San Rafael Swell

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we were in this, like, we were in a place called San Rafael Swell.

Yeah.

And it's, like, just, it's like you're on Mars.

We're heading to...

San Rafael Swell.

Yeah, which is not far from here.

No.

And that's like beautiful touring.

And also they've got some medium to hardish tracks as well.

But the San Rafael swell is like, an insanely large public land area with maybe like 650 miles of trails in there that you can just go explore.

And it's like, you could be there for a year and like, you know what I mean? So that's where we're going to go.

In fact, it's not even very difficult to run into this problem.

If you were to drive from Denver to Las Vegas, two major American cities, most of your trip would take place on Interstate 70, which would lead you through the desolate area of the San Rafael Swell.

If your car were to crash here, your nearest hospital would be over 90 minutes away in Moab, and this is just on the interstate, the central circulatory system of the US.

It's plenty possible to get much, much further from medical care, and so to plug these gaps, to get patients in the most rural areas and dire circumstances to care as fast as possible, that's where the country's air ambulance system steps in.

Consequently, it's very possible to be more than 600 miles or 950 kilometers from one while in the lower 48, or 2,000 miles or 3,200 kilometers from one while in Alaska.

Due to this potential distance, a major trauma case outside a major city would typically go first to a level three, four, or five trauma center, which are far more commonplace, where they'd be stabilized and evaluated to determine whether they need to be transferred to a more advanced facility.

So someone in a vehicle crash in the San Rafael Swell on I-70 in Utah would likely first go to the Moab Regional Hospital, which is a level four center.

If the doctors and nurses there determined the patient needed a higher level of care, they would be transferred, in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is a level two center.

All that is right there.

And getting the San Rafael Swell is right there.

Yep, Bears Ears.

And that's

Here I put up for the night.

On leaving the Dirty Devil next morning to cross an unsettled rough desert called San Rafael Swell, I made good-bye to civilization for a few days.

After the first night out, I lost a dim trail and concluded to head due west over the high snowy range of mountains for the town of Emery, at the head of Castle Valley.

Sales and I had stopped there, hence I knew by the lay of the mountains where the little Mormon town was located on the opposite side of the mountains.