Desert Trip 2010 Trip report: Beyond the middle of nowhere, 5 days in 4wd

[DirtyLarry]

A couple of buddies and I took our second annual desert trip the week of July 12th to the back country of Utah for a week of trail riding, sightseeing and camping. We actually left at 6 am Saturday the 10th and returned home on Friday the 16th. We turned around 1,600 miles in the course of 6 days with around 400 miles in the dirt. Of the 400 miles, at least 200 miles were pretty severe trails (Hole in the Rock and Canyonlands National Park Maze District). Not really, technical trails, just a lot of steep low range crawling with a never ending supply of obstacles and huge drop offs on either side. The main attractions we saw along the way were the Doll House, The Maze Overlook and Ekker Butte.

We were very fortunate not to have any breakdowns, no major trail damage, over heated engines or anything again this year. We didn’t even see any snakes or scorpions. Although, we did experience temperatures as high as 122 degrees in some of the canyons with 105 degrees being the normal daytime temperature. Nights cooled down to the 60’s and 70's (31 degree low the last night we spent in the Colorado mountains)

The vehicles were a mostly stock 2002 Dodge Ram diesel with a leveling kit and 295 BFG’s and of course, my 8.1L powered K10. Both vehicles performed great the entire week.

I’ll post pictures of the highlights as I get time but you can view the trip summary on my SPOT GPS Adventure Page that also has geotabbed photos: You can zoom in to see where each photo was taken. Be patient, as this webpage loads slowly.
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=213659

Day 1: Getting there



9 hours after we left home, we finally get on the Hole in the Rock trail just north of Lake Powell. We started this trail last year but ran out of time so this year we started with this trail first.




Camp 1 – Saturday night


We heard some weird noises that evening as we sat around the campfire. Turns out this little guy was right behind us in a little cave. Surprisingly, my camera lite up the night darkness like daytime.

[Prerunner1982]

Are you using Flickr for your pictures? I don't see that any were posted... so I am assuming that my work has it blocked. It doesn't block all the picture hosting sites, but I know it does block Flickr.

I enjoyed your trip last year and was excited to see you post about it again this year, but bummed now that I can see the pictures.

Can't win every time I suppose..

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by Prerunner1982

Are you using Flickr for your pictures? I don't see that any were posted... so I am assuming that my work has it blocked. It doesn't block all the picture hosting sites, but I know it does block Flickr.

I enjoyed your trip last year and was excited to see you post about it again this year, but bummed now that I can see the pictures.

Can't win every time I suppose..

Yeah, all of the pictures are hosted on Flickr. Sorry dude. Hopefully, you can take a look when you get home from work.

[DirtyLarry]

Sunday as we continue on our way down the Hole in the Rock trail.



Now this spot here got really hairy. The Dodge made it down after almost doing a barrel roll down the slick rock. See Youtube video. We decided to turn around at that point since we where 50 miles away from the nearest paved road. With open diffs the Dodge could not make it back up so I ended up winching him back to the top. It got pretty iffy there for a while. As usual, pictures and video do not serve justice to the severity of the trail.




It doesn’t look like it but this spot is really steep with 3 offcamber ledges to creep down.


The last few seconds of video you can see the LH rear tire of the Dodge pop up 3 to 4 feet in the air. It was looking like it was going over for a second. We didn’t get any video winching him back to the top as it took all three of us to do the winching and spoting.

YouTube- Hole in the Rock trail 3

Here is a video of mine crawling down the other side. It wasn't too bad of a trail but much steeper than it looks. You can hear the D-rings on the rear bumper banging like crazy. The base of the Hi-Lift jack rattles on the roof basket as well. Front tire took one of many bites out of the fender flares on here too. No fender flares where damaged on this trip believe it or not.

YouTube- Hole in the Rock trail 4

[DirtyLarry]

Awesome scenery along the way.







Relics lying out in the desert





Then a few miles down the trail towards the West was this one.

[DirtyLarry]

My buddy Bill checking out the dry river valley below. This area was called the “Fortress Ruins” which was an old Fort of sorts.





The river valley was like an Oasis


This mud hole was a surprise to see. Very stinky mosquito infested water to boot. We even got rained on for a few brief minutes.


As we ascend up the other side to our camp spot for Sunday night.

YouTube- Hole in the Rock trail 5

YouTube- Hole in the Rock trail 6

[72BlckButy]

Great pics, and an amazing trip!

[Dieselwrencher]

Very cool trip! Someday I'd like to do something like this. The things you would see and do are surely once in a life time because I'm sure the same trip can't go the same twice. Thanks again for sharing these pics with us. One quick question, how do you know what all these land marks are called? just from being there so much, or is there a guide you purchase before you go on these trips?

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

One quick question, how do you know what all these land marks are called? just from being there so much, or is there a guide you purchase before you go on these trips?

My buddy Bill and I frequent a few Overlanding websites, buy a lot of books on southwestern desert expedition travel and subscribe to journals such as the Overland Journal. Bill is like a walking and talking trail map even for places he has never been, which is why he leads and we call him the trailboss.

[DirtyLarry]

Camp 4 (second night in the Maze District)















Mark (Slim) throwing rotten Clementine’s off the cliff. There was a several second delay before you hear the slightest of a SPLAT!




Not only were we sleeping next to a cliff, it was windier than hell this night. Had to cook inside the truck. Bill’s chair is tied to the trailer by the trailers safety chains.



We all had to make a mental note that if we had to get up in the middle of the night to use the beer return station not to wonder too far from the trucks, as that first step is a dozy!


Packed up camp early Wednesday morning and headed to Moab for a day. It took 6 hours to drive from Ekker Butte back to Hwy 95 at Hite! ...all dirt and 90% in 4wd. 60 some trail miles, I believe.

Ekker Butte is only 40 miles from Moab as the crow flies but you can't drive there easily as there are several canyons between us and Moab. It was like 120 miles or so from Hite to Moab after the 6 hour ride to get off the trail at Hite. Wednesday was a llllllong day!

More later

[Dieselwrencher]

That is really cool. I figured you guys did your research ahead of time. You'd have to be really crazy just to wing it and hit those trails without a clue IMHO.

[Dieselwrencher]

Man that is crazy to camp by the cliff. I bet it was fun though! Are there a lot of insects out there? I'm curious. Never been in a "real" desert.

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Man that is crazy to camp by the cliff. I bet it was fun though! Are there a lot of insects out there? I'm curious. Never been in a "real" desert.

Actually, before we bedded down for the night I moved my truck to the other side of the Dodge so Slim could set up the tent in between both of our trucks and tie off to my wheels and the Dodge’s nerf bar being he couldn’t drive tent stakes into rock. We were still close to the cliff though.

Surprisingly, there were a lot of small flying biting knats. I still have bites all over my legs and arms. Tons of bats too! No creepy crawlers on the ground that we saw.


Along, the 6 hour drive back to Hwy 95. Easy section of the trail.


Airing the tires back up at Hwy 95 near Hite


After a few hours of Highway driving from Hite to Moab…

Camp 4 at Moab






We had a little friend hanging out with us Wednesday night


I-70 as we entered back into Colorado. People taking a pictures of us cruising down the interstate as we took pictures of them, well actually the sign


Back in the home state. Monarch Pass


We were dog tired and spent the last night right off Hwy 50 at the Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison


Couldn’t take a complete shower, as there were too many other campers around. The water got pretty cold in the high country as well. When we woke up Friday morning the thermometer said 31 degrees! That was a huge change from what we were used to.



So that is it….

Over the course of the trip we used over 300 lbs if ice, drank over 100 bottles of water, few cases of beer, Cokes, etc. I did not keep track of how many gallons of fuel I burnt but the entire fuel bill to feed the 8.1L was close to $400. Before next years trip I going to get that NV4500 I have laying around installed so I can have overdrive. Direct drive is killing me on the highway on these long haul trips. The 8.1L actually did very well on fuel off-road as it pretty much lugs around at idle all the time, it was the highway travel that killed my mileage.

Don’t forget to check out the SPOT GPS Adventure page. You can zoom in to see where each picture was taken.
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=213659

The entire collection of pictures from the trip are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1188958...7624408790269/

All Youtubes are here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DirtyLar...66B54CA0B63794

Last year’s Arizona Strip SPOT GPS Adventure page:
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=172579

Last year’s trip report:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=351848

[OrrieG]

Great post. One of the trips I want to take when I get the 59 done is out of Moab into the canyon lands. In the 70's I spent a lot of summer time in Northern AZ - 4 corners area tooling around in a VW van & my 59. I was limited by 2wd as to how far in I could go on some of the roads.

[Dieselwrencher]

Very cool trip! It looks like that was a lot of fun for sure! I bet that rock was really slippery when it rained on you that little bit in the first part of the trip.

[dmartin1]

that looks like an amazing trip!
heck id take a trailer back for that one old car sittin out there!but im just nuts ha.

your blazers a tank.

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by dmartin1

your blazers a tank.

Thanks....but it is not a Blazer! Just a K10 with a cab-hi SnugTop topper.

[DirtyLarry]

I forgot to mention that you’ll notice the fan on my truck is extremely loud in all of the videos. I used a medium duty truck fan clutch when I installed this 8.1L knowing the truck would be spending a great deal of time in extreme heat. The tight clutch does rob some power and makes a ton of noise but the engine never even gets close to over-heating. Not even in the 115 degree weather rolling at 3 MPH with the A/C on.

[Dieselwrencher]

There's nothing wrong with that!

[chas350]

Larry, that is so freakin awesome! Makes me want to slip out of Ct permanently even more! Nice pics, thanks for sharing.
chas

[OLDCHEV4X4]

Very cool! Im glad you had a trouble free trip. It makes me want to pack up the Blazer and take the kids to the mountains of PA for some camping.
I cant believe there was a half track in the middle of no where. Do you know anything else about it?

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by OLDCHEV4X4

Very cool! Im glad you had a trouble free trip. It makes me want to pack up the Blazer and take the kids to the mountains of PA for some camping.
I cant believe there was a half track in the middle of no where. Do you know anything else about it?

No, it is a mystery. I haven’t heard or read anything where they came from or they belong to. Still pretty neat to see lying out beyond the middle of nowhere.

[abebummy26]

That is gorgeous. Awesome pictures by the the way. I must travel out there sometime, with a truck do some trail riding. Then head down to Lake Powell and enjoy one of my favorite other past time Wave runners. Lake of the Ozarks is nothing compared to the looks of Powell.