Cathedral Valley is a region of eroded buttes and pinnacles standing high above a flat desert plain in the remote northern section of Capitol Reef National Park, a lightly visited area accessible to vehicles only by unpaved roads, none of which start in the park itself. These are fair weather roads and may be impassable when wet. Primitive roads vary from season to season, year to year. Such roads also vary in the minds of visitors from report to report. Experienced off-pavement travelers may rate the roads as easy. Less-experienced off-pavement travelers may overrate the difficulty. A ranger told me the Cathedral Valley roads would be easy on a motorcycle but then mentioned deep sand and rocks (he may have found it easy in a government Jeep) The only way to know for certain what these roads are like is to try them.

There are four unpaved access roads leading to Cathedral Valley. The road nearest to the Capitol Reef National Park visitor center is the 27.5 mile Hartnet road which begins with fording the Fremont river about 2.7 miles east of the Orientation Pullout on UT24 near the east side of the park. The Hartnet road is often combined with the 32.5 mile Caineville Wash road traveling the north side of Cathedral Valley and ending at Caineville, making a 60 mile loop off pavement. The Fremont river is sometimes too high to ford. If doing the loop, one would want to start here or at least confirm that the river can be forded before ending here. Cathedral Valley can also be accessed from UT72 via FS206 just south of Forsyth Reservoir, well west of the national park. Yet another unpaved route, the Baker Ranch road, leads 27 miles south to the Cainville Wash road from I-70 at Fremont Junction, Exit 91.

August 10, 2020: Various things had postponed this trip, most often recently the daily thunderstorms. It had taken a while to find a couple days of sunny forecast. I should have guessed that eastern Utah was having violent thunderstorms, cloudbursts and flash floods because eastern Utah normally does this time of year. Cathedral Valley was the destination on this trip but the greater purpose was riding all the primitive roads that lead to and through Cathedral Valley. I made it to Cathedral Valley but road exploration ended 22 miles in on the Cainville Wash road.

Tuesday morning, I filled the tank on the KLR in Cedaredge and rode non-stop 214 miles to Hanksville, UT. It's one of the reasons I like the KLR: the fuel tank is big enough to make such a ride with fuel to spare and the seat is good enough to keep it enjoyable (my opinion on the seat; many disagree). I refueled again, then stopped at Blondie's for iced tea and a BLT. A couple motorcyclists stopped, one admired my KLR, said he had one too. We talked. He was from Utah, told me about flash floods the past couple days. He said the Cainville Wash area caught a bad one.

I finished my lunch and rode west towards Cainville. My first thought was, "I should go right past Cainville Wash and on to the visitor's center at Capital Reef National Park where I might get information on road conditions." My second thought was, "Visitor center road information was likely to be incorrect or misleading." The only way to know for sure was see for myself. At 19 miles from Hanksville, I turned onto the Cainville Wash road.

The only sign warning of road damage was a permanent posting, not a current warning. There were residual effects of recent rain but not serious rain. As I proceeded, I did encounter frequent washouts but these were mild and not challenging to cross. After a few miles the road turned rocky and steep with a few tight turns as it first climbed up a ridge, then crossed the ridge and descended the other side. After that the road was mostly in Valleys with too many washouts, too many corners, too much mud and sand to be a fast road—at least for me. For the most part it was enjoyable riding, though. The scenery was stark but interesting.

After a dozen miles or so I saw a pinnacle in the distance and recognized it from pictures of Cathedral Valley. In less than a mile, I came to an "Entering Cathedral Valley" sign, at half the distance given on the sign at the beginning of the Cainville Wash road.

I continued on. Smooth, fast sections were all too brief. Sand was deep only occasionally; I suspected it could have been much worse without the recent rains. Eventually, washouts begin to show signs of entering an area where heavier rain fell. At 22 miles I came to this:   
We've all noticed how photographs often fail to make a road anomaly look as bad as it seemed to the rider. These photographs are no exception. Specifically, the 4WD vehicles that made it past by detouring off the original road had some trouble in the deep, soft sand by the fence (picture 1), and the edge of the washed out cattle guard is several inches above the road after the washout (picture 2). The road on west, until it rounded a corner and passed from sight, was more boulder-strewn stream bed than road surface.

It seemed obvious the results of rains were worse as I neared Thousand Lakes Mountain. From what I had seen of the other end of the mountain road I had intended to ride out, that road was 2-track dirt through the pines. I had no reason to believe it would be passable now. I was only 4 or 5 miles, maybe less, from the first ranch road north but had no idea what it was like. All moot points as it would have been foolish to continue. I headed back.

I had been thinking when evening approached I would ride over Boulder Mountain and camp on the Burr Trail but that didn't seem like a good idea now. That road too is prone to washouts and flooding. I continued west on UT24 anyway, pondering the possibilities. I had been wanting to ride the Cathedral Valley roads for a long time but something always interferes, usually weather. When could it work, what season? Spring, maybe, but would the roads be repaired from Winter? Very little of those primitive roads I wanted to ride were actually in the park. Who maintains them? I decided to stop and ask at the visitor center.

There were a lot of people at the visitor center, mostly Europeans and Asians. A Japanese couple at the information counter was inquiring about the Notum-Bullfrog Road, being told it was impassable. They asked about other roads but I couldn't hear what was said. Next, a young European couple, heavy accents, advanced to the counter and asked about the Hartnet road. They were told it was not suitable. They asked about the Cainville Wash road. The lady at the counter said it usually suffered less from washouts and as far as she knew it was okay. I spoke up, "Twenty-two miles in the road is gone." We had a discussion. I described the damage, pointed it out on a map, the European couple left. The information lady thanked me which didn't exactly please me; they should have verified information, not reports from strangers.

I asked who maintains the roads. She said the BLM maintains roads on BLM land, the National Park Service maintains roads or parts of roads within their boundaries. An older lady-ranger overhead and joined the conversation, "Neither we nor the BLM have equipment for maintaining those roads so the county does it but only when they have time." Bottom line: there is no way I can know in advance whether the roads are in good shape or not at any time of year. Obviously, I can't ask the park people for information as they may guess.

This strikes me as a dangerous situation. You have tourists, many of them foreign, wanting to drive roads they may not understand are remote, long and dangerous; you have park employees guessing at road conditions, cheerfully advising people on primitive roads that aren't even within their boundaries. Some of these employees have no idea what vehicles the roads are suitable for. The information lady was shocked to the point of gasping when I told her I was riding a motorcycle.

I rode on to Torrey and called Lyn, bringing her up to date, still unsure whether I was camping or moteling. I didn't buy gasoline there. Torrey is the closest town to Capitol Reef National Park and prices are high for fuel, shelter and food. I rode on 8 miles to Bicknell where few tourists venture and the locals are not always friendly. I refueled there for 50 cents less per gallon than Torrey. I stopped at the Aquarius Motel. Talked to a friendly "real" westerner (who sounded like John Wayne). He looked at the gathering clouds and guessed I was looking for a room. I said I might be but had intended to camp and explained why I now thought camping on the Burr Trail might not be a good idea. He agreed. Asked about Forsyth Reservoir on UT72. He said, "No campground there. Toilets but no tables. You could camp in the sage brush with the fishermen but it wouldn't be nice." He suggested Elkhorn campground on Thousand Lakes Mountain. I knew where it was—had been by it a couple times. I asked, "Wouldn't there be bears there?" He replied, "Probably." I explained, "I didn't used to worry about bears but they have lost their fear of humans." He nodded, said, "It's worse than you think. Yellowstone's been bringing their problem bears down here and turning them loose. They have no fear of humans at all." He continued, "Two boys got dragged out of their tent on Boulder Mountain recently." I didn't ask what happened to the boys. I did rent a room from an equally friendly lady in the motel. 'Bout time I found some friendly people in Bicknell. I knew they were there but thought maybe they didn't like strangers.

August 11, 2020: Next morning, I rode home the way I came with a couple variations: just east of the San Rafael River bridge, near Hatts Ranch Road, I left UT24 for the old highway from Green River to Hanksville (I used to ride this when it was the highway 40 years ago). I love riding old highways with weeds and grasses growing in the pavement.

I saw only one person on this old Hanksville highway and that was a surprise, even more for him than for me. On a long, straight section I caught a young guy in full dirt gear cruising at about 70MPH on an ATV 4-wheeler—first time I've ever seen an ATV going fast. Since he was using all the road when it suited him (and had no rearview mirror), I showed him a wheel before passing. He was startled but recovered quickly, waved and cranked it on but I think he was already about top speed. I waved back and went on.

There are several miles of this until the old highway is terminated abruptly by a sturdy fence at I-70. You can see the old highway continuing on but you can't get there. Not to worry. One can back-track a very short ways and take a good, fast graveled road south and east. This will eventually take you around the end of the runway at the airport and put you on the airport highway. Ride that past the San Rafael Desert road, under the Interstate, over the railroad tracks and right into the center of town. Good place to be if you need fuel as gasoline is noticeably higher priced at either Interstate exit.

Continuing this fun, I picked up old US6 about a mile before the I-70 Interchange east of town and rode another 14 miles of old highway. This road was better now than when I previously last rode it so some agency is maintaining it although I don't know why. Nothing out there. With these two roads you bypass about 30 miles of Interstate and add considerable interest. Sometimes it's the little things that make a ride memorable.

---