click on profile for more detail

1.(5160ft,mile00) START-END WEST: Salina 2.(5290ft,mile02) Salina I70 interchange 3.(5750ft,mile08) dirt road up Gooseberry Valley joins on right 4.(6780ft,mile19) junction with road to coal miles on left 5.(7910ft,mile28) TOP 6.(6520ft,mile36) START-END EAST: Fremont Junction interchange 7.(5690ft,mile45) START-END ALTERNATE: BLM land interchange

Approaches

From West. A selection of fast food joints, gas stations and businesses catering to truck drivers mark the I70 entrance west of Salina, where cyclists can join the four lanes of traffic to start the long gradual climb to the summit. A rumble strip separating the shoulder from traffic actually helps in making the ride safer. There is still plenty of room to the right of it. A dirt road parallels almost all of the route. But switching between the two at will is extremely difficult, because of a very well constructed fence and an occasional stream separating the two routes.

From South. The profile starts on I70 one exit east of Fremont Junction. The most interesting part may actually be the bottom of the southern approach. I70 begins to extricate itself from the San Rafael Swell scenery. Rock layers conspire to tilt in such a way that the climb is steeper than it looks from the saddle.  Fremont Junction, although prominently marked on every Utah map, is just what it says, a junction. The picture above shows "Central Fremont Junction". Here this profile joins with the Hogan Pass profile. The spot also marks the end of the San Rafael Swell to the east, and the beginning of a canyon into the wetter Wasatch Plateau to the east.

The alluvial fans originating from the mouth of the canyon canyon at Fremont Junction give a special vantage point on the plateau escarpment, along which Spaniards, Gunnison and other explorers made their way to enter this easy passage. During the early history of the crossing, the mouth of the canyon was reached not by the route shown in the profile, but from the north following the Wasatch escarmpent.. Even though it's not shown in the profile this route  is shown in the picture above, and further discussed in the history section.

The road following the Wasatch escarpment from the north would be the perfect cycling route if it were not for one small detail, the "scurge of Utah". Double trailer coal trucks use expensive hydrocarbons (gasoline) to carry cheap hydrocarbons (coal). They make up regular road trains between the various coal mines and powerplants in the area. There is no shoulder on the northern part of Ut10 (April/06) and while most coal train drivers are safe and considerate, some are not. The problem is that there seems to be no uniform code of behaviour. Let's face it, cyclists are pretty rare around here. The picture to the right shows one of those monsters cruising through the town of Emery. But the situation improves quickly heading north. Beginning in Moore, a wide shoulder and alternative parallel routes are available.

 

History

Spanish Trail. Early travelers coming from the east went out of their way to go around the San Rafael Swell, only to head back south and take advantage of this easy crossing of the Wasatch Plateau. After Escalante and Domiquez' adventurous but unsucessful effort to forge a route between Santa Fe and spanish California, a route connecting the two pearls of the empire did emerge after all. It differed in substantial details from the Escalante Dominquez route. While the spanish padres crossed north near Soldier Summit, the primary route of the network of trails called the spanish trail, skirted the San Rafael Swell by way of Cottonwood Creek and Ferron Creek. From the current town of Ferron the route paralleled the mighty escarpment of the Wasatch Plateau, probably slightly east of today's Ut10 and then crossed the Meadow Gulch Divide. Until 1848 caravans of traders transported goods derived from a surplus of sheep west to California. In the other direction horses were an important commodity. The Spaniards also picked up Indian slaves along the route.

Gunnison Rail Survey(<Blue Mesa Summit(co)|). We last encountered Captain Gunnison having substantial trouble visualizing his transcontinental railroad through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. The survey continued anyway. After many miles of flat going to today's town of Green River, he gave a wide birth to the next obstacle, the San Rafael Swell. He detoured north as far as the current area of Price. Heading south along the Wasatch Front through the entire length of Castle Valley he also crossed the Meadow Gulch Divide to emerge from Salina Canyon on the Sevier River. The survey took a tragic end when he was killed by Paiute Indians.

In 1882, DRG and DRGW railroads officials were in a discussion on exactly where to continue their rails that connected Denver to Green River so far. A route around the northern end of the San Rafael Swell and Salina Canyon was surveyed for tracks that might eventually lead to Los Angeles, should it ever come to that. Embankments over the San Rafael Swell and tunnels in Salina Canyon were even built. But in the end, the option to head north over Soldier Summit to Provo for a more direct connection to Salt Lake City, proved economically irresistible and the Salina Canyon route was forgotten.

Tours

dayrides: (paved): A long dayride circle over Hogan Pass, the Ut24 summit: Loa-jctUt62, another Ut24 summit: Sigurd-jctUt62, returning over the Meadow Gulch Divide measured somewhere over 116 miles and 7500ft of elevation gain in over 10 hours. Unfortunately the computer magnet shook loose on a rumble strip, while crossing this last divide with dynamo driven headlights sometime between 8.30 and 10.30pm. (m2.6.4.18)

(paved+unpaved) A loop ride beginning in Fremont Junction, crossing this summit, then returning via FR010 shoulder summit: Convultion Mine, Convultion Canyon and Ut10 to the starting point measured 47 miles with 3600ft of climbing in 5 hours (m3:06.10.06).

(paved+unpaved) Another loop ride starging in Fremont Junction, crossing Hogan Pass, the Niotche - Lost Creek Divide, and last Meadow Gulch Divide to get back to the starting point measured 98 miles with 8500ft of climbing in 8:1 hours. This is a kind of MTB version of the first ride in this list.