Canyonlands, white rim, my first major 100 mile + trip offroad

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well back early, not happy about it but the weather came in fast, and i think its snowing right about now, sand and snow = no go

got 4 days and 3 nights in, did a total of 120 miles, lathrop canyon down to colorado river, stayed at airport and hogsback, went to eat lunch at my last campsite which was potato bottom but thats when the ranger informed me of the incoming activity.* Decided to pack up then.* By far my fav campground is pot bottom, it is near the river growth and gives you a feeling of african nature with the sand and weird trees.* Their were some sand washes past that campsite and would have been utterly impossible to pass if snow was on those parts.* I mean i did have to throw it in 4wd just to get up one hill after the wash.* ranger said their was another wash with a rock in the middle, he said to do some donuts if you feel like it, so i did and setup my camera for it too, then i got axle deep stuck in 2wd, put it in 4wd, lets just say it took some work to get me out.

here are the promo images, the story comes next here in a sec

 

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ok on with the story.

I decided to leave a little early and start my drive saturday night to get there at night or in the morning.* Well I made it to about Glennwood Springs then I decided to take a nap, interesting highway around the glennwood canyon, each bound is on top of another, and their is a train on the other side of the river, well the rest stop i stopped at was near the train tracks, i stopped there for sleep, didnt really get any, train went by every freakin hour.* plus it was super cold.

next morning got to moab, saw some insane hummers, nice rigs drivin about, got wendys, topped off and went to the island in the sky visitors center.* some nice views along the way, you wont think their is any canyons till you get on the white rim itself or go down to the lookouts.* Since I was their early, i saw they had an extra night avail for airport, so i just decided to add a night and start that day.

here is the shafer trail or switchbacks that I descended on to start the trip.

nearly down the switchbacks, met a lot of cars here, but its only like 4 miles long so a lot of ppl were just driving to get a better view.

some mountain goat i assume? had my 10-20 lens so i didnt get a great shot of them, they were runnin like hell anyways, i guess my bumper scared em.

down on the rim, only about 2 miles or so from the shafer trail itself.

lol this was a funny little thing, i heard this OMG LIKE OMMMG echoing through the canyon, then i notice a little raft on the river, then yell omg like ******** yea!!!!* *that got their attention, but lucky for me they are blind.

this is the musselum arch.* i almost walked on it by accident, not wide at all

some rock potholes near the arch itself

going onward to my first campsite, as you can tell a lot of the road is flat at the beginning, but it gets rocky and bumpy and it will jar your bones apart after airport camp to murphys hogback.

at airport, the sunset there was phenominal

 

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continued from day one

this is airport camp B, this was my view when i was eating and setting up camp

 

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Day 2.

Their is a trail about a mile back towards the shafer from Airport that is the Lathrop trail, it is hairy going down the first few switchbacks but is easy from their on out.* very fun goes all the way down to the colorado river.* very nice drive as well,* my fav picture of the tree on the first page is down near the growth from the river.* its also a wash through the canyon.

i only used 4wd 4 times and this trail was one of them

sorry for the blurry pic

very interesting rock formations down this area too, i liked the erosion holes that were created among some of these rocks

not all of the trail was really easy to spot, here im on a rock face and it leads back to the given path

gotta have a mug shot, near the tree that i took on the first page.

down at the Colorado river, had 5 picnic table and a toilet hole.

its usually green, here i decided to make it red

another mug shot

more interesting rock formations

 

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continued from day 2

back at the waterfall/wash area where its just a rock path.* easy to spot if you just stay away from the soil that will be damaged.

i love these rocks

airport camp is called airport due to the tower behind it, this is airport tower here

then i proceeded to sunbath because it got hot that day, and was quite pleasant.

 

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Day 3

I was done with airport now and didnt have to stay there anymore, so onward to murphys hogback, I also passed gooseberry and white crack camps, neither that i would have cared to stay at imo. *They are nice but their views are spectacular like it was up on murphys. *the drive to murphys was freakin bummmmpy. *up until i passed gooseberry, i was driving in a sand bar with cacti and other scrubs on either side, I did preun some areas some and I think i got up to about 45 one time.

going up to murphys hogback, its basically on a high plateau, and you had to use 4wd to get up to it, just for the shear steep climb and some small off camber situations, i just let it crawl up, another reason i love that 5:1, it never rolled back.

getting up there, their were 3 campsites, two toilets, then you have to go back down the freakin plateau again, so i would not add 2 nights here inless you plan to hike muprhy trail and murphy wash, which is a day hike, I never did them, mainly due to my ankle which is wraped at the time being.

on with the pictures

this spire here is about 2 miles past aiport tower

here is another of airport during sunrise

onward through the bone jarring rocks, this doesnt look bad but man it will make you jump, a big note, my yak loadwarrior rack was tightened down, but it kept sliding down the rails, and it was pissssssin me off.

one thing is the clouds are noticablly not as high in the sky, so they give that really long range affect, plus my 10mm lens helped add some drama to it.

yes its a picture of a cactus, for one ive never seen one outside of a resturaunt or something

not sure of this area but it had some cool looking needle spires inside the canyon

on the way up to murphys, this is just one section, it isnt the main seciton, i tried this in 2wd and didnt make it, so out did i go to lock the hubs.

 

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continued from day 3

this is murphys site B, very cool site, but if you plan to do this trip, i suggest you ask for murphys A!, it has a spectacular view of sunset and you will have your breath taken away.

i was supposed to be at B, and i stayed at B. but nobody even took A or C, i just decided to take pictures from A anyways

here is the sunset from murphys A

their is a big rock in murphys A that I climbed up to get this picture

I will have Day 4 soon, but i dont have them all uploaded from the camera just yet. *so ill get those as soon as possible

my fav campsite is split between murphys and potato bottom

 

[neliconcept]

4th and final day.* woke up freezing my buns off up on the murphys hogback island area.* one reason im going to shop blackfriday at basspro down in denver tomorrow.* Well I got to the last campsite of potato bottom and decided to take a small nap around 1pm, see a vehicle pulling up and its the ranger.* telling me about the storm and about the sand washes up ahead that could be impassable with snow or rain hindering the surface.* So I got my stuff packed up, took a grand total of 1 minute.* Got out, took some more pictures, as you can tell is getting overcast from the pics.*

oh and the donuts of the last sand wash are legal, The ranger totally told me to do it, and im not kidding lol.

onwards towards the pics again.

a funky little tree at my campsite, if you look up its there.

this is the green river, i think its fun to drive near the river

near the potato campsite, its basically in the growth of the green river.

a tree at 10mm

the place where i had some fun

me having fun

me getting stuck lol

nearly off the rim.

 

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continued

now heading out of the mineral bottom switchbacks

and there you go a 4 day trip in the wilderness

then having some Christmas spirit visiting Vail to get me a coke

 

[Moody]

Wow. Very impressive pictures. Did you go solo? This is on my list for next summer. I just so happen to have discussed it with my brother in law over pie this evening...

Super writeup.

 

[SAR_Squid79]

Awesome pictures, man! That's one of the things that was a little bit of a bummer on my Moab trip. The guys I was with were always in a hurry, and we didn't get to enjoy all the unique scenery as much as I would have liked.

I DEFINITELY plan to go back (again, and again), but I want to do a trip like yours - that's focused mostly back-country, and not so much rock crawling.
...Not that I don't love the hard core technical trails too

That last pic from Vail is funny - I went through that exact same circle. We stopped right there at the Shell to get gas!


...BTW - if you're gonna make a habit out of this kind of solo wheeling - you better fill that hole in your front bumper with a winch!

 

[neliconcept]

Awesome pictures, man! That's one of the things that was a little bit of a bummer on my Moab trip. The guys I was with were always in a hurry, and we didn't get to enjoy all the unique scenery as much as I would have liked.

I DEFINITELY plan to go back (again, and again), but I want to do a trip like yours - that's focused mostly back-country, and not so much rock crawling.
...Not that I don't love the hard core technical trails too

That last pic from Vail is funny - I went through that exact same circle. We stopped right there at the Shell to get gas!


...BTW - if you're gonna make a habit out of this kind of solo wheeling - you better fill that hole in your front bumper with a winch!

yeah i need a winch, but im getting another bumper, this tjm is a peice of ####, it got towsed in carnage in colorado.

you were at the shell lol? thats where i got my drink from.

im gonna need more gear if i keep doing solo stuff really

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Too bad the weather turned ugly on you... Did you have plenty of cold-weather gear?

We are leaving for the WRT tomorrow morning, hopefully the weather holds out for us. We are pretty set up for cold weather, barring any nasty trail conditions I'm stoked to do it all!

Did any precipitation fall? Weather report is showing no precipitation for the past couple days and a 10-20% chance over the next couple days... Highs ~50F, Lows ~25F... Not too threatening??

 

[DaktariEd]

Great trip,even if it got cut short!
I gotta get out and explore that area next year!
It's killing me to see all these great places I haven't been but want to go.

Any way to plot this on a map for us to see your route?
I don't know the area so I am a bit clueless where you traveled.

 

[neliconcept]

Too bad the weather turned ugly on you... Did you have plenty of cold-weather gear?

We are leaving for the WRT tomorrow morning, hopefully the weather holds out for us. We are pretty set up for cold weather, barring any nasty trail conditions I'm stoked to do it all!

Did any precipitation fall? Weather report is showing no precipitation for the past couple days and a 10-20% chance over the next couple days... Highs ~50F, Lows ~25F... Not too threatening??

well my sleeping bag is not that great, one reason im heading to denver tomorrow to see if they have any mummy bags or id like to get a nice -25 slumberjack bag.

it does get cold at night, it was getting to be 80 during day first two days. it was getting nasty, but no it didnt percipitate.