My wife and i are headed to Utah this spring for a week if running trails in our LJ "Sanchez". Any advice on things like: best place to stay? Best trail guide books? Best trails? Anything like that. We will be staying in hotel or vrbo,s. We want challenging trails good for landscape photography. We are not rock crawlers. Our Jeep is lifted, winch, sway bar disconnects, but it's otherwise stock. Looking to do more than just drive dirty roads though. More like overland than crawler. Love a challenge, but not interested in tipping on my side. Thanks for any advice.
I just spent 9 days out there in a stock suspension Tacoma(full skids and sliders though) with minimal damage. I don't think you'll have much of a problem. We did Hell's Revenge, Top Of The World, Schafer's Switchbacks, Chicken's Corner and a bunch more I can't remember. We camped at 4 different spots, so I'm of no help on hotels or vrbo's.
Highly recommend doing the Elephant Hill trail. It has everything you're looking for. It does have tough spots but nothing you need a locker for. Views for days and unlike anything else. You will need a permit and it's in Canyon Lands NP so there is an entrance fee.
Fins and Things is the classic warm up trail... Do it first and it will get your feet wet to what the area will bring you. Hell's Revenge trail is one of the most iconic of all in the Moab area, it's a must do and has bypasses for most of the challenging stuff. Chicken Corners is always a fun drive. And don't miss Top of the World.
Having just done Top of the World, it's highly overrated.
The trail is mediocre with interspersed large ledges and enough rock the whole way to just beat you up. The view at the top is the only reason to go. Having done it once, I'll never do it again.
you need to do the rose garden route at least once. I actually have done it a bunch and one of those trails I don't get tired of just because of the views. I agree Elephant Hill is a must do along with the hike to the deep crack.
funny SOB hill seemed like one of those man this is going to be tough coming back up because the turn was sharp going down but going back up was a non event. There is the one switch back on the way down/up early on that is tight. It tells you to back in but I just did a 3 point turn. My buddy did the back up thing and it took him 4X longer. Coming back up he did the 3 point turn instead. Really is a cool trail and it would be a good one to camp at Devils Kitchen. Ranger told me he has never seen all the permits get taken in all the time he has worked there. We did get checked so yes get your permit. I had gotten mine online.
Also for pure scenic pleasure the White Rim is awesome and if you get lucky you could get a camp permit at the Crack or Candlestick. We got Candlestick on Nov 3 this year and I have been camping all my life (60yoa) and this was a top 3 campspot. It was incredible. If going camp at least part of it. Many great places on Sandflats. For motels we like adventure inn it is cheap and clean.We are only in the room for 6 or 7 hours a night anyway. Camp camp camp.
Thank you so much for the tips so far guys! We are definitely not opposed to camping a little. I noticed that all the advice so far is moab based. We are hoping to put together more of an overland style trip where we run all day on trails and cover a lot of territory. I have already mountain biked most of Moab on several vacations. In a perfect world i would like to be on the trail all day then start in a different town each night. That way i don't have to haul food and gear, etc
Well, head over to SW Utah, the St. George/Hurricane. We have some of the best rock crawling and sand dune trails ever. That, and some great scenic dirt roads. Big bonus is if you're a mountain biker. Gooseberry Mesa is world renowned, as are the surrounding trails. Hit me up if you come this way and I'll show you around.
in reality is over 90 miles because you have to do a lot of dirt just to hit the actual trail tho. totally move adventure, as I can think of only one place where I even slipped it into 4wd (hardscrabble) and if I would have wanted probably could have been just fine going up that in 2wd.
Play around in Sand Hollow. East Rim, Toquerville Falls, Honeymoon Trail are all low impact scenic runs. There are others on the West side of the I15 that are also pretty scenic. If you do Toquerville Falls, it is a graded road, but is worth the drive. If you continue through Rattlesnake canyon, which is where you go if you dont backtrack, things can get...interesting. Very pretty, but you will be getting out to find the trail, and the best place to come out of the creek, etc.
Coming from the north to Price you could run Devils Racetrack down through the Swell and Behind the Reef over toward Hanksville. Poison Springs canyon over through Sunset Pass then down towards Hite and around to Blanding. Do Hotel Rock and Elephant Hill coming up to Moab. Spend some time around there. Head home up to Green River. Do Black Dragon wash over to Buckhorn Wash. Take it north back toward Price. Epic trip right there.
Another option would be to head over toward Escalante from Hanskville. You could spend some time on the Boulder Mountain, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon.
Jeeptheusa.com and adventr.co are two websites that have a lot of downloadable GPX tracks for these areas.
Now we are talking! That sounds like what we are looking for. Thank you so much. Would that eat up a week? Also, can any of you folks recommend the best device to add to my Jeep to help me navigate these trails? I know it can get hard to know if you are going the right way out there. I have a little handheld gps for hunting, but it's really hard to navigate in a vehicle with it.
Here's what we will be running in. Any must have mods she will need to do this trip. We will have the soft top on though... Unless hard top is better, i assume soft top is the way to go down there.
If you want a real remote, scenic adventure (but which would need multiple consecutive nights camping to really enjoy) you could look for camp permits (required and limited in quantity but can be reserved well in advance online) in the Maze District of Canyonlands. This is by far the least traveled of the 3 Canyonlands NP districts, on the west side of the Green and Colorado rivers. Similar idea to White Rim, more overlanding style than crawling, though there are some minor (for a Jeep) obstacles on the way out there through Teapot Canyon. But this is about the most remote place you can drive to in a National Park if not the lower 48, and some of the campsites like the Maze Overlook, Dollhouse, Land of Standing Rocks, are in really spectacular settings. Tons of great hiking out there too, can go see the Harvest Scene pictographs down in the maze canyons. A really wild place. It's also where I decided to buy a Jeep, as I rented one to spend a week out there after the 2017 eclipse (which I saw up in Idaho).
Here's a view from one of the campsites, you can basically drive your Jeep right up to this point:
Here's another campsite, nestled inside a rock formation area called the Dollhouse:
And this isn't like camp grounds out there, but a handful of small camp sites with only one group of people per site, so it maintains a remote and lightly traveled feel. There were actually no other people out there when I went, because it was still pretty hot at the end of August. Probably be a number of groups out there in the more temperate spring though.
As for navigation, the best route is finding a good hiking type navigation app assuming you have a smartphone or tablet. I use backcountry navigator on android, Gaia GPS is also very popular. You can download all manner of maps (topo, aerial/satellite imagery, etc) for offline use in the sticks.
Overland type routes:
John Brown road from Colorado into Moab.
White Rim Trail.
Long Canyon Rd.
I haven't wheeled anywhere else in Utah other than Moab.
I use Backcountry Navigator app with Moab trail maps loaded in conjunction with the latest Charles Wells Moab trails book. The app shows exactly where you are on the trail and syncs with the maps in the book.
I usually rent a sat phone to take with my when I'm going into the boonies on extended trips.
You guys are awesome! I can't tell you how much i appreciate these tips. You are starting to make me think we should outfit to camp in this trip. I will admit though, we live out on a ranch in Montana and we spend a lot of nights camping, so on a vacation I do appreciate a nice bed and a hot tub after some good dining. However this trip is, for us, all about finding those magical hidden places that we have come to love about the Southwest desert. My wife is an amazing amateur photographer, and i just plain love exploring. I wish i could find a Jeep guide down there. Lots of Jeep tours, but they cater to tourists who want to be driven around or rent a Jeep. Haven't seen anything that is defined for a person who is bringing their own Jeep. Someone should open a business where they put together the routes and the lodging and the maps and stuff, then turn folks loose in their own rigs. I bet a lot of folks would bite on that.
where at in Montana? there are lots of tour type places in Moab. If your wife wants to photograph at night camping is the way to go. I have lived in Montana my whole life and camped all over the state but I do not think I have seen a night sky like in Moab on the White rim. camp a couple nights motel it fora night and camp again.
I have not stayed here but every time I go by I think man that would be a cool place to stay.https://redcliffslodge.com
Also dan mick in Moab will guide you in your own jeep and he probably is the most well known guide service in Moab but I think it’s something you need a group of jeeps to make feasible. He and his family are running tours steady.
Thanks guys! Much appreciated. I think we have decided to make this trip focused on SW Utah, so now just have to decide which town is best to base out of for the week and then decide which of the trails in that area are the best. Open to any suggestions, learning as we go
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