White Rocks / Skull Valley
1¾ hrs T
This is a fun place for scouts to climb around on white dome shaped rocks. The domes were created from magma as part of a giant flat top volcano. There are about a dozen nice camp spots with fire rings. But there are other places you can camp around there as well. This is a nice place to camp in the fall through spring, as long as the snow isn't too deep. We went there in November once and the road was soft and wet, but made it okay. The domes had some ice on them (not very good for climbing). See http://troop287.blogspot.com/ for more photos from another troop.
To get there head west on I80 to the Rowley/Dugway exit #77 and head south on Skull Valley Road (196) for 29 miles. You continue past the turnoff to Iosepa, where a whole city of Hawaiians once existed. Go until you see a sign pointing right to White Rocks (about mile marker 8) and then go west 8 miles on a pretty good dirt road until you see it, keeping left a junction. The road curves to the southwest at about 6 miles and then goes between the two main domes. The best way to find this on google maps is to search for Rydalen Canyon Road. On the photo below you come in from the top right road. v
I have marked in red the camping spots that I know of. There are more on the north side but you have to hunt around. There is a spot about a quarter mile before the domes and one just before the domes on the right. Then one on the left between the two domes and then another large open area on the right just past that one. The road curves around the dome on the right. But the road gets progressively worse on the northwest side, but there are more trees. The photo below is by the smaller done on the bottom right. There is a third dome show on the bottom left with a camping spot. If all the spots are filled you could just camp in the flats towards the bottom left dome.
There are also bolted rock climbing routs on each of the domes, in case you have access to BSA certified climbing instructors. See mountainproject.com for details.
There isn't a lot of fire wood so bring your own. There are some dead trees on the south and east side of the dome on the lower right you could use if you have a chain saw, but a ways to haul.
There a few places on either dome where you could sleep and stay dry in shallow caves. But you would need to get there well before dark and take a shovel to level the ground. The two best ones that I know of are by the lower right dome. One on the north side above the camp site and the other on the southwest side.
New information: Recently all the good sites around the north dome have filled up pretty quick. We recently found more places to camp around the southern dome. There is a faint but fairly easy jeep trail going around the southern dome, marked in red here, with plenty of space to camp. I marked a couple places where there are now fire rings. But there is plenty of open space for camping.
A couple fun places to stop on the way home is Iosepa near mile marker 23 on the east side and Horseshoe Springs on the west side of the highway (see Horseshoe Springs page).
