Desert Trip V: Canyonlands Maze District

[DirtyLarry]

Well, the annual Desert trip is all but a memory now. With having a baby under a year old at home nowadays it’s taken me longer than usual to post up the trip report. This year we piggy backed the desert trip onto the backside of the Overland Expo whereas, year’s past we made two different long distance trips. Our plan was to hit the Overland Expo then tootle up to the Utah Canyonlands for the rest of the week. We left home on May 15th and rolled back in 10 days later on the 24th. A pretty short 1,717 miles driven this year compared to last year’s 2,500+ mile trip to Death Valley.

The 10 day 1,717 mile loop


Thursday, May 15th: Drive 700 miles from Pueblo, CO to Mormon Lake, AZ

The first destination on the list was to hit up the Overland Expo at Mormon Lake, AZ (South of Flagstaff) for a few days of hanging out with friends and drooling over some ridiculously drool worthy adventure travel gear and rigs. It was a great time as usual! We hung out here Thursday night through Sunday. Funny story as we got lost on the way to Mormon Lake Thursday evening as we rolled into the area. Okay, we weren’t really LOST per se….but we were indeed temporarily without orientation. This is my story and I’m sticking to it but, the GPS told us to get off at Exit 211 off I-40 just East of Flagstaff for a shortcut down to Mormon Lake. We followed this dirt road that turned into a two track that turned into a goat trail for 10 to 15 miles where we missed a trail marker in the darkness. Next thing you know we are way the heck up in the pine trees and loosing daylight fast. The trees where so thick and it became so dark I couldn’t even see to turn around so we ended up camping right in the middle of the trail that night. I couldn’t get enough signal to get internet to see the SPOT in order to see exactly where we were but I was able to text my wife at home. She said we were an inch away from Mormon Lake Rd. Gee thanks honey! That really helped! Early Friday morning we packed up the truck and continued up this very overgrown trail while Mormon Lake Rd got closer and closer on screen only to lose the trail completely at an old abandon deer camp at the top of this hill. That really sucked as we had to back down at least 80 yards in thick trees with the typical steep drop off on the blind side of the truck. Anyway, we finally got turned around and back tracked about a mile then found the spot where I missed the right hand turn the night before in the darkness. 38 minutes later and we rolled into the Expo with a dusty truck full of fresh tree scratches and even a few broken tree branches stuffed into roof rack and backside of the hood. Can’t say that for most of the other shinny trucks at the Overland Expo!

We camped with the usual suspects at the Expo. Mosesburb, 1leglance, oilbrnr, my buddy Bill and a few other usual’s. You know, we’re the outsider guys that don’t have Range Rovers, pimped out Jeeps, few hundred thousand dollar EarthRoamers nor do we wear the Indiana Jones hats that seem to be standard issue with the expo crowd. We all drive old American iron....and Waymon who drives a Ford Sportsmobile


My buddy Bill doing up is famous fried chicken Saturday night. Expo is to the back country adventurers as Sturgis is to the biker crowd.





Sunday around midday a small army of us headed up to Flagstaff to check into the hotel to cleanup, regroup and restock for the rest of the week. Basically hit up the showers, laundry, Big 5 and Walmart. This hotel was the meeting place for the group of 5 of us to round up the wagons for the rest of the journey up to Canyonlands first thing Monday morning. Once we leave Flag, there isn’t any place to shop for groceries for the next 5 days. My buddy Bill from Pueblo, my buddy Ty and his wife from San Diego, and I all reserved rooms at the Hampton Inn then two other friends met us here at o’dark 30 Monday morning.

A room with a view….


My buddy Ty’s 2005 Ram 2500 Cummins/NV5600/Phoenix camper rig from San Diego. We did the Mohave Rd and Death Valley together last year. We’re old buddy’s from High School (he is a CO boy too).


Ah, yes…there we are! At the hotel! Checking nav systems before the wagon round up


The plan was to roll out of Flag at 8 AM as we had a 280 mile drive up to Utah to meet my buddy Ty’s sister who was meeting us at the Hite Marina at 3 PM then hit the lead-in trail head to the Maze District, which is basically right across the Colorado River from the Hite Marina. Everybody got up early and those driving up from Phoenix arrived early too so we got a good start ahead of schedule. The long drive with a parade of 5 of us up to Hite was uneventful. Very beautiful country out there!

A few weeks prior to us arriving here at Hite I phoned the ARAMARK general store at Hite to ask if we could park my buddy’s sister’s car there for a few days. The nice gal on the phone said no problem and she could even do better than that. We could take it to her house to leave for the week! Keep mind, the Hite is remote as hell so the workers at the marina actually live on site too. So does the local Sheriff, Park Rangers, etc. Around the corner from the general store up in the canyon is a small trailer park with about 20 trailers for all of the local workers. Perfect place to park the Prius for the week.

And here we sit. And sit and sit some more….until Ty’s sister arrived. Yeah, she was driving a Prius over from Colorado Springs. Remind me of the Prius story later in the week

Ty’s Ram, My K10, Don’s Land Cruiser (okay, it’s really a Lexus ), and my buddy Tony’s green Ruby. Not pictured is my other buddy Bill’s white Ram. He’s hidden on the other side of my truck here.


Next up…. 3 days of trail riding in the Maze