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| Hiking | 3.39 Miles |
478 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.39 Miles | 2 Hrs 19 Mns | | 2.01 mph |
| 478 ft AEG | 38 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Keystone Cave. Coffee Pot Rock. Two nice trails. And, surprisingly to me, I found them on All trails. But more on that later.
These two trails offer pleasant, interesting hikes a bit deeper into Red Rock territory, beyond that of “official” trails. I label these two trails “unofficial” in that neither is marked with trail signs, and neither appears on regular park trail maps. Both extend north from Teacup Trail, with Keystone Cave going north from the junction of Teacup with Thunder Mountain trail, and Coffee Pot Rock leaving at two points just east of the junction, again off Teacup. As noted, as neither is official, no trail signs or cairns mark the intersection of the trails with Teacup. But with the GPS route download, I found the intersections without trouble; one just needs a bit of route recognition to pick out the trails.
I hiked Coffee Pot Rock first. The trail runs easy and mostly flat, and readily discernable, and looks as if hiked fairly frequently. The trail heads north, then east, onto the base of Coffee Pot rock. I don’t think, in fact I am fairly sure, I did not travel the entire length, as I stopped at a point where the trail thinned out to a narrow ledge, then rose quickly up to outwardly slanted slick rock. I assess these not difficult to navigate, nor treacherous, nor technically difficult, but I freeze a bit on ledges and rocks that drop off sharply. (On the now infamous Angel’s Landing I completely locked up, and was forced to turn back, just a couple hundred feet into the narrow sections, about two decades ago.) Coffee Pot forms a loop of sorts, so the way back to Teacup runs a bit differently than the way out, but again ran easy and mostly flat, and readily discernable.
Next I turned up Keystone Cave. Easy, mostly flat, but not as readily discernable. I lost the trail early on, from watching the rising sun push the shadow line down the side of Capital Butte, and in doing so just turned down a side meander. But recovered, and now focusing more closely, found the trail sufficiently discernable to follow without error. As with Coffee Pot, I did not travel the entire length. I stopped just as the trail rose to the steep incline up to the cave, as that morning I needed to get back for some mid-morning commitments. I sense the incline traversable with just rock scrambling and bushwhacking through shrubs and thorns. Now, at the top, the trail dives into the cave, and at that hour into shadows. Since I couldn’t see through the shadows, that last section may have cliffs and bluffs, so might require what I would call bouldering, i.e. climbing vertically using handholds and footholds. But as Keystone Cave trail to that point (once I focused) ran easily, getting back to try a climb up to the cave remains on my list.
Now why surprising that I found this on All trails. I had assumed that the “red” curated trails on All trails only followed the black and blue trails indicated on the All trails layer where one built custom trails. But this proved, at least for these two trails, the All trails “red” trails will go beyond the limits of what one can custom route. |
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