Hans Flat Road
Hans Flat Road is pretty inevitable when you want to see the Maze District by car. It's the easiest way in, and it's long. That's why we'd end up doing it two days in a row. We saw it the day before in the dark, so we didn't have any pictures. We were happy to find it in daylight this time, though. We came off of Gordon Flats and we were at the Hans Flat Ranger Station, so we headed to the pavement.
The road was easy, though it's the roughest the farther in you are. We cruised across the Twin Corral Flats, but we didn't see any corrals. It's definitely a different type of scenery, with wide open spaces, short trees and bushes, and not too many rock formations or mesas. The drive was quick, though.
We turned north to head across Robber's Roost Flats. We knew that there was a lot of history in the area, including hideouts for Butch Cassidy and other outlaws on the run from the law. It's also the home of Bluejohn Canyon, where Aron Ralston was stuck between a rock and a hard place. For a famous area, we were surprised to not see any other people. There are so many roads leading off of Hans Flat Road that are worth exploring, but our light was fading and we pressed on.
Horseshoe Canyon was also on our to-do list for a future trip, but we turned left and continued on past it. The road was easy as we went by The Flat Tops. Then we saw wild horses in the road. We slowed to a crawl, and the ponies ran by us. It was too dark, and no one got a good picture. It was pretty cool, though.
We eventually found our way out to Highway 24 after seeing quite a few people traveling in both directions. There seemed to be many camps set up a short distance from the road, and we imagined they were having a great time. Though it would have been nice to camp out there, we didn't mind the fact that we had showers at our campground.
It was a great day, with good luck sprinkled throughout. Even after seeing so many miles of the area around the Orange Cliffs, we still have many miles left to cover. Too many trails, and too little time.
