Poison Spring Canyon / Black Jump Fall 2021

[XID_AZ]

Apologies, this should have been in Trip Planning. If a Mod could move it there, I'd appreciate it.

I was told by a Ranger at the Hans Flat Ranger station that Poison Spring Road coming into Sunset Pass may be impassable due to rockfall. She didn't know where exactly the rockfall was at. I'm going to contact the Hanksville BLM office to see if they know the current conditions and location, but wanted to see if anyone here knew about this and where it might be and what the current conditions were.

I was hoping to drive Poison Spring canyon, up Black Jump, camp and then do a day hike into Happy Canyon in early November. I've heard that the BLM office may do some grading of Black Jump yearly after the monsoons, in October. I'll ask the BLM office that question as well.

After the hike, I was going to spend some time in The Maze, so i'll be coming out via Sunset pass.

Appreciate any recent information about the road/area if you have it.

Andy

 

[XID_AZ]

Received a reply from the BLM office:
"Staff from our office attempted to go down Poison Spring Canyon a couple of weeks ago and could not get past the first wash crossing with a full sized vehicle. The area has received two substantial rain storm events since then and the flow in the river itself was up to 15000 cfs which would probably have made that impassable until grading occurs. Because there has not been access into the canyon, our office has not received any other reports regarding conditions such as the Black Jump Road. Generally the Black Jump Road is more suited to narrow vehicles or UTV/ATV because it is a narrow mining road."

"The maintenance of the Poison Spring, North Hatch to Sunset Pass roads is done by Garfield County. I do not know when they will get to that road. Major storms throughout the county have kept them pretty busy the last few weeks, just keeping the main arteries open."


Because of this information, i'm going to change my plans and will attempt Black Jump another time.

 

[regehr]

yeah, I'd expect many dirt roads in that part of the world to be blown for a while.

for what it's worth I had a full-width vehicle (4runner) on the black jump road and it's fine, but definitely a bit squeezy in a couple spots.