Four Wheeling the Red Rock of Moab and
Canyonlands
4x4xNorthwest
The adventure started
this year on July 30th with 5 families starting out at different
times of the day. Rick and Kellee were headed for Fruitland, Idaho to see
Kellee’s folks for the day. Chuck’s family and Mike stopped there also for
the night. Ken and Lana left that morning also, headed for the farm in Eastern
Washington. I picked up the motorhome and was able to get it packed and the Jeep
hooked up by 5:00pm. That put me in the Tri-Cities about 10:00pm to stay at
Ken’s folks farm. The next morning, after a great country breakfast, we left
the farm and headed for I-84. The families in Fruitland did some water gun
shopping waiting for us to catch up. They thought they might need the artillery
when we got to Moab. We arrived in Fruitland about noon and within a short time
were back on the road with all 5 families headed toward Utah.
The drive across Idaho
was uneventful and boring especially east of Boise. When we got to Ogden
everyone was willing to keep going so we gassed up north of Ogden and headed
south. We made it to Provo where we had some dinner and then started the climb
on Hwy 6 toward Soldier Summit. There is a wide turnout on the road that is used
for truck chain up area and deer hunting check station. I figured we could stay
there for the night. The train track was just across the road and the trains
used their horns at a crossing not far away. I guess the good sleep I got the
night before came in handy. Oh well I guess we won’t stop there next time.
The
day started early, as we wanted to get into Price for breakfast. Sunday morning,
in a 99.9% Mormon town; it is pretty quiet. JB’s was open and we invaded in
mass. There were 14 of us at this point. The folks were friendly and we were
soon seated waiting on breakfast. A waitress took a fancy to Mike’s tummy and
was rubbing it every chance she got. Seems she wanted to go four wheeling too.
Mike was willing but he could only keep her till Friday when Kathy and the kids
were to fly into Moab to meet him. I think as soon as the breakfast started to
wear off he knew he had made the right choice and left the waitress in Price.
You know food can do amazing things to Mike. We left Price with the next stop to
be Moab. South of price we ran into a trucker that was hell bent on getting
somewhere with no regard to whom he pushed off the road to get there. Mike
talked with him on the CB and they exchanged some “words”. I think that guy
missed Chuck’s
motorhome by about 6 feet as he pulled in front of him and forced an oncoming
car onto the far shoulder. Although the scenery is beautiful around there with
the Book Cliffs and Kaiparowits Plateau, I could have done without that part of
the trip. We arrived in Moab about lunchtime but only stopped long enough to gas
up and head for the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park south of Moab.
By my recollection the trip to the Needles area is about 30 miles. Some others
in the group thought it was around 80 miles. We got to the campsite at Needles
Outpost by late afternoon after stopping to look at some Indian petroglyphs at
Newspaper Rock. The campsite is rustic with no hookups but there is a shower
house with solar heated hot water. We had a great group site next to a large
slickrock outcropping. We set up camp and the mosquitoes started to feast. Bed
came early that night.
Our
first day of wheeling we started by going up Elephant Hill. Not an extremely
difficult section but the backside has switchbacks that require you to back down
a trail segment until the next pull out. When I said this on the CB, I don’t
think Diane believed me until she saw the vehicle in front of them. Luckily the
trail is easy at this point. We went through Devils Kitchen and out through
Chestler Park on our way to SOB Hill. Some more Indian petroglyphs at the
entrance to SOB Hill were worth stopping for. After SOB Hill, I was looking for
a short hiking trail that I had done years ago that led to a spectacular rock
cavern. We found the trailhead and started the hike in the 90+ degree afternoon
heat. Again my recalled distance was a bit short and the hike was .61 miles
instead of the 1/8th mile I remembered. Everyone made it though
except for Diane. The heat and distance were too much. The cavern provided some
much needed cooling and we took many pictures. The Kaysers found a more
challenging rock crevice to scale up and the “kids” followed. The squeeze
looked a bit small for Mike and he wisely elected to not get stuck.
On the way back we took a
slightly different route and drove over the Silver Stairs and took the short
hike to the overlook at the Colorado and Green River confluence. The trip out
takes you back over Elephant Hill, as this is the only route in and out of this
area.
I was the only mechanical
casualty of the day with a nagging fuel injection problem that I had worked on
previous to coming down from Seattle.
We
got a late start after spotting a lost horse, fully saddled, standing in a field
near the campground. Ken went over to check it out while the camp host called
the Park Service to report the stray horse. Ken ended up riding (riding
may be the wrong word here)
the horse to the Park boundary where a ranger met us and explained that the
horse had been reported missing from a tour group. We left the horse with the
ranger and got on the trail. Ken’s voice was a bit higher now.
Up over Elephant Hill
again and through Chestler Park into Bobby’s Hole and Ruin Park. I was looking
for a challenging hill climb named Impossible Hill in the Ruin Park area but we
were unable to find it. The day was wet and chilly but we found many Anasazi
Indian ruins to keep us interested in continuing the search. I had never been
this far into the park and amazed with all the large ruins on the ground. By
late afternoon we had had enough so we turned around and headed back the way we
came.
Earlier in the day we
stopped to look at an arch named Horse Hoof Arch. Several of the group took a
shortcut, under Chuck’s lead, back to the Jeeps which ended them up in a
narrow squeeze that almost left Mike there for life. He did however manage to
“help” the ladies up by goosing them from behind. Everyone had a laugh about
that.
On our return to camp it
was time to scale the rocks and find the top. The “guys” made it to what
seemed to be the highest point accessible and proceeded to give the ladies below
a show of male fertility by “flipping a moon”. The only problem is Ken’s
video camera has a good telephoto lens and the sight is recorded for history.
Today we were packing up and heading for Moab. Canyonlands Campground seems
to always put us in the “good sights”. The remainder of the day we swam in
the pool and did laundry. I spent some time at Moab Offroad trying to find
someone that could fix the Holley fuel injection. Everyone we talked to said
they don’t run Holley fuel injection anymore because they have the same
problem I am having. The unit would run extremely rich and then, like a switch
was thrown, lean out and run much better. This was going on for some time before
coming to Moab and with repeated calls to Holley tech support all they could
offer was that I must have a clogged fuel return. The folks around there have
found the Howell unit works much better and the tech support is much more
knowledgeable. I needed to decide whether to live with the Holley piece of
!?#@ or replace it with a Howell unit there at the campground. Save that
decision for tomorrow.
Moab Rim Trail. I was eager to find out if we could still run the entire
trail. After getting up on top we soon found out that most of the trails to the
west of the main trail were closed within the Wilderness Study Area. This
included Egg Ranch Fin and the Slide. We were able to do the Tire Test, well
most of the group made it. Chuck decided this would be a good place to get the
Jeep bucking like a bronco and commenced to explode the rear drive shaft. After
accessing the damage we headed out via the sand hill, Chuck having only front
wheel drive. Thanks to Rick for letting me ride along. I returned to Moab Jeep
and ordered the Howell fuel injection kit for delivery the next day.
Back on one of my favorite trails, Hell’s Revenge. This trail begins with a
challenge hill called the “Bump Dump”. Everyone except for myself took a try
at it with no success. There are several routes around and I managed to climb
one of the more difficult with some extra wheel spin. Ken couldn’t make it up
any of the climbs and finally determined he had snapped a rear axle trying the
Bump Dump. While we checked out Ken’s Jeep, Mike was on a conference call with
his work using my cell phone. Seems he can’t take a vacation. Ken headed back
into camp while the rest of us started the trail. There was a very deep water
hole at the beginning, which got water in most everyone’s rigs. We finished
the trail with the only casualty being the power steering box on my Jeep blowing
the bottom seals out. I later found that I had also lost the cap on one of the
front axle u-joints, which ended up destroying the inner axle.
Our real first day of relaxing. Ken and Lana headed for Grand Junction to
pick up the new axles for the Jeep. I installed the Howell fuel injection with a
lot of help from Rick and Chuck; in fact I’m pretty sure that I just helped
them. Shopping in the afternoon and lying around the pool filled out the day.
Everyone except Theresa,
Kevin and Daniel headed out at 8:00am for a full day rafting trip on the
Colorado River. We all came prepared for battle with squirt guns galore. Our
group was large enough that we took up two rafts. Two other people were there
from Utah and they seemed a little hesitant about rafting with our rowdy bunch.
They said that they didn’t want to get wet! How do you go rafting and not get
wet? By mid trip they were grabbing squirt guns from our group to join in on the
water battles. By lunch they wanted to join the club. The water was very dirty,
full of the red sand, and our white tee shirts soon looked like they had been
dyed that color. Lunch was provided along a sandy beach. The guides provided us
with a couple of stunts done while on the rafts. One raft overturned while doing
the tricks. The guides commented that we were the funnest group they had all
summer. All in all everyone had a good time.
We took on the most
difficult trail today; Pritchett Canyon. There are many difficult challenges in
the first half of this trail, two of which have no real bypass. The first is the
“Rock Pile”. Everyone gave it a try but no one made it. To the right was
another way up that was off camber and appeared to be impossible too. Chuck
tried this way from several angles and finally got the correct line and walked
right up. I tried the same line and was also successful. We towed the other two
Jeeps up. The next obstacle to
conquer was the “Rocker Knocker”. A
series of 2-3 foot steps arranged at just the right spacing and position to
prevent any of us from driving up. 38 inch tires and 400 hp may get you up this
one. We all opted for the winch line. There were several other challenge routes
that we played on but all could be bypassed. I tried to take us out through the
“Behind the Rocks” area but “White Knuckle” hill looked to rough for us
at this point. Chuck tried it but was essentially standing on his rear bumper as
the Jeep climbed up. The trip out to the highway was scenic with a great section
of sand that we played on. Next time in the area I want to go back just to play
in the sand.
On our first trip to Moab
we did Golden Spike and Poison Spider Mesa in the same day and had such a good
time I decided to do it again. This time we hit all the challenge spots with the
help of GPS waypoints. The Poison Spider section has some challenging parts and
is very scenic but we had no problem getting up to the rim overlook before noon.
The Golden Spike starts here. Clouds were about upon us when we spotted a rock
outcropping with a nice overhang we could get under and out of the approaching
rain while having lunch. The first major obstacle you encounter going this way
is “The Golden Crack”. Rick tried it first and longest but with no lockers
was unable to traverse it. Chuck, Ken and Mike all went across and Chuck pulled
Rick the rest of the way across. We tried “Double Whammy” next. Then we
tried some more, and some more … Mike was toasting clutch during his marathon
attempt at the hill. We could definitely see how people roll on this hill. No
one made it to the top. The rest of the day was uneventful but we did get back
to camp in time to get everyone and go up to “Lions Back” and take pictures.
Thanks again to Rick for letting me ride along.
For our last full day in Moab we decided to go see Gemini Bridges in the
morning and do whatever in the afternoon. The trip into Gemini Bridges was made
more interesting by the tremendous rainstorm we got the night before. The
normally small creeks and waterfalls on the road to Deadhorse Point were swollen
with water making for some awesome scenery. We made it into Gemini Arch but
several in the group had to walk the last few hundred feet because they had
brought their new, red SUV instead of the trusty Jeep. After leaving the Gemini
Arches area we headed back toward town via Longs Canyon. On our way there Ken
was able to help out a motorcyclist in need of some gas. Ken was also the lucky
spotter of the resident Desert Bighorn Sheep, which were reintroduced into the
area some 25 years ago. He got some good video so everyone got to see them. When
we arrived back at camp Rick and Jim’s families headed for Arches National
Park and Ken and Lana took the two teenage boys to go rock climbing along the
Potash road. It was a great last day in paradise. (Authors opinion)
The next three days we spent driving back to Seattle. We stopped in Boise at
the outlet malls to do some shopping before stopping in Fruitland at Kellee’s
parents place to stay the second night.