We drove to the entrance to Castle Valley on the Colorado River northwest of Moab and enjoyed the views.

The next week we drove up above Moab through Sand Hills Recreation Area (link) to hike the Porcupine Rim Trail.   The area is designed for shared use – jeep tracks, mountain bike tracks, and “hiking” routes.   We chose one “trail” to hike that was a single track for bikes then a shared double track and worked our way out to the Porcupine Rim for a view of the Castle Valley.   To the north, the open valley featured pasture lands and buttes.   To our right (southeast), the head of the valley sloped up to the 12 000 foot La Sal Mountains, still wreathed in snow.

The Sand Hills Recreation area has campsites, famous bike trails (the Slickroad Trail), renowned jeep routes (Hell’s Revenge and Fins and Things) and a few longer bike trails that could also be hiked.   We saw both jeeps and bikers and and enjoyed watching the mountain bikers come down difficult, hazardous routes.   At the top of the area, the road continues to climb onto the slopes of the Manti-La Sal National Forest.   We drove to the snow at 8200 feet, looking up at the barren peaks.

The road can be done as a loop, so we continued on, coming down through the Mill Creek Canyon Wilderness Area back into Moab.

The section of the Porcupine Trail that we hiked was about 5 miles of single and double track, some of it rough.   These kinds of shared use trails are best hiked off-season when the number of 4WDs and bikes is considerably less.

A copy of the Sand Flats Bike Trails brochure is provided here – Sand Flats Slick Rock Bike Trail (pdf)