Book Cliffs. Anybody go there?

[Kullaberg63]

We live in Moab, a quick drive from the nearest entry point to the Book Cliffs, yet we never go there. For me the only time was almost 20 years ago. My kid recently went on a high school field trip to Sego. That's it.

Inspired by posts by @hatchcanyon and @Udink I feel it's time to expand our gaze northwards. So I'm soliciting for advice.

What's up there? Is it merely smoothly graded roads to drilling pads and the off limit Uintah-Ouray rez?

We don't have a 4X4 vehicle. Touring multi-day on mountain bikes would be the way. Roads or trails, better if some of them are nearly impassable and remote. Can one go 100+ miles without hitting civilization? Water?

Thanks for reading!

 

[slc_dan]

I don't have much to add other than Steve Allen talked about how great they were in an interview I read.

 

[Bob]

Hunting and wildfires is al I know about there. Petro/picto panels scattered around.
Be interesting to see some reports from there

 

[IntrepidXJ]

Lots of smoothly graded roads in the Book Cliffs that I've driven in my Jeep in the past. Great vistas from the roads that ride along the ridges near the top. Depending on where you are at, you will probably encounter plenty of work trucks and drilling operations, but there are some wilderness areas and WSA's up there too that you could probably get away from that stuff in. It's an area I have wanted to explore deeper, yet never seem to get around to it.

 

[andyjaggy]

Lots of bears from what I hear. My neighbor went hunting their this last fall and got a big elk. That's all I know about it.

 

[hatchcanyon]

There are a lot of opportunities. Some can be traveled (Dry weather) with any car, some need High Clearance and some even need 4WD.

An easy one is this tour: Trough Spring Ridge

I have more material about the Book Cliffs but some ist pretty old and on slides. We traveled the Book Cliffs and the plateau up to Dinosaur National Monument. Some parts are boring with a lot of pipes for natual gas (I guess), others are pretty interesting as Baxter Pass north of Mack (I 70 exit in Colorado not far away from the stateline). This is a ghost railroad too. Very impressive how they did build that narrow gauge line over the pass.