Bartlett Slickrock – Moab, UT

Moab, UT

When we spoke with the two volunteers last week at the Moab visitor center, one of them told us about one of her favorite hiking sites, a place called Bartlett’s Slickrock.  The site is not a marked trail, just an area where you can hike out on a wide slickrock shelf with a great view.  So on Sunday we drove out to explore the area.

To get there you drive north on Hwy. 191 from Moab for about ten miles.  Follow the signs for Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse Point SP and turn left on to UT-313.  After driving 8.6 miles turn right at the sign for Lone Mesa Group Campground.  Take this maintained dirt road for 1.4 miles and turn right on to Dubinky Well Road.

Take the Dubinky Road 2.6 miles and just past the cattle guard turn right.  In just .2 of a mile there is a fence gate across the road with a small area to park a vehicle.  Park there and hike past the gate up the narrow road along a fence.

The parking spot and cattle gate

Just a short distance from the gate the fence makes a right turn.  Leave the road and continue to hike along the fence until it ends.

The right turn of the fence

When you reach the end of the fence just follow the slickrock along a cliff.  There is no set path so you can just go where ever you want and hike out along the edge as far as you like.  If you don’t want to have to scramble up to the higher ridge from below, bear left instead of following the fence all the way to the end.  This route will take you up on top.

Check out this tall cairn!

Going out we hiked along a lower  shelf, knowing we would hike the top shelf on the way back.  The lower shelf requires some mild scrambling in a few places.

A bit of scrambling on the lower shelf

Interesting rock layers are exposed along the lower shelf

After a while the lower shelf began to narrow and we could see that it would soon come to an end so we found a spot where we could climb up the slickrock to the wide rim above us on the mesa.

Once on top we continued over a very wide area of slickrock.

The various colors displayed by the layers of rocks are quite interesting.

As is often the case in this area, the snow covered La Sal Mountains provided a beautiful backdrop to the view.

Lunch with a view

Balanced rock

Peaking owl eyes

High healed shoe?

You can make this hike as long (or short) as you like.  We hiked two miles out to where we sat and enjoyed the view while having lunch.  But the shelf we were on appeared to continue out for miles.

Looking back at our lunch spot

This is a great area for a relaxing afternoon of exploration.  The color patterns in the slickrock are beautiful and the views are very impressive.

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