Eva Conover Trail
We had expectations for the Eva Conover Trail. It was next to and in the same type of terrain as Devil's Racetrack and Fix It Pass, and both of those trails had been a blast as they went up, down, and around all of the hills. We started at the north end, where it was marked as the north fork of the Coal Wash. It started out in sand, but it quickly got more interesting.
Wide, smooth washes are always fun. When you have visibility for a distance ahead of you, you can really have a blast going fast for a change. That only happened a couple of times, and we enjoyed it. It definitely was pretty in the wash section.
Soon after a sign marking the wash, we started heading up onto Secret Mesa. It was a fun climb from the beginning. There were rocky climbs and sandy climbs on dirt and slickrock. It was nice to see big patches of slickrock. You come to expect them from trips to Utah, and we hadn't seen much of it this trip. We stopped on our first big patch just to enjoy it as the start of our wheeling season -- Utah trips have always been the bookends.
The bluffs around us were beautiful, with lots of rock outcroppings and sheer cliff faces. There were even open spots of straight trail in between the twisty parts. We had a few ledges to climb and drop down, but nothing was huge or scary.
In this direction, we found the loose hill as a descent. The trail isn't maintained, and this section is narrow in spots and built of dirt that is not very packed in all places. There are rocks here and there, and some of the sides were eroded. An ATV wouldn't have any concerns, but we were in Jeeps so we were careful. In the end, we made it down without incident.
This ended up being a fun trail, with big scenery and fun ups and downs. The trail turned mellow just before we came to the Eva Conover Trail sign, the kiosk, and eventually the trailhead. We were back at the trailhead for Eagle Canyon, and though we had an urge to do it again we crossed the highway and went a bit east on I-70. We needed to go check out The Wickiup.
