Starting a hike on the Red Plateau Forest Service Road saves the steep hike (2230 vertical feet) from the Dewdrop Range.   There are several trailheads off the backroad that allow is a moderate route out to the rim of the Red Plateau Escarpment.    On this most recent hike, we followed know trails, but to do a longer route along the rim, we took a new 600m off-trail route to link two trails.   This short-cut allowed us to do a 3.5 km section entirely on the rim.

Our short-cut took us to the top of the Dewdrop Trail, then we followed it west past the Ragged Red Ridge, Castle Butte, and up to the highest point on the Escarpment.

On top of the plateau are many ponds, marshes, and muddy puddles, with a wet forest at 1170m (3800+ feet).    Mosquitoes were plentiful, but is was a quiet 10 km hike.  

Some video footage of the hike and the views are combined into a short video, embedded here:

We hike on the rim at least twice each year, but we also try to vary the route each time.   We have 6 hiking routes to climb the Escarpment (Dewdrop Trail, Dewdrop Traverse, Ragged Red Ridge, The Forgotten Trail, Dead Coyote, and Three Amigos) and we have 5 routes from the Red Plateau Forest Service Road.    Each time we try a different combination, or we try a new route to link up sections, as we did this time. 

To see more information on routes, use the Search Bar provided above (on the upper right).