Moab UT - Thursday - 89 miles

Our last day of riding. We were winging it a little today. It looked like rain so we checked the radar and tried to factor that in. We decided to head north and we were going to explore the are northeast of Moab. We hit UT 128 and rode along the Colorado and had planned to ride in the Fisher Towers area and Onion Creek but the further we got the more it looked like rain. So, we headed into Castle Valley and it was quite scenic but the roads were simply fire roads and not challenging. Nevertheless we rode into the valley marveling at Castleton Tower, Sister Superior, and Patriot Mesa. We were getting wet but it wasn’t bad. We looked at the skies and decided back to the West it was clearing and we decided that was where we needed to be. This proved to be a good idea. We went north on US 181 to Cotter Mine Rd and started into the hills north of Moab on the Determination Towers Trail We got in there and did a little back tracking before we found our way on Mill Canyon Rd. We were in the area of Merrimack and Monitor Buttes and Uranium Arch. The road was on top of the mesa and provided good scenery and trail riding. We rode around Mill Canyon rather than going through it, maybe a mistake but it was still good. We stopped at Determination Towers for some pictures and continued riding around. The hard packed dirt and slick-rock had given way to very loose sand that made going fast slightly treacherous. When we came back around on Cotter MIne Rd we saw the Sevenmile Rim Trial jeep trial and we rode up. It was a little challenging in that it had very big rock ledges and the trail was a little difficult to follow at times but it was not terribly difficult. We rode back towards Uranium Arch. Honestly by the time we reached this point in the trip seeing another arch was not all that important to us. I will say that the only downside to this trip was that after a while all of the scenery began to the look the same. Anyway, we rode back to Moab to pack up for the trip home.