Today we headed down into Ruin Park and the beginning of the Needles district. From our camp the route took us along North Long Point Road to the junction with Beef Basin Road and thence a descent into the valley of ruin park. Along the way we had some fine views of Canyonland to the north and stopped at some small ruins.

After lunch we continued through the valley towards the needle district. The main feature of the afternoons driving was a steep rocky descent with a tight turn around some trees at the bottom. It seems that Bill our guide has been gradually introducing us to tougher and tougher terrain as I am sure we would all have freaked out had we seen this section of track on day one. The descent was made more intimidating by the knowledge that we had to climb that same section on our return.

The turn around point for the day was the top of yet another steep rocky descent known as SOB Hill. From its name (and the photos below) you will get the message that this is quite an intimidating section. None of the ER owners were interested in attempting the descent (knowing that a return climb was required) so we all satisfied ourselves watching Bill drive his landrover up over the bigs rocks and loose sand. He made it look easy.

Returning to Elk Mountain we found another nice glade among aspens and pines and arranged ourselves in this space so that three of the ERs that were leaving early the next morning could get out without disturbing the remainder.

Around the campfire later in the evening email addresses were exchanged in a typical closing evening routine.