The Outlaw Trail - Buckhorn Wash

With two posses hot on their tails after the Castlegate Holdup, Butch Cassidy, Elzy Lay, and Joe Walker charged into Buckhorn Wash. With two posses hot on the outlaw's trail, they wasted no time getting to the San Rafael River and following it to Mexican Mountain where they had fresh horses waiting. After making that switch, they split up. Walker took the outlaw trail to Brown’s Hole with the money while Cassidy and Lay left an easy trail for the posse to follow all the way to Robbers Roost. They knew the posse would turn around as soon as they reached that outlaw stronghold.  Robbers Roost was the most difficult hideout on the Outlaw Trail for lawmen to capture any outlaw.

Meanwhile, the posse from Castledale reached Buckhorn Wash before the Price posse. Castledale had not considered that Cassidy’s carefully selected horses had already taken them past that point. When the Price posse arrived, Castledale thought they were the outlaws. Price figured they had just caught up to the outlaws. Both sides opened fire and although no one was hurt on either side, both posses were very embarrassed once they found out they were keeping each other busy while the outlaws escaped.

When I first began my search for the Outlaw Trail several years ago, history involving the outlaws led me to Buckhorn Wash.  It was nothing more than a faint path though dense brush and lots of trees. Today it is a graded two lane country highway. Once they improved the road, traffic exploded and the canyon is feeling the pressure. ATV trails go everywhere, interpretive signs are placed near some of the pictographs, and people travel through it by the busloads.

There are still a few attractions that are not marked.  The dinosaur footprint is one. Matt Warner’s signature is another. Matt was with Cassidy when he robbed is first bank in Telluride. The cattleguard pictographs are also unmarked.

At the point where Buckhorn Wash meets the San Rafael River, a dirt road runs east following the river canyon. It goes all the way to Mexican Mountain, however, the BLM has closed the road at that point calling it a protected wilderness study area. If you want to visit the point where the outlaws split up, you’ll have to walk.

Navigation: GPS Position
Odometer reading were taken with a Chevy Blazer.
GPS readings were taken with a Magellan 4000.
Buckhorn Wash and Mexican Mountain

From Green River, Utah, take I-70 west to exit 129. Turn right and follow the road all the way to the San Rafael Bridge and Campground.

When Joe Walker split up from Cassidy and Lay, he took a faint deer trail up the canyon wall on the east. That trail is the only way to get out on that side. It follows a narrow ledge and passes through a gap at the top of the wall. From there, the trail is easy traveling all the way to Smiths Cabin, also known as Smith’s Camp. The Camp was quite large and was used extensively because of its generous water supply. That water supply has since dried up and the camp has long since been abandoned.

Getting to Smith’s Cabin today can be done in the same way, but that doesn’t work for those of us who aren’t healthy enough to hike thirteen miles in the hot desert sun.

The most fun way to get a 4X4 from Mexican Mountain to Smith’s Cabin is by way of Black Dragon Wash. You won’t find that road on any map, however, Black Dragon Wash shows up on lots of them. The pictographs are not on the map either, but someone has spent a lot of time to build a fence around them.

The only pavement between Mexican Mountain and Smith’s Camp is two miles of I-70 that is used to get across the San Rafael River.

Smith’s Camp is a great place to camp and it is likely that Joe Walker stopped there on his way to Brown’s Hole. If for no other reason, he would have needed water.

Navigation: GPS Position
Odometer reading were taken with a Chevy Blazer.
GPS readings were taken with a Magellan 4000.
Black Dragon Wash to Smiths Cabin

Reset your trip meter at the San Rafael Bridge and head south.

Outlaw on the Run

When Joe Walker left Smith’s Cabin, he went to Woodside, then followed the Price River into Desolation Canyon where he connected to the Outlaw Trail and followed the Green River to Brown’s Hole.

Very little of the area east of Woodside is available to motorized vehicles. The roads have been closed and the area is included in the Wilderness Bill currently pending.

Woodside now consists of one small gas station and store. There is a cold water geyser behind the store and for many years this land was used for overnight camping by travelers. It is on private property, so when the store was reopened, the free camping went away. I would never camp there anyway because it sits beside a busy highway. On the north side of the store, a road goes west off the highway and leads back into a canyon with excellent campsites.

Getting to Brown’s Hole from Smith’s Cabin today includes about 124 miles of dirt and 114 miles of pavement. Along the way there are some beautiful side trips down to the Green River. The most beautiful is the one that ends at the mouth of Nine Mile Canyon where it empties into the Green River. The most heavily used is the one down Sand Wash where rafting companies take tourists for a ride through Desolation Canyon. If you go there, take a mosquito net for your entire body. The place is just swarming with bugs and most of them bite.

Although there are dirt roads that could be used to get to Brown's Hole and eliminate most of the pavement, those routes would be a long way off the Outlaw Trail.

Once in Brown’s Hole, there are lots of things to see. I like Jarvie’s Outpost. He was the link between Brown’s Hole and the outside world. He ran a supply store and postoffice. Outside deliveries could be arranged but just to his store. The postal service would not deliver mail into the hole and very few suppliers would either. Outlaws used Jarvie’s store as a pickup point for mail going in either direction. Jarvie was eventually killed by two renegade outlaws trying to rob him.

I left Brown’s Hole on a side road toward Rock Springs. That road passes Three Corners which is the point where Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado come together. Three corners is a very isolated place near the top of a tall mountain range.

The road to Rock Springs was closed due to bridge washed out. I tried several side roads around that bridge but found only locked gates.

Since it was late and the sky was quickly filling with stars, I decided to pitch my camp at Three Corners. It took a while to decide which state I wanted to sleep in that night since a step in any direction was all it took to change the decision, but Utah finally won out.

It began about 1AM in the back lot of an Aurora apartment complex on a clear night in June.  IQ1 (we’ll call him that for this story since we can’t use the names Outlaw and Dusty have for him) is a thief. Not a very good one, but that’s what he does for a living. Before this incident, he had been convicted of previous crimes, then released on probation which is what our justice system does best.

IQ1 had a great plan. He parked his car, which he had just purchased a few days earlier, in one of the parking spaces as if he lived there. He rolled his windows down half way so he could toss in the loot he collected from the many dozens of vehicles parked in the lot. He could easily hide in the shadows of the dimly lit parking lot and work there all night long.

His first choice was a small passenger car, then he selected a Tracker. He easily gained access to them with some hand tools and took out the radios and a brief case. As he headed back to his car with that loot, his attention focused on a newl green two door Blazer that was decked out with Warn lights and winch. He looked in it and saw a CB radio, Magellan GPS, CD player, and misc. odds & ends. Little did he know, he was about to be fingerprinted and blood typed by the vehicle known across the country as ... Blaze.

IQ1 knew the passenger side window was safety glass and breaking it out would make an awful lot of noise. He stuck a large screwdriver in the gap of the door next to the handle and tried prying it open. All he managed to do was put a few dents in the door. He then stuck his screwdriver through the gasket of the wing window behind the passenger seat. He pried on it so hard, he put huge dents in the metal around the window, but finally, the glass shattered. Now all he had to do was stick his hand inside and hit the electric door lock with a long handle. That’s when Blaze decided to get his blood type and a few DNA samples. As IQ1 stuck his arm through the broken window, he was cut by shattered glass and left blood all over the passenger seat.

IQ1 was not discouraged. He was thrilled to finally be inside the vehicle and quickly removed everything he could get loose. In the process, he damaged the dash and destroyed the GPS antennae.

Just as IQ1 was finishing up, headlights flashed across the windshield. He tried to hide but Dusty had already spotted the interior lights in the Blazer.

At first, Dusty’s reaction was, “That ole man of mine is staying up mighty late tonight.” But as he backed into the space between the Blazer and IQ1’s car, he saw a shadow running behind his truck. Dusty knew something was up and jumped out of his truck with a few choice tools in his hands. He had not seen where the shadow went but he knew it had not gone far.

“I saw you jerk! Where did you go!” Unknowingly, Dusty was standing near the driver’s door of IQ1’s car and IQ1 was hiding on the other side.

“@#$%#@!” IQ1 shouted and took off running as fast as he could go. Dusty was wearing cowboy boots which don’t go very fast. He ran back to his truck and flipped on 800 watts of Warn sunshine. That lit up the entire parking lot but IQ1 had done gone into hyper space and was no where to be found.

Dusty looked into the car that IQ1 had hidden behind and saw all the loot in the seats. Even the keys in the ignition. He began laughing. “That stupid turkey tries to rip us off and we wind up with his car!”

Dusty left his truck parked so the car could not be moved while he got Outlaw out of bed. The two of them returned to the car and dialed 911 on the cell phone IQ1 had tried to steal. The police station is only five minutes from the apartment and the first patrol car with K-9 patrol was in hot pursuit before the phone call was finished. Two more patrol cars came from the other direction and the crime scene van arrived shortly after.

The police keyed the temporary tag number from IQ1’s car into their mobile computer. It gave them IQ1’s address. One of the squad cars zipped off to that address.

The other policeman laughed. “We know who he is, we have his blood type, his fingerprints, his car, and everything in his house. That fellow is having a bad day!”

As for Blaze ... after spending so much time on the Outlaw Trail, he finally caught one. State Farm says the bruises he got in the process will heal quite nicely.

Dusty and his friends checked out Longwater Road and Custer’s Cabin. The roads were fun but the river was extremely high.

Slowpoke checked out Argentine Pass. Way too much snow up there.

Dirty Dan checked out Mosquito but did not get very far on it.

Tincup Pass & Hancock Pass were both closed on the first of July.

I’ve traveled Engineer Pass, Cinnamon Pass, Ophir Pass, Imogene Pass, and most of the trails in the last half of our Volume Four Book including Longwater, Saxon Mountain, Lamartine, and Family Fun (also known as Spring Creek).

There are drought conditions in the San Juans and fires of any kind are not permitted. Camp stoves are still okay to use but the entire area is in extreme danger. When you visit the forests, be very careful!

Click the fire to return to the index