The Trail Most People Never Finish

There's a canyon in southern Utah that most people blow right past on their way to Zion. No sign pointing you in, no visitor center, just a dirt road that climbs into the red rock and doesn't promise you anything. At the end of it, there's a waterfall that the Paiute knew about long before the pioneers showed up, long before anyone thought to name the town at its base. But the waterfalls are only part of the story. Up in the hills and down in the valleys, there are abandoned mines, ghost towns, and places that haven't changed much since the 1800s. I've been driving past Tokerville for years, always telling myself I'd come back. This time, I brought my oldest son, and we're finally going in. This is Recon America, presented by Onyx Offroad. Welcome to Trail Recon. I'm Brad, and I'm here in southern Utah with my oldest son, Devin, and we're going to be running a trail that I've been wanting to do for years. I've heard so much about this trail, Tokerville Falls. And we're not here just to run the trail and see the scenery, but there is a lot of history out in this area. And so on this episode of Recon America, we're going to go do some wheeling. We're going to do some camping. We're going to go check out some cool historic spots along the way. Maybe a ghost town, a couple of mines, but at the end of the day, we just want to have fun together. It's been a while since he and I have been out on the trail, and yeah, he's driving Recon 1. I've got Doc. We're going to go hit the trail, see where it takes us. Ready? Yeah, let's go. I have been looking forward to this trip with Devin for a while. We've had this on the calendar for a minute just because we needed to pair up our two schedules, and I'm glad to be out here. We're going to have a great time. Now, the objective today is just to kind of go wheel for a little while, and if we find a good camp spot, we're going to grab it. I don't know if we're going to make it all the way to the falls. We might, but we'll see how it goes. But before we get going, I want to thank the sponsor of this video, which is Onyx Off-Road. Onyx Off-Road is a huge supporter of Trail Recon and this Recon America series, and I planned this entire trip looking at all the trails, marking waypoints, potential camp spots, all the historic sites that we're going to visit, and I'm going to hit record right now and record this entire route and make it available to you guys down in the link below. There'll be an Onyx folder, and if you are not an Onyx member, I'll also leave a link down below where you can get 20% off to Onyx Off-Road. You click that link, get a discount, then you can download the route, and you can come out here and do this exact adventure that we're about to do. I'm excited, guys, and so happy to be out here with my son. All right, let's get going. The town we're leaving behind this morning, Tokerville, is named after a Southern Paiute chief called Toker. His people lived along Ash Creek at the base of this canyon, farming small plots of land long before settlers arrived. When Mormon settlers did come in the late 1850s, Toker was known for his friendly reception, something many pioneers did not experience. They built log cabins near his village, and the settlers later became part of the Cotton Mission, an effort by the church to grow cotton and establish self-sufficient communities in southern Utah during the Civil War era. A handful of those settlements survived, but a lot of them didn't, and they're all ghost towns now. But Tokerville held on. And the canyon above, the one we're climbing into now, was likely a place where many Native Americans and settlers explored, foraged, and hunted for food. With that in mind, climbing up this rough trail, you realize how easy Devin and I have it in the comfort of our jeeps. So stoked to be back in Utah. My dad and I haven't done this in, honestly, it feels like it's been a year, but that's just being out on the trail. Well, last time I've been to Utah, it's been at least two or three years, and it's as beautiful as I remember. I don't think I've been to this area before, but barely anyone out here. Yeah, I've just been losing myself in the scenery. Very, very happy to be back. We're a little over a mile and a half in, and just been climbing, really, up a really nice little canyon. It's rough. And there's been a couple little stair steps, which is fine, I mean, we're in the vehicles to handle this, but this trail is rated as moderate. So it's not just an easy dirt road, which we're both thankful for. We didn't want to just cruise today. We wanted to have a little fun, and so you just got to take your time here. There's a couple little spots where you got to pick your line just right, like I just did there, and it's nice. So we'll see how much further we go. Devin and I are very engaged with the terrain at this point. This trail does not let you zone out. Every quarter mile or so, there's a ledge, a shelf road section, loose rock that wants to pull you off your line, nothing we can't handle, but enough to keep our hands honest on the wheel. And the further we climb, the bigger our smiles are getting, and the deeper inside the canyon we're going. So I mentioned down at the trailhead, this is a trail I've been wanting to do for a long time. I've driven past Tocqueville many times, and I thought, ah, I wish I could go, I wish I could go, and I've seen so many people taking pictures down by the waterfall. I'm like, man, this is a trail I've got to get to sometime, and it is exceeding my expectations. It is absolutely beautiful. These canyon mountains, they're all striped with the white and the red, and then there's just green everywhere. Absolutely beautiful. Yeah. We've passed a few camp spots already. They all have potential, but it's still kind of early, so we're going to keep on going. I don't know how much time it will take us to get to the falls, so maybe we'll go to the falls. Although I had two spots marked before then, and I think maybe if they're good enough, we might just call it. We'll see. Just another mile or so up the trail, I turned off onto a tight little two-track that was heading in the direction of a cliff overlook. If this spot is big and level enough, we may call this home for the night. This is a gorgeous spot. Not any protection from the wind, but the wind is supposed to die down, but you've just got views for miles. In fact, we can see the river from up here, and we can see the trail that will come up tomorrow, so I think that's the plan. I think we're going to go to the falls, check it out, see if there's a good camp spot there. If not, we might come back here, but, man, it's beautiful. It was a short 10-minute drive down the trail, and the red walls are starting to get a little taller and the air a little cooler as we're getting closer to the water. Laverkin Creek has been carving this canyon for thousands of years, and the closer you get to the falls, the more you understand why. The whole drainage just funnels you in like it wants to show you something. All right, just a short drive down from where I think we're going to camp tonight, and we made it to the waterfall, and it is absolutely beautiful. It's bigger than I thought it was, and the pool at the bottom is beautiful. It's Saturday, and there's plenty of people out there hanging out, enjoying the day, out there swimming and jumping and playing some music and just having a good time, but they're all side-by-side, so I imagine the next hour or two, they'll be gone. We didn't see anybody camping down here, and you could camp. It looked like there were a few spots around here, but I think the spot that we found is a little off the trail and out of the way, and we'll get a little privacy, so what we're going to do is we're going to head back to camp, cook some dinner, and then tomorrow morning, I'll bet, we get this entire thing all to ourselves. We'll check it out in the morning. Had it been a weekday, there likely wouldn't have been anyone out there, and we might have decided to camp right next to the falls, but Devin and I both like the views and the seclusion of the overlook site. Now, he's never been with me when I've camped with the Project M, so I gave him a quick tutorial on how easy it is to set up. Then, we grabbed a cold drink and took a few minutes to relax, talk about the day, catch up on life, and after some good conversation, it was time to start thinking about dinner. Are you doing both steaks at the same time? Can it fit? I think so. Yeah, we can make that work. Yeah, maybe. Okay. All right, guys, we're trying to figure out dinner, so we've been set up at camp for a little bit and just kind of relaxing, soaking it all in, but boy, that sun went down behind the mountains, and it got chilly quick. It's supposed to be in the low 40s tonight, so we're having a couple steaks, some mushrooms, and we're trying to figure out, do we want a dirty two pans, or do we just want to cook it all in one pan, and, you know, that's the camping dilemma right now. I love this spot. I'm actually kind of glad we didn't camp at the falls, because this is really nice. Yeah, when the sun, before it set over the mountain, it looked incredible, so I know in the morning it's going to look awesome, too. Yeah, sunrise is going to be great, and it'll still be early enough in the morning. When we get down to the falls, we should have that whole place to ourself, go check it out. And then the cool thing is, is our drive out is completely different than our drive in. We're going to head down into the canyon and follow the river along, so that should be, it's going to be out with you again, dude. That's right, nothing fancy tonight, a couple steaks, some mushrooms, and fajita seasoning that had no business being on these steaks. But that's the thing about my camp cooking, I'm not trying to impress anyone. If you're hungry, if it's hot, if it tastes good, that's a win for me. And about our debate about dirtying one or two pans, it ended up we only used one. Probably the best decision we made all day. So for the steaks, I had fajita seasoning, yep, that's what I had. How is it? It works surprisingly well. I really like it. It actually tastes pretty good, and the mushrooms in that fajita seasoning, also, very good. Not a complicated dinner, but a very tasty one. We stood there eating, not saying much, which usually is a sign of some good food. Devin handled the dishes without being asked, which tells me I raised him right. After that, we pulled up to the fire and just let the night settle in. No agenda, no schedule, just dad and his son watching the flames and talking about everything and nothing. These are the moments you don't plan, they just happen when you slow down long enough to let them. I was up just after sunrise, coffee going, and a quiet canyon. Mornings like this, you can't help but wonder how many people sat on this same ledge. Paiute hunters, Mormon settlers, maybe just some guy passing through 100 years ago who found this overlook the same way we did. The sunrise wasn't one of those dramatic ones that light the whole sky on fire, it was quiet. Just the canyon slowly waking up, the light creeping down, sometimes that's a little better. Devin eventually rolled out and we did what we always do, grabbed our coffees and started talking about what's next. How'd you sleep? Yeah, good. Yeah, we had a good night guys, it was good chilly weather, but we stayed nice and warm in the camper. The weather this morning though has kind of changed. I checked the weather forecast and we're supposed to get some pretty good winds today and some rain tomorrow. But that's not going to stop us, we're going to continue our adventure. We've had a couple cups of coffee, we've enjoyed this little bit of nature, but now we're going to hit the trail. We're going to go see if we can secure that waterfall to ourselves for a little bit, and then drive down this cool canyon and what do you say we go check out a ghost town? Yeah, I'm ready. Love it. Alright guys, let's go. We packed up camp and headed back down to the falls. This time, no one. Just us and the canyon in the morning light. The trail runs right through Laverkin Creek with Tokerville Falls right on the passenger side. That's not something we'll forget. The falls drops about 60 feet in two stages. The upper cascade hits a ledge, pools for a second, and then lets go into the basin below. It's not the biggest waterfall in Utah, but tucked away in this canyon with nobody around, it feels pretty special. The Paiute who lived down in the valley almost certainly knew this place. You don't live along a creek for generations and not follow it here. This morning, I think Devin and I got to see this the way it was meant to be seen. Alright, that was very nice. We got to enjoy the waterfall just to ourselves. Beautiful spot, and right as we were getting ready to walk away, some folks had rolled up. Happened to be fans of the channel, so it was nice chatting with them. But now, we're going to hit the trail, and from what we saw up there last night, looks like we've got some water crossings to do crossing this river, so we'll see how interesting this gets. Past the falls, the trail stopped being polite. More rocks, more ruts, more water, tighter lines. The water crossings came one after another, and I imagine most folks who aren't incapable off-road vehicles would opt to turn around and go back the way we came. But we didn't come here to take the easy way back. I think that's three creek crossings in all, and each time, you're going through some pretty good obstacles on either side. It's been fun. I'm really liking this trail. Later on this morning, as we get out of here, we still got to go back down the mountain we came up yesterday, but then we're going to head about 15 miles to the east, and we're going to go check out an old ghost town. How are you feeling about that? You know I'm excited. It's been a while since I've explored a ghost town, but that's one of my favorite things to do. I just like seeing the history, how people used to live, and then exploring, climbing if I'm able to do it safely. Yeah, so this ghost town is supposed to have some pretty good buildings that have been restored a little bit, and there's a lot of history in this place that we'll talk about when we get there. But in the meantime, man, let's just enjoy the rest of this drive this morning. This is great. Yeah, you don't got to tell me twice. I'm loving this. All right, well, the terrain has changed on us once again. We have a pretty steep climb to get out of that little valley where the creek is, and there's a couple stair steps. I'm turning on my lockers. There's some loose gravel. I'm having fun. This is what I'm talking about. I'm liking this trail a lot. It's got everything that you would want. Not crazy difficult, but enough that it's making it super interesting, and Doc is handling it very well. Of course, Recon 1 is just rolling right through like it's nothing. So that's the perfect Jeep for Devin because he can just point and shoot, which is really nice. After that last climb, we looped back to the same route that brought us to the falls. Familiar terrain, just in reverse. It was still rough, demanding our attention, but there's something about driving a trail a second time. You know where the rocks are. You know where the lines are. You can relax just enough to take it all in one more time before the canyon spits you out at the trailhead. We just finished airing up, and we're making our way off the last little section of the trail now. We're going to be on the road for about 15-20 minutes, going east, and it's just around lunchtime. We're trying to decide if we will eat when we get to the ghost town, or if we find some little hole in the wall place worth stopping and checking out. We might do that. We'll just see how the day goes. We don't have hard and fast plans on where we're going to end up tonight. I've got a couple places marked on Onyx, and we'll just see how it goes, but we want to make sure that we're prepared for any weather that might come tonight. After two days on the dirt, the pavement felt almost too easy. We pointed south and decided to find some real food before our next stop. There's a place in Laverkin called the Stagecoach Grill that I'd heard about. Old school steakhouse just outside of Zion seemed like the right call. Devin went with the grilled ham and cheese, and I'm not exaggerating when he said the best grilled ham and cheese I've ever had. I grabbed the Stagecoach burger loaded with everything. It was a great lunch, and we didn't rush it. Lunch was fantastic, and good call on Devin's part to decide to go get something to eat in town. I had some sandwiches we could have had, which would have been boring and plain. That was really nice. You know, the heart of the Recon America series is to experience the places that we're going to, even if it means just stopping at a local restaurant like that and having a good meal. That was worth it. The other thing I just want to mention is it's really nice being out with my son again. We haven't done an adventure together in a long time. He's older now, work, girlfriend, life, and the fact that we're able to spend these couple days together means a lot to me, so I'm glad he's here with me and we're enjoying this trip together. Now, off in the distance, I can see Zion. We are not going into Zion, but if you are out here, I highly encourage you to go check out that national park if you've never visited it. It's incredible. But we've got just a couple miles up the road. We'll be turning off and checking out the old ghost town. From Laverkin, Grafton is only about a 15 minute drive, then a dirt road off the highway that dead ends at one of the most well-preserved ghost towns in the state. We made it to the Grafton ghost town. There's lots of really cool buildings all over the place, and there's also a few people here, so this is definitely a little touristy, but we're close to Zion, so that's to be expected. But at the end of the day, we're here just to explore and see what's out here, so let's go walk around and check out the buildings. I think we can go inside some of these. I hope so. Grafton was settled in 1859, the same year as Tocqueville, the same cotton mission, same group of families trying to make something work in the desert. They built a lawn in the Virgin River, and the river almost immediately started taking it back. Flooding wiped out their crops year after year, they'd rebuild, the river would flood again. Then, in 1866, conflicts with the Native American tribes forced Brigham Young to order all small settlements to consolidate. Grafton was abandoned, but some of those families came back. They rebuilt the homes, built a church, and tried again. This place looks like they chiseled everything with an ax, and they must have been short folks back in the 1800s. That's pretty cool, though. A lot of character in here, huh? It's kind of a cool place to check out. Yeah. I mean, you can definitely tell where they've restored it, but a lot of it's still really old and rustic. They said it was last bought, I think in like 1910, by the guy's son for $200 and a cow, which is cool. But then, I guess, this place has become a ghost town two different times in the last time, like the official, like it's done. I think one of the things that Devin and I both enjoy about visiting old ghost towns and historic sites like this is you really kind of get a feel for how people lived back then. And this house is one of the nicer houses from the 1800s. It's made of brick, it's got three fireplaces, there's a large piece of property outside. But at the end of the day, this house is small relative to today. And it wasn't that important to have a big house back then, you know, you'd spend most of your time outside, where here, you know, they were just coming inside to eat, sleep, stay warm, get out of the weather, and spend a little quality time with their family. But the rest of the time, they were outside working and it was a different way of life. Really cool little area to check out. What's still standing here is remarkable. The schoolhouse, which doubled as a church, was built in 1886 out of adobe. The Russell home next to it dates back to 1862. In 1969, Paul Newman and Robert Redford filmed the bicycle scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid right here in Grafton. This is a well-kept historic town worth visiting. Just up the road is the Grafton Cemetery. This is a humble reminder that life out here wasn't easy. Disease, accidents, killings, and young ones that didn't make it through their first winters are reminders they weren't just making a living, they were surviving. Grafton is a cool little ghost town worth checking out and it was a nice way to spend our early afternoon. But it is early afternoon and it is too early to get to camp. And the wind is kicking. I'll bet these are 30 plus mile an hour gusts that are happening and we don't want to be hanging out at camp just yet. So what we're going to do is head on the other side of town of Leeds, which is where we're going to go tomorrow, and see if we can find some of the mines that I had marked and see if they're worth checking out. And then, I think from there, we'll figure out where we're going to end up camping tonight. But we're just taking it easy, enjoying the day, and so far, so good, very enjoyable. Alright, hopefully you can hear me over this wind. We're up to 35 mile an hour winds with 45 mile an hour gusts right now. It's not great, but we're working through it. So we're here at the Silver Mining Museum. So we are a few miles west now of Tocquerville Falls. The museum itself is closed today, but they've got all kinds of cool historical relics outside and we're just walking up this trail, looks like there's an old building here. But up in the mountain, just not too far from here, there's actually some mines. And so I think we may drive up there, check out those mines, and then we've got to assess this wind. I don't think either one of us want to camp in this tonight. This is getting a little out of hand. The museum sits in what used to be the Wells Fargo Express Office, built in 1877 and once called the finest stone building in southern Utah. Next to it is the old jail, where I imagine many a drunk, rowdy miner spent a night or two. Silver Reef shouldn't have existed. In 1866, a prospector named John Kemple found silver in sandstone and nobody believed him. Geologists at the time said it was impossible. Silver couldn't occur in sandstone, except here it did. By the late 1870s, word got out and this place exploded. At its peak, over 1,500 people lived here. Miners, merchants, six saloons, a newspaper, nine grocery stores, and even a Chinatown set up by Chinese laborers fresh off building the railroad. For a few years, Silver City was one of the wildest towns in Utah. Then the price of silver crashed. One by one, the operations shut down and the people left. By the early 1900s, Silver City was a ghost town. The locals from nearby Leeds eventually came through and dismantled most of the buildings for their materials. What's left out here are the things they couldn't carry off. You walk through it and you can feel the scale of what was here and how fast it disappeared. Devin and I spent a couple hours out here poking around the ruins. Oh, and we came across this unfriendly fellow that decided not to use his rattler to warn us he was hanging out here. The wind was miserable, but honestly, it added something. This place feels raw. It's not preserved behind glass like Grafton. It's just out here falling apart slowly, waiting for someone to come find it. That's the kind of history Devin and I love, the kind you have to work for. All right, we've had an incredible day exploring the silver mining reef area, and that place we could have spent another day out there. It was really cool, lots of ruins. We came into Leeds, and the only place in town to eat that was open on a Sunday is Mainly Pizza. Solid. Very good pizza. What did we order? It was called the Carol. Had like Canadian bacon, meat, all that, banana peppers. Banana peppers. Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. It was really good. The crust was amazing. But something very interesting happened. So when we were out in the mining area, what did you find? I found a wallet that I thought was my dad's, but belonged to someone else. And then we came here to Mainly Pizza, and we're like, hey, do you guys know what we would do with this? She's like, oh, let me see. And she knew the guy. Called him. He came here and got his wallet, and we met him, and he thanked us. Very cool. Very happy. Yeah. So it was cool. Okay, so here's the situation. We've had an incredible time out on the trail, checking out all these places, having some good meals. It is still 40 mile an hour winds out here. We are not camping anywhere in this region. So we're calling it, guys. We're going to head south just a little bit, see if we can get out of this weather, and then probably head home tomorrow. So we're cutting our trip a little short, but it's been an incredible trip. Amazing. It was so good to be out again together. So that was awesome. Guys, I hope you have enjoyed this adventure. We have had a blast, and it's one we will remember for a long time. If you'd like to get a copy of this route, again, I will leave a link down below where you can download it. And if you are not an OnX OffRoad member, you can use my link at 20% Off and use OnX OffRoad. Until next time, safe travels.