without success and Hugh said; “I was just up there.”

We discussed the roads necessary to get up there for quite a while. He had gone from the top and had followed the road from the bottom of the air strip to a place where there were trees downed across the trail and he turned around.

Harold entering "Twisted Drop" on Calamity Mesa Loop

Thinking I knew approximately where he had turned around… which I thought would have been just up the canyon from where the road had disappeared, I set out to go where he said.

The trip as far as Calamity Camp and the New Verde mine went very smooth. Being alone generally allows things to go that way. Having no other schedules allow you to do whatever, whenever.

Coming to the second road on the right that I knew climbed to the top of the mesa, I took it and followed it to just over the rim. There it forks and I now knew to take the left fork for a little way to another fork going uphill to the left.

Some of the climb was fairly rough going but the road got quite easy going as it hit the top. Soon I could see the airstrip to the right of the road. What a beautiful site. Success often has that look.

After a picture of the strip from the north end, I followed the strip to the other end and then the road down the mesa. The road travels through some intermittent typical Utah Juniper and pine areas and then through some wide meadow like areas.

Looking down the Calamity Mesa Air Strip

Along this stretch of real estate, the road/trail appeared more abandoned than most you find in this world of ATVs and 4x4s. There were zero signs of ATV width tracks in the tall grass growing on the roadway. The ATV crowds don’t seem to heavily use Calamity Mesa. I think some of the trails are too rough for the majority so they seem to go elsewhere.

The 20-mile Calamity Mesa Loop road we reopened about 3-years ago still has very little traffic of any kind. The first wash (the “Gate Keeper Wash”) about a mile below the New Verde Mine across from Calamity Camp would stop anyone not in a very well equipped vehicle. Even the ones who make it through that wash will balk at the next one.

The two mines shown on the map along this mesa top road were not apparent as we passed by. Many of the old Uranium mines left little or no traces when they closed up. Often, they are along the cliff side below your view.

Coming to a tee in the road/ trail, I took the right fork following my nose to where I thought I would find where Hugh had turned around.

This first time out this way, I came to what I thought was the end of the trail where there was slick rock intermingled with low growth, so turned around to take the left fork.

Before turning around, though, I had to get out and admire the great views of Flat Top Mesa, the Little Maverick Creek valley, and across the Delores River to Sewemup Mesa and the Cottonwood Creek area. This country is mighty easy on the eye if you take the time to look. In fact, you could just sit and gaze for hours with a complete sense of contentment.

Flat Top Mesa

The trail on the end of this right fork is on some near slickrock conditions and finding any trail is more by feeling than it is by seeing. You just have to imagine your way along. Have you ever tried tracking an ant across a rock?

Coming to the end of the left fork, I got out and walked along the cliff rim to see what I could see. I recognized some of the surrounding countryside views below from the many previous trips. Coming around the west side of the cliff I got a glimpse of a road below deep in a canyon that ran somewhat northerly up toward the mesa top back in the direction I had just driven from.

So, after some more scouting, I drove back to see if this was the road Hugh had driven down. I often find that following my nose turns out to be the right thing to do. This time was looking like the nose knew again.

Back near where I had turned around the last time, I pointed Happy Trails down to the left and followed a wide spot through the low growth and the trees. Soon, the road coming from the bottom seemed to come out of nowhere and down it we went.

Most of this road looked to have had little to no traffic for quite some time. Zero tracks showed ahead and there was a lot of brush growing into the road.

Finally, I came to the trees Hugh had turned around at. They were some fairly large old dead pines in the bottom of the dry wash. Lying there across the road/wash, they had created something of a dam in the natural watercourse. In a place like this, that is usually a good thing from an erosion-stopping point of view.

They would have taken a lot of winching and cutting to make the road passable. Having a lot of experience with situations like this, I did a little foot recon to see if the work required would be worth the effort.

I’ve been with others who would just set to work with the removal process only to find another closure just yards down the trail negating all the hard work.

I learned a long time ago to take a few minutes and walk the trail for a while past the obstacle making sure the work won’t be in vain. This time, other than a lot of Gambel Oak growing across the road ahead, the work looked like it wouldn’t be wasted.

On the return walk to the downed trees, I looked over a little hump off the roadside and thought it looked like with a very little limb trimming on one tree; I could simply bypass the logjam, and leave the dam intact. Rather than the estimated hour of winching, I had a clear path in about 20 minutes and soon was sweating up a storm cutting oak brush back from the road.

This brush cutting exercise happened several times in the next approximate mile of road. The growth was extreme. One place, the road was only about a yard wide between the oak brush on one side and a Juniper tree on the other. That is why I carry a saw and some heavy shears.

Rather than just turn around when the road is overgrown, we go to work and reopen it. Admittedly, Happy Trails isn’t much help in these situations, but she appreciates the wider trail.

Oak brush growing over and on the road.

I don’t mind a good obstacle, but leaving good paint on the bushes is nothing but being lazy. Happy Trails has some scratches, but the tools come out pretty easily to keep deep scratches to a minimum.

Soon the elevation change began naturally thinning the oak out and the going got better until we came to a large rock in the middle of the road on the crest of a little hill in a fairly narrow place. This was nearly a deal breaker, but after some serious assessment, I decided to chance jumping over it.

Expecting to have to return this way made jumping it seem a little haphazard, but that’s “Jeeping with Jerry”. My theory is; leave a good obstacle whenever possible. Hey, it's a Jeep trail!!

Below the rock was a long off-camber stretch that tightened the seat covers a little. Then it was just the occasional rock or wash to deal with for quite a way down the little valley.

All of the sudden, the road seemed to almost disappear. There was a wide opening ahead, but there were no tracks or even worn trails through the wide spot. It became just a lot of small rocks and rough going. Expecting to come to the end of the trail any time, we came to a tee into another road.

As this was a “tee”, we decided to take a left turn. This road became familiar soon after driving for a few hundred yards. This was 11.5 Rd, the road below the New Verde Mine and Calamity Camp. To mutilate a line from the Smokey and the Bandit song “East Bound and Down”, we had just done what had been said could not be done.

The road off the mesa top intersected in a place that no more looked like an intersection than my hood. We’ve driven by this place several times and never even suspected it was an intersection. After marking it with a serious cairn and GPS waypoint, we headed in the direction of the rest of the Calamity Mesa Loop.

This loop road is always a great day in the Jeep. Several times it has been a lot of work to make it clear around but this time it was just a pleasure trip… if a class 7 trail can be called a pleasure.

Take a look at the picture of Happy Trails on “Articulation Station”, just one of the obstacles on the Calamity Loop trail. If you can’t do this several times in 20-miles, don’t try this trail! It is full of this kind of Jeeping.

Happy Trails on “Articulation Station”

This was a near perfect day in the Great American BackCountry. Why not "perfect", you ask?

There’s the matter of a certain road with a section missing that needs some questions answered… like where does it go? Ahhhh, that will give us another adventure to live at a later date.

Just knowing there is one more trail open in the world is enough to make your heart swell.

Always remember this important point… when you come to a fork in the road, take it! That may be where the adventure is!

Happy Trails 4wd

Monday, December 30, 2013