Travelogue

Little Wild Horse Slot CanyonWhen Herb dreamed up this spur of the moment Utah trip, all he could talk about was wanting to see Factory Butte. In fact, before I got involved, that was his entire itinerary.

However, there’s a lot more cool stuff to see in the San Rafael Swell area besides Factory Butte, like the Little Wild Horse Canyon, Goblin Valley, the Mars Desert Research Station, Long Dong Silver, and the Moonscape Overlook. I will provide more detail on each of these in the following stops.

The San Rafael Swell is an oval-shaped uplifted area of layered rocks (anticlines) in south-central Utah that covers about 75 by 40 miles.

Bentonite HillsIt is characterized by mesas, cliffs, buttes, magnificent badlands of brightly colored and wildly eroded sandstone formations, and canyons.

I-70 cuts right through it and divides the swell into northern and southern sections, and provides the only interstate access to the region. The only town of any significant size in The Swell is Green River, located on I70. We would be exploring the southern section.

With the exception of that, it is one of the emptiest and least developed regions in Utah and one of the last great wilderness areas of the Southwest without National Park or Monument status.

Moonscape OverlookSo for now at least, few people are aware of its stunning beauty and recreational opportunities. That plus its confusing network of dirt roads will hopefully keep it undiscovered for a while longer.

It is mostly owned by the BLM, which Herb loves, because that means it is open to all and access is unrestricted, meaning we could pretty much camp anywhere.

The nearest town with any services is Hanksville (population 162) at the junction of Utah 24 and Utah 95. Its location is very convenient to a lot of cool places and serves as a great base camp for exploring this section of the southern section of the San Rafael Swell.

Factory ButteThere are 3 hotels in the town and 3 restaurants, the most popular being Duke’s Slickrock Grill. We actually had eaten here the last time we passed through here.

It is named after John Wayne, and the place is full of memorabilia about the Duke. Herb even posed with a Duke cutout at the bar.

The restaurant is really good and serves very large portions - a bit too slanted to meat over vegetables though for my taste. Still, it was pretty much the only game in town, so we ate there for lunch before heading out to explore the San Rafael Swell area northwest of Hanksville.