A backcountry trip to Utah sells the wife on overlanding!

[Sabre]

My wife and I just returned to our home in northwest Washington State from 10 days of backcountry camping, the first time that we've tested ourselves on an extended camping trip. The theme for our trip was exploration; we found most of our campsites simply by poking our noses into the hills. The format would be to spend every day driving our truck as far into the backcountry as we could, staying in a different place each night. It was to be a wonderful learning experience for us both, having been married for only two years and each coming from the opposite end of the camping spectrum. My experience was based in wilderness backpacking and alpine snow camping, while hers consisted solely of 2-day motor home trips to state parks. We re-invented our ideas about camping to accommodate a new paradigm based on this format of 4x4 overland exploration. It was going to prove to be a wonderful, amazing adventure. Our vehicle is a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Ltd, bone-stock other than the addition of some slightly taller tires (265/75-16) and a roof rack. This truck is a real compromise: it's a very comfortable family car, a daily driver that nevertheless has pretty respectable off-road abilities, bearing in mind the limitations of its independent four-wheel suspension and lack of mods.

Our first camp was in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, near the tiny town of Bridgeport in east-central Oregon.




We mounted an aluminum rack (thank you, Craigslist) to the OEM roof bars using homemade clamps fabricated from the rack's mounting brackets. We scored a second spare wheel online and mounted it up top along with a high-lift jack, a shovel, and a couple of 20-liter fuel cans. There's still plenty of room up there for gear in the event that our girls come on the next trip and we need to keep the second row of seats in service. As it was, we folded everything flat in back, left the third-row seat in the garage, and enjoyed plenty of cargo space.

Our next stop was in the Nevada desert about 20 miles west of West Wendover. We had a couple of folding aluminum camp tables that were perfect for quickly setting up a kitchen. We also carried an Ezy Awning from Bus Depot that connects quickly to the roof rack mounts, although we never did end up deploying it as we spent only enough time at any one place for eating, washing and sleeping. Such brief stays at each camp meant that during our 1,900-mile round trip we put 3,400 miles on the Montero! I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my wife enjoyed finding off road trails more than she wanted to relax in camp.



Our next jump was diagonally across the state of Utah, ending up on some public land just outside Arches National Park. One of the best investments we made for the trip was the Engel DeepBlue 80-quart cooler. We found some plastic storage boxes that fit exactly into the top of the cooler (resting on the inset lip), giving tremendous versatility and efficiency in storing a large amount of food. Even in temperatures over 110 degrees, this thing really worked beautifully. Therefore we enjoyed feta cheese in addition to the obvious cold beer and bacon.



Our first day in the Moab area saw us heading down past the potash works along the Colorado River just east of town and entering the eastern end of the Shafer Trail. This is where we truly entered the canyonlands after which the national park is named. The many layers of sandstone laid down over hundreds of millions of years form an incredible variety of colors, textures and shapes. Evidence of past occupation of this area includes the relics left behind by mysterious ancient peoples as well as the more contemporary leavings of miners and ranchers.






That shocking blue color in the third picture, above, is one of the potash settling ponds. As we left the river behind, we started finding the first of countless areas where the road squeezes between cliff wall and sheer drop.





The incredible landscape was beyond anything we'd previously imagined.

 

[Sabre]

From the Shafer Trail we entered the White Rim Trail, a 70-mile zig-zag that often clings to the edge of sandstone cliffs, taking the lucky adventurer deep into Canyonlands National Park.










After hours of jaw-dropping scenery, we prepared to end the first day on the White Rim by climbing the Murphy Hogback. The top of this track would be our camp for the night.








This is one of the hills where nervous wives are screaming at their husbands on those YouTube videos you see about this area. My wife didn't scream at me...she was too busy exclaiming at the beautiful scenery.



We celebrated our first day on the White Rim with steaks and red wine, and enjoyed them while perched at the edge of an abyss that opened out over hundreds of square miles of raw beauty. And we had all of it to ourselves.







Every day was more incredible than the day before, and it was amazing to see my wife get more and more enthusiastic about offroading, and the rougher the trail the more she liked it! Yes, I'm a lucky guy.

That's all for now; I'll continue tomorrow.

 

[chicken corners]

Thank you.

 

[mph]

Looks like u found some good Utah treasures!!!!

Nice trip report!!!!

 

[doug720]

Great write up and even better adventure!

Thanks

Doug

 

[mrwizard]

Sweet trip. Can't wait to hear about the rest of the trip. :lurk:

 

[Sabre]

Thanks for the kind words; this was an incredible trip for us!

After a night on the Murphy Hogback, we started a descent toward the Green River for the second half of the trail.





Aside from the amazing scenery, the most wonderful part was my wife's reaction to all this. She had never done anything off-pavement before and she was very excited by it. Every time we'd spy a dirt road along the highway, she'd want to explore it. Every time we came upon a steep climb, ledge, or other obstacle, she'd giggle with delight. Wow!







We got a great book about the geology of Utah, telling how all these dozens of strata of sandstone were laid down over millions of years. In the shot above you can see that this rock used to be the bottom of a shallow sea, the wavy sand bottom frozen in time through the millenia. The mind-boggling thing to consider is where all this sand came from in the first place. The entire state is covered in sandstone mountains thousands of feet high, and all that sand was originally solid rock, weathered away through unimaginable eons prior to being deposited layer by layer where we see it today. Much of that sand is believed to have come from weathering of the Appalachian mountains, which are indeed ancient.

 

[Michael Slade]

Two things:

1. You married a keeper. What an awesome woman to want to share that adventure with you.

2. You had an awesome adventure. So glad that you cut your teeth in such an amazing part of Utah.

 

[Sabre]

Did I mention how hot it was? We expected heat, of course. After all, it's UTAH, the DESERT, and it's JUNE! What we didn't expect was to have the whole place to ourselves. We assumed that, since school had recently gotten out, the summer vacation season would mean that we'd be competing for space with hoardes of other lookie-loos. We were amazed and delighted to find that we never saw another soul at any of the areas in which we camped for the entire trip. Not once. No other people. Granted, we usually just plonked down in the backcountry somewhere, but we did hit a couple of designated campsites while in the park and drove by plenty of others. All deserted. On the two-day White Rim drive, we saw two other vehicles. That was it. Amazing.









That sugar-soft, deep sand in the picture above was amazing stuff. A good deal of the trail was simply on the rock, and was plenty rough, even if fairly level. Speed was not happening, and the few times that I got a bit ahead of myself we were inevitably rewarded with the truck getting some air or viciously whipping side to side. The sandy areas were always a wonderful respite from the constant shuddering and jolting...hitting the sand was like falling into a feather pillow, and everything suddenly became quiet and smooth, with a pleasant wallowing back and forth and a giddy, vague feeling from the steering. It was great. Of course, when we hit the first really DEEP sand, things suddenly got very different! There are no pictures of the couple of hundred yards where the trail follows the bottom of a sandy wash, an area that becomes a stream during rains. Things suddenly got tense as we found it necessary to keep the revs up the whole time, and I pictured us sinking to the axles. Yes, we had brought along an MV-50 high-volume tire inflator, but had not bothered to air down the tires yet. I'm sure it would have made the rocky trail a bit less jarring, but we hadn't thought to soften the tires as we hadn't needed any additional traction or flotation up to that point. So, yeah, the sand was delightful, but, even with all those narrow ledge trails, that sandy wash had the highest pucker factor of any part of the whole trail!

 

[Sabre]

Thanks, I DID marry a keeper! And the best part about that is yet to come...stay tuned for exciting developments that would be the envy of any red-blooded male!

I'll post more later on...time to join her for whatever that amazing-smelling dinner is....

 

[Sabre]

It was finally time to climb up away from the Green River and leave the White Rim Trail. The climb out was not technical in any way, but was certainly spectacular in its own right. You can see the trail as it ramps up the right side of this canyon, but much harder to see are the series of switchbacks cut into the red slickrock to the left.










After leaving this fascinating area, we hit the highway and headed south, gassed up and bought ice in Moab. Oh, and we met some very nice folks at a big outdoor store called Gearheads. They have a big commercial sink with a couple of high-pressure faucets for free filling of water containers with filtered water. We had three 20-liter containers from which we refilled our smaller bottles and the 2-gallon container that was always on our camp table. We really didn't need anything other than the water but we bought a few little things, including a new Thinsulate camp pillow to replace one that had flown out the window unnoticed on a rough part of the trail. Oh, and the wife bought a couple of stainless steel wine "glasses" with stems that unscrew and store inside the bowl of the goblet. Why not? I've been around the barn once or twice, and I know that when the missus is happy, all is well. Besides, she doesn't flinch when I get a new motorcycle jacket or helmet. It's a two-way street.

Our next camp was in Dry Valley, about halfway between Moab and Monticello. We just turned off the highway and headed up a dirt road until we spied a nice little arroyo that looked cozy.






My wife says that this last one looks like an advertisement. Fair enough, but this trip was most definitely an unsponsored event! Hmmm...maybe we should have slapped some stickers on the truck and asked for handouts. Hey folks, this next picture is brought to you by the kind folks who make the Solar Camp Shower! Seriously, this inexpensive little item made me skeptical at first when SabreWife asked me to get it, but after one use I was a believer. Good stuff.



OK, on south we went, toward the Needles District and a date with off road destiny....

 

[Sabre]

We stopped at Newspaper Rock, an amazing paleolithic site that, in one small area, contains approximately 2,000 years of petroglyphs left by a variety of ancient people as well as more modern Native Americans.




Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with Elephant Hill, which is described in the guidebook as "extremely challenging, technical and difficult." The ranger emphasized the need for a lifted vehicle with lockers. We didn't have our hearts set on making it, but we wanted to at least experience trying. Well, the Montero didn't have much problem with the ledges, but we learned at this point that the transfer case electrics had packed up, something that I had fixed before leaving but which had reared its head again. This left us with no low range and no transfer case lock. Coupled with the fact that we lost a fair amount of ground clearance on our unlifted vehicle when we aired down the tires, it meant that we just weren't going to make it without really thrashing the truck. The trail is so narrow that it really isn't possible to pick much in the way of alternate lines when approaching obstacles. After climbing about a quarter of the way up, we both decided that it wasn't wise to push it, that neither we nor the poor Montero were having fun. At this point we had one of those moments of serendipity that adds little grace notes into our lives.





Just coming off the hill were a small group of folks who had been out in the backcountry for a long time. They were being led by noted 4x4 expert Bill Burke. Bill stood by and watched our efforts, then graciously and expertly guided us as we backed down off the Elephant. He made what would otherwise have been a clumsy and noisy bang-bang-bang into a smooth, graceful process. We laid out maps on the hood and he gave us some great ideas about alternate routes. Not only is this guy an honest guru among the offroading community (look him up if you don't already know about him), but he is a genuinely kind and generous fellow who made what could have been an embarrassing and discouraging moment into a learning opportunity and left us feeling confident and enthusiastic. Thank you, Bill. You're a class act.




We decided to leave Needles for the next trip and headed north to explore some slickrock areas. We poked around Mail Station Wash a bit to enjoy the sensual contours of the sandstone.








We stumbled upon a place we'd read about, the Rocklands Ranch community. These folks have carved, drilled and blasted into Hatch Rock and have formed a community that lives embedded in the rock. As you can see, it's rather ingenious, even if some of the designs are rather, erm, unusual. There's no accounting for taste.

 

[Sabre]

We next visited Looking Glass Rock, another one of those fascinating lumps of rock that populates the area, rearing up to serve as a landmark for people through the ages, including the earliest settlers and ranchers in the area. Many of them have carved their names on it, in addition to the predictable leavings of more modern passers-by.






It's hard to really understand the scale of such places. They look like fairly small things until you're upon them. Even in pictures, the proportions can be misleading. Those full-size trees down there look as if they're just little shrubs a short distance away.



I mentioned that my previous camping experience consisted primarily of living out of a backpack; everything for a week would be carried. Naturally, this new way of doing things required a change of attitude. Happily, I found that it was effortless to switch gears and enjoy eggs, sausage, toast, strawberry jam and real coffee for breakfast. What did I eat for breakfast in the backpacking days? Hmmm...can't remember now, but it wasn't anything like this! This was a nice little spot we found south of the Moab Rim near Bridger Jack Mesa.




After yet another night of mindblowing stars, the Milky Way splashed brightly across the night sky, we enjoyed a nice breakfast and then headed north on a trail that wasn't on our map. I had downloaded a GPS track called "Behind the Rocks Tip Toe" that led north through Hunters Canyon. Yet more spectacular scenery, interesting geology (we were quickly becoming hooked on the natural history of this wild landscape), and some fun obstacles on which to practice.







The GPS track turned from blue to red, and we soon found ourselves pushing up past Window Arch into Pritchett Canyon.




This track proved to be, like Elephant Hill, just a bit too much, especially given the fact that we really didn't know where it went or what lay ahead, as it wasn't in our guide book. After pressing on past some pretty gnarly terrain, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and turned back. This trip was about exploring and testing our limits, but not pushing them too far. I was in Mountain Rescue for years, and know that the decision to climb down is often difficult for many climbers to make. Stubbornness can lead to disaster. It's like blue water sailing: I prefer to reef early.

Our last night in the Moab area was spent off the Willow Flats Road, just outside Arches. We planned to spend our last day exploring Arches, and tackling a trail that looked like a lot of fun: the Eye of the Whale.



We entered the park via Willow Flats, itself a very nice road, even if it's quite flat. Well, it's called Willow FLATS for a reason....









After enjoying this road, we entered the central part of Arches and joined the throngs of tourists goggling over the spectacular scenery. This was the only day of the entire trip that we saw many people. How cool was that? Well, perhaps COOL isn't the best word....

 

[Sabre]

After gawking at the sights from the pavement, it was time again to head off into the dust and rock. We headed northwest on Salt Flats Road, almost closing the circle on the spot that had been our first stop in the area. We met some nice guys from Florida who were in two heavily-modified Jeeps. I broke out the guidebook and helped them sort out the route, and they graciously let us go on ahead, starting the climb up the first part of Eye of the Whale. I hoped they wouldn't be too impatient waiting for us to pick our way up. SabreWife was gaining confidence in her newfound role as a spotter. This was really, really fun!






Woot! Check out that articulation on the mighty Montero! Heheheheee.







We made it to the top! Yes we did, and without breaking anything. In fact, not even any real scrapes. We were starting to sort of figure this stuff out. Sort of. We paused and let the Floridians go past, enjoying watching their highly technical vehicles glide over the terrain.




Then it was our turn to continue. What a fantastic last day in Moab!

 

[Sabre]

We descended the other side of the bluff, heading down toward Little Valley.






A lot of the trail after the initial steep climb and descent is that soft sand. Some of these areas are off-camber and really added a bit of pucker factor as we explored the tilt limits of the Montero.



Oh, and it was hot. Plenty hot. Like, really very hot! But, you know, it was a dry heat, so....








So, as we were coming off the trail, we came upon the backside of a sign. Turning around, we read this:



Good thing we hadn't seen this at the start, or we might have been discouraged! From here we doubled back down Willow Flats, aired up the tires, and hit the highway for the long road home. We would be driving diagonally across Utah as those fires were burning. All through central Utah and up through Salt Lake, the air was heavy with brown smoke.

We camped in a wildlife area in southern Idaho, and discovered a little oasis of birds and plants, so different from the stark, arid beauty of southeastern Utah. And all of it...the dry sand, the smell of sage, the hot rock, as well as the cool mountain breeze and bubbling, watery song of the red-wing blackbird...all of it was wonderful in its contrasting beauty.







After spending the night with my dear childhood friend, who now lives in Walla Walla, we visited Palouse Falls State Park, a lovely spot halfway between the tiny hamlets of Starbuck and Washtucna. We plan another trip to photograph the old buildings in the many small towns of southeastern Washington. These are some of the most beautiful small American towns we've ever seen, each one a small jewel in the dry, rolling hills of the Palouse.





This ten-day odyssey was an amazing adventure. We were fascinated with the geology, the plants and animals, and the cultural history of Utah. We also had a ball exploring our off road abilities and learning how to negotiate terrain. I was blown away with my wife's enthusiastic response to this! Soon after leaving Moab, my wonderful bride turned to me and said, "you know, I think we need to lift the Montero about two inches."

I was stunned.

"And can we get some of those slider rail things that protect the rocker panels?"

Stunned and happy. And she's been excitedly talking about the trip ever since, and looking at the calendar to see when we can return. How cool is that?