The Sheep Creek Jeep Trail

By Jerry Smith

Not long after we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado in '85, I began exploring area Jeep trails in my ’73 CJ5 (Old Blue).  As a traveling salesman at the time, my time off from work was extremely rare and valuable.

New to Grand Junction (GJT) and seldom home, I had nearly no local friends to find out about the area.  The answer was to take a map of the area and draw a 50-mile radius circle around GJT and go drive ALL Jeep trails within that circle.

It took till about 2009 to be able to say I accomplished that goal and then a little, but it’s safe to say that at one time or another, I have traveled 98% of all Jeep trails in that circle and many beyond.

During that time frame, we (Old Blue, Happy Trails [my ’06 Rubicon] and I) managed to find some trails in need of some TLC.  Trails that Mother Nature had closed for one reason or another were not to be ignored like most people do.  In my younger and healthier years, when an impassable obstacle presented on a Jeep trail, we simply removed or repaired it. 

To me, THAT is just part of the Jeeping experience.  You see a problem and remedy it.  Overcoming obstacles is part of the fun.  Opening a new trail or reopening an old trail is something few of us ever have the pleasure of… and yes, it definitely is a pleasure.  But you must find the opportunity to do it!

Exploring every sidetrack is the way of finding old and new opportunities.  They are out there.  If nothing else, look at the trails that have been closed by land management.  There ARE possibilities of reopening them if you get creative and solve the problems that caused the closure in the first place.

The first trail with that kind of show-stopping problems we worked on was the Pace Lake road.  The bottom of the road showed lots of erosion damage.  Tons of rock falls littered the road.  Some required removal to get by, so we rolled them into some of the deep “V” channels cut into the lower side of the road to slow the erosion.

Happy Trails on Pace Lake

Part of the trail goes through an old burn and several of the old dead snags had blown down over the road.  The tracks in the trail were common.  People would drive up to the first tree blocking the road and turn around.  Between a hand saw and the winch, we moved several trees to get to the first main obstacle.

This obstacle turned out to be a 3-foot wide gash snaking its way down the road about 3-feet deep and 75-yards long.  Trying to straddle the trench only resulted in the first body damage to Happy Trails.  Now it was a working Jeep… not a pleasure Jeep.

Before I worked on the ditch, there was a short walk up the trail to make sure all that work would be worth the effort.  From that walk, I knew there was a big rock fall not far up the trail, but it looked like something we could get around.

So… for the next few hours, I threw everything I could find in that ditch.  Trees, limbs, rocks, dirt, and sweat mostly filled it in.  There was some REAL satisfaction when we drove the full length of that thing!

At the big rock fall, taking a turn around the first kitchen table-size rock, we started to climb the high-side bank of the road to evade another large boulder.  That would have worked well except the rear slid over into the boulder we were trying to avoid and broke the plastic wheel cap (the second damage to Happy Trails) on the right rear.

After a few more trees, we finally reached the top and end of the Pace Lake trail.  The lake is on the Utah side of the border, which is on the wrong side of the fence to the JB Ranch.  The JB Ranch has an agreement with the Fish and Wildlife as a private hunting preserve and they are adamant about trespassers.

** As a side note, we are working with the USFS, BLM, and a private landowner to connect the top of the Pace Lake trail to another trail to make a loop trail.  This is going through the Manti-La Sal Forest Planning presently. See – opportunities!!  ** 

Next came the Calamity Mesa Loop Trail.  This one had been closed for an estimated 25+ years.  Calamity Mesa took some help from two Jeep Clubs to officially open the first half of the trail.  The second half was mostly just myself again.  The Calamity Mesa Loop Trail is a 19-mile loop from the trailhead to the end.  If you count the mile from the end to the trailhead, it’s 20-miles.

The Twisted Drop obstacle winds up your suspension.

Calamity Mesa also has one other smaller 5-mile loop and another trail on top of the mesa from the airstrip to an intersection with the big loop that we reopened.  There is a library full of uranium mining history in the area and some drop dead beautiful scenery.

Narrow shelf roads sometimes scare people.

 Next, we found Flat Top Mesa closed due to two monstrous rocks blocking the road.  This one took some extreme nerve to drive past the second rock.  Your paint was less than 1” from being removed by the rock because you tipped into the rock as you passed it.  Those were some intense moments the first few times we drove this trail alone. 

People have elected to pass driving their pretty paint jobs through this on the two trips we have lead up this trail.

Next was the Coon Hollow Jeep Trail.  This was marked on BLM maps as a “Jeep trail”, but it had not been used by full-size vehicles for many years and had grown in tight to ATV width with four-foot tall sagebrush on both sides and had some deep washes to deal with.  It took a lot of work to reopen Coon Hollow.

Coon Hollow has some difficult crawls

 When we did the work, the area was still managed as “open” to cross country travel, so what we did was legal for you who are touchy about such things.  We created bypasses of two washouts of the trail and trimmed and trampled miles of the tall sagebrush to reestablish a full-width trail again.

Coon Hollow has become another “highlight” trail for our annual Rock Junction event.

The Coon Hollow wash can be tricky

 South Beaver Mesa was next.  This one is a steep, narrow, heavily eroded shelf road down to an old cowboy camp.  The trail is a great Jeep experience for seasoned drivers.  Others may find it frightening.

In 2018 I was contacted by the Paonia Forest Service office and asked it we would come and widen a Jeep trail by cutting miles of heavy overgrown brush back.  It took two trips, but we got it done.

So. Beaver Mesa is steep, rocky, and eroded.

 Just counting these trails, that is over 100-miles of Jeep trails that we have been responsible for reopening.  Some we must work on nearly every year just to maintain them.  Sheep Creek is a prime example.

In the fall of 2018, a nasty storm hit the upper region of the Sheep Creek Jeep Trail.  It brought down tons of debris off the mountainside onto the road and severely eroded the road surface.  This is a common occurrence on Sheep Creek.  Once or twice each year this trail is subject to closure by Mother Nature. 

Sometime during the winter of ‘18/’19, more storm damage added to the previous carnage and added a humungous rock (15’ tall and the width of the road) to our problems.  Sheep Creek is part of one of the favorite trips we lead people on for our Rock Junction event.  Having it closed was not going to make some people happy.

Steep and winding is Sheep Cr.

 Because of all the damage and the huge rock, we met with the BLM to discuss what could be done to reopen the trail “legally”.  Our club has a very strong working relationship with the local BLM.  They gave us some parameters to work within to reopen the trail.

Sunday, May 19^th began as a workday to reopen the Sheep Creek trail.  We started out with a good-size crew of eager beavers ready to move the world if necessary.  In reality, they turned out to be a worthless bunch that never moved a rock all day.  Not even one shovel full of dirt turned.  It wasn’t their entire fault, though. 

While airing down at the Sheep Creek trailhead, a phone call from Keri informed us that a crawler tractor had already been up the trail and had removed all obstacles.  Work party disaster!

With that news, we lost Jeff and his buggy.  The rest of us decided to run the trail through to Glade Park.  On our way to the top, over the radio comes word that Luke will be riding through Granite Creek where the word is there are “rock falls” near the “homestead”.

The exit from Granite Cr. is a steep, narrow, rocky shelf road

 After a brief stop at the cabin near the top of the Sheep Creek trail, Roger’s freshly “repaired” LS powered JKU shot another code and became questionable, so the Bartons turned around with Dick following and left the mountain (we hope).

Topping the trail, we elected to head for a meeting with Keri somewhere along the trail toward Glade Park.  She couldn’t explain her location, so we were on a search and find mission.  On the radio, we were still hearing bits and pieces of what had been found down on Granite Creek.  The broken radio reception didn’t sound all that bad, so we did a quick turnaround and headed down Lost Horse Canyon on the way to Granite Creek Canyon.

After about 8-miles of travel, we stopped at the “homestead” and glassed a pickup that could be seen on the shelf road exit from the canyon bottom.  Even with drone flyover pictures, the overall predicament with the truck could not be determined, so up the road we went.

Just a short walk around a corner from the pickup was a serious rockfall blocking forward progress.  A quick look and some thoughts about it made me think we “could” move the big rocks enough to pass, but taking the walk around the corner made the effort fade into oblivion.  Not only was there another large rock partially blocking the road, but also a disabled pickup with unbelievable body damage and what appeared to be a broken front axle sat smack in the middle of the road.  Game over!

Back out through Granite Creek Canyon and Lost Horse Canyon to the road to Glade Park.

Overall, it was a good (long) day of Jeeping.  Many in the group saw some new country and trails they had never traveled, so all was not lost.  One of the Rock Junction favorite trails is again useable and we only had one and a half casualties.  I forgot to mention that Dick aired down two tires TOTALLY.  Whoops!!

This should give you some ideas of what can be done for motorized trail access “IF” someone takes the lead and follows through.  Of course, having support from other people makes this happen easier, but that all-important “point man” is VITAL to things like this!  Are YOU that person?

One of the first things you must do is get on a first name basis with local land managers.  Being on their speed dial is even better.  You’ll get better cooperation if they know and trust you.

One last thing… always remember when you come to a fork in the road, Yogi said; “Take it!”  That is the first step to finding opportunities.