Jeeping Across America - Wanderings Of The West

[NFRs2000NYC]

Well, it was that time of year again....a year of craziness with two kids, work, and general daily life required us to regain our sanity...so after much debating, a road trip was in order. I had a new Jeep that hasn't been properly broken in yet (4500 miles on the clock in 15 months) and an outdoor itch that I have been unable to scratch for quite some time.

The plan was, I would leave NJ on Sunday, and my wife would fly to Denver and meet me there on Wednesday. I left myself an extra day in case I run into foul weather on my journey west, but as it will turn out, it isn't me that will need the extra time.

Sunday afternoon, the day I am supposed to leave....I get an email from United that my wife's flight is cancelled. The Snowpocalypse that is supposed to hit the NE monday night into tuesday is going to affect all the flights into wednesday, so they cancelled it. I called United, and they stick her on the next flight, which is thursday. I checked the forecast for the remainder of that week and see more snow in the forecast....I tell the wife that she can take a chance on flying out thursday but by doing that, her insurance policy (me) wont be here and she would have to wait for yet another flight out, wasting valuable vacation time. After a bit of deliberation, she decides the smarter move is to drive out with me, as we would get there the same time as the flight would (or earlier.)

So, having a partner for the drive out, I began loading the jeep up...since the last time I did one of these, I have bought a cargo shelf, which allows me to keep stuff off the floor, and with careful packing, one can have a super comfortable bed for 1. The wife didn't enjoy the 42 hour drive last time sitting in a near upright position, so I wanted to make damn sure that I had a very comfortable place for us to sleep when we take turns driving. I have received a bunch of PMs last time about my packing and such, so I tried to take some pics and videos of it.....

The road and trail kit has tree straps, fuses, winch remote, transfer case linkage thingies, D rings, and things of that nature.

Food bin has 90% of the stuff for food cooking and cleaning.

All literature on where Im going

Dried/Canned food and cooking hardware

All tools except my socket set

Chairs and an arctic sleeping bag

Quick vid I made of the sleeping setup...sorry it was a bit dark, but I think you get the idea....


More to come.......

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

So we left at around 11pm to stay ahead of any weather that we may run into, and away from as much traffic as possible. Since it was a workday for my wife and I was off, she would sleep the night while I drove, for a 10-12 hour shift. Usually this brings us into Ohio, Pennsylvania is a lot longer than it looks.

Normally, I don't really have a hard time with a long drive like this, but this one wore me out. I was driving into a horrible headwind/crosswind which required A LOT of attention and constant steering input (but nothing like my return trip that I'll talk about later) and I was only able to do about 65mph comfortably, otherwise, the Jeep would get pushed around too easily, making the situation unsafe....the downsides of driving a barn.

After a long night of battling the wind (and having my MPG murdered into the 13s) I was starving, and just like my previous trips, a stop at my favorite roadside breakfast places was in order....

After we loaded up on 6700 calories a piece, we once again hit the road, only the wife to take a short leg to let me catch a few zzz's.

Shortly after getting back on to the highway, we came upon a wreck where we couldn't really tell ****** happened....

And just like the other trips, the wife brought us into Indiana...

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

After lunch, the wife and I swapped seats again and I took over into Illinois and into the evening sunset.

It was a most welcome sight to see the temps, even at night have crawled their way up.....unseasonably high I was told....We went from freezing to Florida weather in a very short amount of time...

As usual, driving through kansas at night was quite a lonely experience. Howard Stern on Sirius, wife sleeping in the back, and the howl of the wind outside.

By the time the sun came up, I have gotten us to the rockies...and now became the fun job of climbing vail pass, which if some of you remember from my previous thread, was a big chore with my last Jeep with 3.21 gears and 33s. This one has 4.10s and 35s.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

Our plan for this trip was to stop in Colorado for a few days to soak in some hot springs and relax for a few days, then pack it up and keep it moving, since most Colorado trails are closed in the winter. Having said that, we actually didn't plan anything after Colorado. I didn't book any hotels, didn't even have any idea where we were going to go...I tossed up New Mexico, Utah, etc, but for now, we just wanted to get to our destination in Colorado, which was Glenwood Springs.

Driving up Vail pass the snow begin to show, but hardly anything major....we were surprised (and sort of disappointed) considering we left snow storms and bitter cold back home...we were hoping for a proper colorado winter...

But alas, it was not to be. Talking to some of the locals, it has been one of the mildest winters in ages, temps were VERY warm and no good snow in sight. Local businesses were getting killed because of lack of snow.

Prius? Who the hell needs a prius!

This FedEx driver was absolutely batsh!t crazy. He was trying to hit every apex going lane to lane and was doing a solid 80mph...I kept the hell away from him.

Finally, after around 34 hours of driving, we have arrived at our destination....Glenwood Springs Lodge.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

Now one of my favorite things to do is to soak in hot water in freezing temps while it's snowing, but the day we arrived, it was 65 degrees, which I thought was a bit ridiculous since I was sitting at 8800 feet on top of a rocky mountain and I just got in from sea level NJ that was 5 below. Crazy, but whatever, time to soak off some stiff limbs. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend this place....Glenwood Springs Lodge...the pool is divided into 2....the main pool is 405 feet long by 100 feet wide, and is just a hair over 1 million gallons and it sits at 94 degrees F year round. The second pool is smaller and is only 100 feet long and 100 feet wide, but it is a toasty 104F. The water has over 15 different minerals, leaving your skin oh so soft. While the SOURCE of the water does smell of sulfur (when you are walking to the pool), by the time the water reaches the pool most of the SOx is up in the air already and the pool doesn't smell at all. My wife is very sensitive to sulfur smells, so if she was good, everyone is good. If you have a hard time convincing the wife to take a road trip, this place is a fantastic bullet for your ammo stockpile in convincing her, along with the spa.

Since we were only in Colorado for a few days, we wanted to do two things....check out some caves and snowmobile. The first day the snow sucked, and snowmobiling is expensive, so I decided to take my chances and wait for better weather the following day, so we decided to take a cave tour at glenwood caverns.

The caverns are on the side/top of a mountain, which also has a fairly dope "roller coaster" (more like a sled coaster that you control the speed.....fun) so you need to take a gondola up there....

Now the caverns are broken up into 2 parts, the upper, and the lower. THe tours are about 50 minutes each and are spread out so that you can catch both without having to wait the hour...IMHO, if you are ever here, skip the upper, it's fairly boring, and Im a huge cave nut.

The cave system has a very interesting story, and like a bastard child, has been passed around owner to owner for the longest time, until recently when a private owner decided to excavate and develop the land.

The Upper system is kinda boring, without too many cool formations, and it's very tight in there. On top of that, they are crazy about you touching or scraping the rock inside, so they made me leave my camera bag in a storage locker. I took my SLR inside, but the pics are bleh so I didn't even bother with them, so iphone pics it is.

The lower system is far more impressive, with much larger rooms, MUCH bigger formations, and far more grandiose.

After the tours, we decided to head back, take another soak, and go to dinner....

Can you find the jeep

Back at the hotel, the temps dropped, and now the steam from the pools can be seen....

Very nice after a day of hiking.

We ate dinner at juicy lucy's steakhouse...

Elk wrapped in filo...barely edible. Elk was murdered, ground to a pulp and mixed with a mushroom paste that obliterated any flavor it had left, and the entire thing was overcooked.

I had a T bone because I figured it was safe...and it was...it was ok.

Wife played it safe as well, and just got a steamed lobster.

After dinner we went back to the room and called it a night, for tomorrow it would be snow mobiling time and then we depart Colorado.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

Our last day in Colorado was a lucky one...while it was nasty and raining at the hotel, up on the mountains it snowed all night, and dumped a nice amount of fresh powder, so we grabbed our gear and headed up to go snowmobiling. Now, my wife has never done it, so I was hoping it would be ideal conditions for a first timer, but luckily for her, conditions were pristine. Now only did we all get first dibs on fresh snow, but the scenery was jawdropping going through the woods and up/down the mountain.


So getting here was fun, as the roads were slick

You couldn't have asked for more ideal conditions....pure winter wonderland.

Our guide stopping to see if anyone wanted a pee break (entire tour we booked was 60 miles long, which goes by quickly because you're having so much fun.) which I gladly took. Luckily our group was my wife and I and a family of 8 and they were all cool, and good riders, so we kept a great pace.

I absolutely love these trees. The guide told me what they were called, but I forgot....their burnt copper color is gorgeous against the pristine white backdrop.

After about 25 miles, he took us out to a flat area, and let everyone go bananas for around 30 minutes, lots of fun. People basically went as fast as they had the balls to. Most machines topped out at 60mph, mine had a hybrid track on it so I could hit around 70, while the guide could hit over 100mph.

Snow was waist deep near the summit.

After a full day of snowmobiling, we went back to the hotel, took a nice soak, then went to dinner...where we would stuff our faces and talk about where we are going to go tomorrow....

Dinner was at a place called "Smoke" which was a modern bbq place. Based on what we had, it was ok.

Bacon wrapped shrimp (tasted like bacon but thats it, slaw was good)

Smoked Wings (far to vinegary for my taste but cooked VERY well)

A rack of ribs that my wife forgot to take a pic of (nothing to write home about)
A crock of mac and cheese that was bland as hell

And this german chocolate browning which was incredible.

During dinner, and a long discussion, we decided to trek into Utah, and my wife would do me a favor and let me go to Moab.... so with that bombshell, we went back to the room, and back to bed, because tomorrow, Moab in the new Jeep.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

So, having an awesome wife and getting my official Moab pass, we get up at the crack of dawn and head out....

The scenery changes dramatically as you leave colorado...

Another bonus of having a Jeep...nearly impossible to get caught speeding, the most I did was around 87 or so on the flats.

Views in every direction...

Time to say goodbye to my favorite state...

And hello to my second favorite

You guys don't even know the excitement I feel in my fizzy bits when this comes into my view....

We grabbed lunch at the side of the colorado river, and I decided to break the jeep's virginity and anoint it with the red mud of Moab, so I took a canyon road to our hotel...

It rained for the last two days so things were quite muddy. After we checked into the hotel, I drove down to my favorite carwash (I know Moab inside out) and got cleaned up for the adventures tomorrow.

 

[skrillah]

Awesome!! Keep it coming!

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

So we get up the next morning, and Im very eager to start the day, because today I would try a trail again that shut me down the last time I was there....Top of The World. This trail is rated difficult in the guidebook, and when I was there last, my Jeep on 33s probably could have made it, but I didn't want to take chances because it is very remote and I was alone. This time, the jeep is bigger and badder, so with lots of excitement, we head on for the 30 mile drive to the trailhead.

Luckily, the drive isn't a bad one.....

Now, a message to anyone else that will ever have a road trip with passengers, rule #1 to make things fun for everyone....REMEMBER THAT BEING A DRIVER AND A PASSENGER IS NOT THE SAME THING. Driving your M3 on the Dragon or your Jeep on Hellbender might be fun for you, but it is literally torture for a passenger.

With that in mind, and trying to teach the wife about 4 wheeling, my plan was to let her do and drive as far as possible before things get frisky, at which point we would swap.

So....lesson #1....airing down...

Now, the trail is 9.6 miles long according to the guidebook. The first 5 miles are moderate ....then around 3 miles of difficult stuff, then 1.6 miles of hard stuff....keep those numbers in mind.

So the wife is tootin along, and Im walking alongside giving her instructions, like where to turn, what line to take, and what gear to be in (1st or 2nd in 4LO)

Trail (in the first 5 miles) switches between sandy areas and rocky stuff..

Once the wife hit about the 6 mile mark, things started getting tippy and slippy, and the wife was no longer comfortable, so we swapped....

I know you can't tell, but ask anyone that has ever been offroading, it never comes across in pictures.

Continued......

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

As we climbed higher, we began seeing signs of snow...which I am very "alert" to thanks to my misadventures on La Sal pass 2 years ago....

Some sections were pretty badly washed out as well from the snow/rain

At about 8 miles, things got difficult AND the slopes were covered in ice (flatter areas seemed to have melted the ice off)

You can see the wife walking ahead to tell me if things are passable and getting worse/better

As luck would have it, it did get worse, but I kept on going so long as the Jeep didn't struggle or fight too much....

The wife started to get nervous because everytime I climbed a ledge the jeep would slip 2-3 feet to either side, which was fine, but watching a 5500lb box slide around and make banging noises is a bit nerve-tingling for someone that spent their entire lives trying to avoid that sound.

As we got even higher, the terrain became even more difficult, and the ice was even thicker. This trail is supposed to be around 4-5 hours total, and we have used nearly 3.5 already, and haven't even reached the end, plus the return trip....on top of that, it was already around 3:15, and the sun sets (like a light switch) at 5:40, so we would need to do some of the return trip in the dark......so at 9.2 out of 9.6 miles, I had to swallow my pride and ego and turn around. Had I had another jeep with me, I would have done it without even thinking, but being out there alone, with literally no cars around for 50 miles (Moab was dead during this time).....I had to do it. Sometimes you have to do things to keep your passengers calm.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

So after my unsuccessful attempt to get to the end, it was time to turn around and head back (all sad and frustrated)

This entire time, we have been pretty hungry as our plan was simply to find a nice spot at the end of the trail and admire the view while we cook lunch, but since that didn't happen we were jonesing to eat, however, it was already after 4pm and we had a long way back off the rocks before it got dark so starving and munching on leftover road trip candy, we made our way back to the head of the trail......which was FAR away at this point

Being frustrated and agitated (combination of not making the end of the trail, being hungry and having recently quit smoking after a pack a day for 14 years) I barreled down the trail in half the time as it took getting up....looking back, it was a mistake as there were a few mistakes I have made, luckily, nothing broke, bent, or snapped.

It was around 5:10 or so, and we made it back to the trail head, where we decided to pull over and cook up some "lunch"...LInner at this point.

Wife and I were tired of eating restaurant food and road trip stop food, so before we headed out, I stocked up on some fresh local rainbow trout to grill up later on, and some salad....nice not to eat so heavy for once.

FInally got to put my tray table/cutting board to use, came out VERY handy.

After linner, it was getting pretty dark, so we packed up, and began the 30 mile drive back to town. Overall, it was a fun filled but a slightly disappointed day, but as they say, you live to fight another day.

 

[NFRs2000NYC]

The next day I wanted to run a few more trails but the wife suggested that we have a "relaxing day" which meant "get your fat butt up and hike" and that we should go into Arches national park and actually see the entire park. I have been to Arches 5 times now, and always saw the same thing...balanced rock, the formations at the park entrance, and then delicate arch, at which point, I was exhausted from the hike and wanted to leave.

I thought that was a fine idea, so I took her up on it. We woke up decently early (sun sets early so if you want full day of stuff you can't sleep in until noon), filled up, bought food for later, and headed out.

As we entered the park, the wife kept saying how a lot of the rock formations look like penises....I have no idea what she is on about.....

The last time I was at balanced rock, the wife wasn't with me, so we stopped again..

After Balanced rock, we went towards the garden of eden, a place I've actually never been....cool to see now capped La Sal Mountains in the background.

Honestly, some of the best sports car roads anywhere...

Finally arrived at the garden of eden

The day/weather were truly perfect....Tshirts in February.

Pic of the north window with the wife in it for scale....

After a whole bunch of hiking, it was time to lunch it, so we went to find a nice quiet spot and set up shop...

Found a nice little spot with no one around and utter silence...beautiful

Today's menu we're sauteed beech mushrooms with some salad and emergency skirt steak....

Then we proceeded with consumption of mass quantities.

After a fantastic lunch and about an hour of sitting there and breathing in fresh air, we cleaned up, and headed out to see 2 more arches, (technically 3) - landscape arch and double arch....the only problem was, it was already nearly 5pm...but we went anyway, since I actually had headlamps this time (unlike the time I was caught in pitch black darkness hiking back from delicate arch).

We arrived at the devil's garden parking lot, and the sun was beginning to set, and I didn't really know how long the hike to the arch was....when we got to it, it was fairly dark already.

After finding our way back to the Jeep in pitch black darkness, we went back towards the double arches. We ran into a photographer that was leaving, and he told us that we came at a great time of year, as it is nearly impossible to have double arch all to yourself, which we did......

After this, the wife wanted to go grab dinner and a drink in town, and tomorrow would be another day......

 

[sswanson15]

great pictures...thanks for sharing.

 

[AngryRedBird]

You're route was/is very similar to ours back in 2014.. We didn't have the time or the chance to head into Utah.. But I think if we're give a few more days this year we might spend a bit more time in those states we stop along the way.. Night driving.. Not sure I'm up for that challenge.. thou ask me 25 years ago.. So are you currently still on the road?.. or has this trip passed?.. Asking cause we're planning on doing it again this year (2015) Can't promise the jeep can maintain 75 mph uphill or go to extreme off roads.. But hey this could be a EP thing Have a group meetup by all EP members converging on one point in the middle of the country.

 

[Kiriesh]

You always have amazing reads! I think I read some if your reports back on wranglerforum as well. Great write up so far


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