The Devil’s Backbone

We spent our only full day, Friday the 13^th, here on a couple of “trails,” backroads, really. In the morning we covered about 45 miles over the Devil’s Backbone, a graded but unpaved road, and then in the afternoon we traversed about an equal distance on The Burr Trail, which was paved.

A word of advice, anyone wanting to see all this place has to offer should bring at least an SUV, and the folks who seemed to have the most fun were in ATVs. And you should allow more like three days, depending on how much hiking you are up for. But we managed. The Devil’s Backbone is presented no real difficulties for either us or Rocinante and took us through forests of aspen and pine and some spectacular canyons.

The Burr Trail, too, was spectacular, featuring more gorgeous red sandstone and those hoodoos that they do so well, but we were unable to find the unmarked trail leading to a slot canyon and some petroglyphs, still we found our own minor slot canyon and had a fine time and managed to walk a couple of miles.