Official Camping Trip Report Thread
- Thread starter wngrog
- Start date
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It’s a rental sportsmobile that Vince and his buddy rented rather than drive his raptor from Canada.. it’s very capable with a atlas tcase and dynatrack axles. He wanted to try out a sportsmobile but said every cabinet and things inside rattled on rough roads .. but it’s a damn cool vehicle
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Day what ? 9 ? Hell I dunno, but it was the most awesome day of the trip. We had about 85miles of dirt to cover to our next camp. But that changed some when we started looking at maps during our rest day and found a cool road that should lead to a secluded Lake Powell overlook, on paper this looked like a great idea, the map and Gaia app showed some contour crossing a small canyon , but no big deal, then hopefully another 12 miles to what we hoped would be the coolest site ever. As we all know things on the ground and on paper don’t always turn out the same. The side road we had chosen came to a BLM cattle gate that was ok to go through as long as we closed it behind us. The road dropped into the canyon and after running a dry wash climed the other side.. the van was in front and apparently stuck on the hill side. Turns out Vince’s buddy who was driving was unfamiliar with a atlas case and hadn’t engaged the front axle. We backed him down and chose a different line and up he went, albeit with wheel spin but he made it. I was next as I wanted to be in front of the vehicles with trailers Incase we needed a winch or winch point . Low range CDL and ATRAC combined for a no issue climb in the loose rock and dirt. Next up was Tom in his 4 runner pulling his turtle back. Tom didn’t make it far and required me to back the 100 down to use for a winch point. After winching over what I thought was the worst part, I moved up hill and Tom dropped the hammer on the 4 runner pegging the throttle, that’s not exactly my style of driving but he made it to the next steep spot.. one more winch pull and he was up. Next was Jim in his dodge on 37’s he made it look easy . Now Pats up in his AEV JK on 35,s Pat is my old rock crawling buddy and has tons of experience in wheeling.. his comment of “Ive got this, you all get out of the way” was typical Pat. He made it a little farther than Tom. Jim wanted to handle the recovery and pulled down forward requiring a back out.. I just knew I would have to winch him up the hill. A short winch pull from Jim and Pat was up to good ground. To our amazement Jim backed up the hill with little effort, the weight of the Cummins diesel and good weight transfer really helped in this situation. Now everyone but Todd are up. Todd is his wife’s newTRD off road 4 runner on stock tires and pulling a trailer. We offered him and Nick to ride with us or for him to drop the trailer but Todds a smart guy with wheeling experience and opted out deciding to deploy his awning and hang out and eat a samich instead of going up the hill and onward to what was surely a amazing adventure.
We went another 2-3 miles of slow going trail and knew we had another 10 or so to go. We had a discussion about continuing on and leaving Todd or saving the trail for another day and sticking to our no man left behind rule. We opted to turn around, so this gives us a trail we must complete next trip.
We now have a bunch of very desolate ground to cover, this is probably the most remote piece of land I’ve ever been in, I would be uncomfortable running it solo or with small kids onboard a breakdown here would suck, it seemed to go forever.
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Gotta take another break..back in a bit
Ok we are still on the 85 mile trek to camp and are through the most desolate part. We’ve topped out the hill and Jim suggests another way around to our camp, as usual he is spot on with a drive down a trail through a small canyon and runs into a big graded road that we will follow to our camp
Once on the graded road we go to a turn off that Jim has found on a previous adventure, this leads to the coolest place, a old miners camp where they have dug the rock out to make working and living quarters back in the day.. although cool as hell it was kinda spooky and No one would sleep in any of the caves
Another beautiful sunrise.. we were up every morning around 5 am to experience the spectacular sunrises this area has to offer
Day ? And we are off to resupply as needed, then run pavement to another place overlooking monument valley. This route took us through the Burr Trail Another home run by Jim. This is a must do if your ever in the area, it runs through some amazing country and down a set of switchbacks through a notch in the rock into a big valley.
We arrive at Jim’s camp overlooking monument valley and it’s another home run. Jim is a really unique guy and has made a 22,000 rpm blender out of a air die grinder and somehow mated it to a blender bottle. Margritias at sunset really topped off the day followed by some quality chillin and BS,n while overlooking the valley.
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Ok so I’ve finally figured out my days.. this is day 10 or 11 I think.. and dang it another spectacular sunrise ..
after watching the sunrise we pack up . The plan today is to run through the valley of the Gods then head to Colorado and the alpine loop area. I’ve been to this part of Colorado a few times but a couple in the group hadn’t and they were catching a flight out of Denver in a few days. The Valley of the Gods did not disappoint , I’ve heard a lot about it but have never been here. It’s another amazing must do area.. we needed to go down the Moki Dugway switchbacks which goes down to the valley of the Gods.. another world famous series of switchbacks .
This turned out to be my final day. For those who have been there they know what a special place valley of the Gods is. It was my first time through here after years of hearing about it , simply amazing.
1/2 way through the valley of the Gods I get a phone call. I have problems at home and need to bail. My picture taking ended and after meeting up with the rest of the group we went to Bluff Utah to fuel up and they went north to Colorado and I went south 1200 miles to Arkansas. I really want to thank everyone in this group, they are all excellent people, with shared great respect for the land and each other. I especially want to thank Pat for letting me join in this epic trip and hopefully we can return to finish out that trail to the perfect overlook. I do want to reemphize that I was pretty vague in describing places or how to get to them, some reading this will know some of the spots but I’d appreciate it if you’ll please not include it here. These are special places found by a lot of work on Jim or others peoples part and even though all are on public land and some known by many, let’s make people do thier own exploring to find thier special places, hell thats a lot of the fun of car camping isn’t it ? Thanks for taking the time to read and for letting me share this with you.
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- Thread starter
- #216
Epic trip Dave. Epic. I’m already ready to return
Great write up Dave. Looks like it was a lot of fun
Bomar
SILVER Star
Badass Dave..... I am ready to go myself.
- Thread starter
- #219
The stock 4Runner looks like a TRD Off-road.
Did he not try to use the magic buttons to go up the big hill?
It makes a hell of a racket but it’s a better driver than 95% of us
Did he not try to use the magic buttons to go up the big hill?
It makes a hell of a racket but it’s a better driver than 95% of us
. It is a off road with crawl control but after watching Toms trd Offroad winch and Pats fully locked Jk on 35,s with the same trailer be wiinched , he wisely passed on attempting the hill , plus it’s his wife’s Driver
