20-Aug-2005 -- It was time for another confluence adventure, this time successfully visiting confluences in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana.
I was northbound on UT-22 (Johns Valley Road) when I found a gated dirt road going west with a sign from the United States Department of the Interior that said "Please Close Gate". I drove along just a bit further in search of another road because this road was not matching up very well with my planned route displayed on NG TOPO! Utah . A laptop running this software provided me with a real time moving map in my car throughout my entire trip. I did find another road further north going away towards Deer Creek, so I went back south the first road. At the gate, I was only .84 miles east of the confluence. It was a soft dirt double track. I drove until the closest point along the road and then would hike in the rest of the way.
There had been a fire through this area within the past few years. Along the way, I passed several large anthills. I found the confluence on the side of a gently sloping hill. The instantaneous GPS satellite geometry allowed my receivers to display all zeroes about 1 meter away from cairn that David Mower had built.
Picture #1 shows the general area and looks northeast with the cairn in lower left of photo. Picture #2 is the view to the north. Picture #3 is the view to the east across John’s Valley and the Escalante Mountains. Picture #4 looks south. Picture #5 looks west into the Dixie National Forest. Picture #6 shows my GPS location. Picture #7 shows the access gate at N37 59.653 W111 59.178
Total time off UT-22 was 50 minutes with a drive/hike roundtrip of 2.7 miles.
Next stop: 39N-112W.