Once we got back to Moab to re-supply, shower, and enjoy a few brews at the Moab Brewery, I had a great time wearing my Keystone Cruiser T-shirt amongst all the heep people there for the EJS. The next morning we headed out to one of our favorite campsites, Horsehoof, located in the very southernmost portion of the Needles District. My single largest recommendation for Gresh and his new 4runner was for him to install a pair of rockrails. He was pleased that he followed my advice, as he would have surely damaged his rockers without them. The trip over Elephant Hill as most know can be quite technical for stock or mildly modified vehicles such as ours, especially when pulling trailers. I had a plan, and we stuck to it.
We did a lot of sightseeing along the way, and once we left the parking area at the entrance it took about 3 hours to get to camp. Once camp was set up, we had time for a hearty meal and a few cold ones. Speaking of cold, the temps were nearly perfect, 60s during the day and dipping down into the high 30s at night. The Next Morning we got up early and headed for the Joint Trail for a nice dayhike. Once up and out of the "joint" the views are nothing less than spectacular.
The next morning, it was time for the kids to head home back to Va Beach. The boys had to get back to school and Gresh had to report for duty by Tuesday morning. Getting him up and over the SOB Hill on the way back took a bit of doing, as my fist was slow to go up and the 4runner high centered upon a rather large rock. We had to high lift up up the r-r tire, pile some rocks under it, then winch him off. Sliders are indeed a very good thing to have, in fact a set of them is always my top recommendation to anyone seeking advice about, "what should I upgrade first?"
We got them back up and over Elephant Hill, helped them air up, bid them goodbye, aired up ourselves, went and paid $5.00 a gallon for gas at the Needles Outpost, then decided against Elephant Hill as our route back to camp. A group of Heeps really pissed me off a bit as they decided to "air-down" on the trail. We waited nearly an hour for them to finish up and get rolling . As we patiently waited on the first shelf, I just couldn't believe they chose to air down right where they did. They created a big traffic jam, as not only were we waiting to get down, about 12 more heeps were waiting at the bottom to get started. Trail etiquette was non-existent and it was all I could do to be polite and smile.. sorry but they were just assholes. Hence, we decided to get back to Horsehoof the back way, along the southern end of the park, up into the mountains, then down through Beef Basin and Bobby's Hole. It was a nice leisurely ride with great scenery, with a bit of technical wheeling once we departed beef basin.
We got back to camp at dusk, heated up some water, ate food in a bag, had a nice pull of Woodford Rye and called it a night. We stayed for two more nights, and once again, just didn't want to leave our favorite campsite. Did I mention it is very isolated? Very quite? Very perfect.. For us, this Overlanding thing is what campsites like this, is all about...
On our way out, we only had a bit of trouble getting up and over the SOB hill. I must mention that the park service announced years ago that no maintenance will be performed on that section of trail. Over the years the sand has washed away, and the rocks and boulders are strewn about makinging it necessary, if in a stock or mildly modified vehicle to build your own bridges, which is exactly what I did on both of the obstacles on SOB hill. Once on gravel road at the bottom, we aired up and headed back to Moab for a needed shower, a room, and a few cold brews. Next morning we awoke, re-supplied and headed off for the Grand Staircase..
The tough part is having the time to post up at a Wi Fi spot.. it takes a long time to just get one vid posted, let alone compressing all the RAW images.. the folks doing it for a living must have satellite connections in order to post up in real time.. thanks everyone for all the really nice compliments
