Last minute trip to Utah

[jeff@work]

Well I wound up with a few free days and decided to take off for a last minute trip to utah...literally I was sitting at home and around noon on saturday I decided to take off.

Saturday I made it to right around the Utah - Colorado border (along I-70) and decided to check out a random area...the exit sign said it was for the "trail through time", I believe that is actually a hiking trail that starts just off the exit. I really had no idea where the road was going but i was just looking for a nice place to crash out for the evening....in the process I wound up getting the van stuck in a wash.

Apparently my van weighs a bit more than the previous 4x4's i've owned and I managed to get it stuck in the super soft sand. The wash was about as wide as the van is long and I managed to sink into the sand pretty well! I tried reversing, moving it around a bit...thought about trying to turn it around in the wash but i just had no room to move at all...the walls on each side of the wash were about 5 feet high. Finally I lowered the air pressure to about 25 on each tire and was able to drive right through it without any problems! I knew lowering the air pressure helps but I just couldn't believe the night and day difference...this was my first time driving in super soft sand. Sorry no pictures of me getting stuck.

After getting away from the wash I managed to find a nice little area to camp and called it an evening.

Actually before going to sleep i decided to air my tires backup since I knew it would take a while. I was about halfway through the 4th tire before the compressor cutoff...no biggie...i'll finish it in the morning and get some zzz's for now.

Sunday morning i wake up around 7:30, make some coffee, have a bowl of cereal, spill coffee all over my pants, shoe, and van floor...ugh! I had left the lid off while it cooled and I sat there and told myself..."you should really put the lid back on so you don't spill it" so of course since i was thinking i might spill it i did! After cleaning up my lovely mess and making some more coffee I went out to finishing airing up the last tire...i put about 20 more psi in it and the fuse on the compress blew...nice. I had one 30 amp spare fuse so i popped it in and promptly blew that one...perfect. The tire was only about 10 psi low at that point so i figured it would be fine and I headed out.

My first planned trip was to head over to Lost Spring Canyon in Arches National Park. According to the parks website you can get to it via a dirt road that runs from I-70 to the north side of the park. Well they say it's exit 190 and in reality it's exit 193...took me a little bit to figure that one out but i got it. I was able to follow their directions past an old mine but at some point after that I got lost...sigh.

Streets and trips was actually showing a dirt road in the area so I made my way over to it followed it to the end and it wound up being the road i wanted!

 

[jeff@work]

The north side of the park is actually where a natural gas pipeline enters the park. I was quite surprised at how unused this area is. There really isn't much of anything there and as i followed the "trail" down into the canyon I couldn't help but feel this area sees like 3 visitors a year!

I was expecting to find a trail through the canyon to follow but was having trough finding anything. I made my way down to the bottom of the canyon where I was pretty sure there was a huge pack of mountain lions hiding in the bushes to have me for lunch

I followed an old fence across to the other side of the canyon that led down into a wash area but it just ended there. I noticed a faint trail running up the side of the canyon and figured this must be where the trail goes so I climbed up to the top of the canyon only to find....nothing. Just a huge area of slick rock to walk around on. I wandered around on top of the canyon for a while and it definitely had some great views of the canyons and the feeling of remoteness was really cool. From where i was you couldn't see any trails, roads, signs, etc...it was pretty awesome. Apparently for this area of the park there's really no set trail, it just says to stay on washes or slick rock. I could see some rain clouds making their way towards me so i decided to head back to the van. This is an area I'd really like to explore some more, maybe a little backpacking trip someday.

 

[jeff@work]

Now since i had gotten lost on the way in I didn't have much faith in making it back to I-70 so I followed streets and trips again on a trail that took me out to 128. 128 is a very scenic road that runs from I-70 to just north of Moab...it's probably one of the most scenic paved roads I've ever been on. I actually planned on going back towards fruita but once i got to 128 i decided to head south a little. After driving for a bit i realized it was getting late in the evening and i figured i should find a campsite soon. I turned down a few roads that led to pay campsites but being the cheapskate that I am I wanted a free one...besides i prefer to camp away from other people if i can.

After driving past a few more paysites I entered into the free campsite areas! Woohoo! Only now i couldn't find any empty one! Finally I came across and empty one or at least what I thought was an empty one...turns out there were a couple tiki torches setup along with some wrapped up firewood. Thinking someone was saving that site I headed past it and up a trail that climbed a few hundred feet, from here I had a beautiful view down the canyon and decided to make some dinner and since I actually had cell phone coverage some phone calls too!

This area really wound have been a great place to camp for night except for that little no camping sign...ahh such minor details. I was really thinking about camping here anyways since i was only spending the night, it was a dead end trail, and since i'm completely self contained in the van I leave as much impact camping as someone does just driving through. After dinner I went for a little hike and noticed there was still no one at that campsite down below. I decided that i was just going to move my van down there and park it off to the end, if anyone showed up I'd apologize for camping there.

Needless to say no one ever showed and the tiki torches and wood were still there in the morning. Kinda pissed me off that people put stuff like that there to make it look like they were coming back to the camp site when they never did.

 

[jeff@work]

I managed to make it through breakfast without spilling my coffee so I figured i might as well quit while i'm ahead and crawled back into bed...jk I needed to check my email and voicemail so I could decide when to head back to Copper. I didn't feel like driving the van back up the trail I had used the night before so i just headed back down to 128...i should be able to pick up service along the road at some point....umm...yeah 20 some odd miles later when i hit moab i got service again! haha good thing it's such a beautiful drive. Turns out I had another day of freedom so I picked up some groceries and a poncho since it was pouring out. FYI I'm convinced the best place for expedition vehicle sight seeing is the City Market in Moab, everytime i'm there I see tons of cool trucks.

Ever since I did the chicken corners trail last year I had wanted to check out the road that went by the potash plant so off i went. It had been raining pretty good for a few hours and luckily I got to see a few water falls along the way.

The road is paved for several miles before turning into a dirt road, as i was getting close to the plant the road forked and one way says private road and the other way said public...well following the public road and all of a sudden i'm in the middle of a mobile home park...well not really turns out they were filming some movie there and had trailers all over the place, it was a pain in the ****** to work my way through there at one point some guy came over told me they were filming a movie and that the road i was on was actually a private road...uh huh...sure it is...and actually it just dead ends....uh huh...sure it does. Well according to my gps it doesn't dead end so i'm just gonna drive on through...have fun with your movie :smiley_drive: Needless to say he was a liar and I was on my way to potash trail. Keep an eye out for my van in any movies coming out next year

I followed potash road into canyon lands national park and then took the Shafer trail that climbs up to the top and takes you to the Island in the Sky visitor's center. Needless to say the views along this trail are absolutely breathtaking and the switchbacks up the canyon are pretty fun although none of this would be considered challenging.

 

[jeff@work]

I cruised over to the visitors center to see about campsites...for $10 I could get a lovely concrete parking space...the price wasn't bad for being in the park but i wasn't too thrilled about a paved campground and I had no cell phone service here so I decided to head back towards Moab on the paved road...as I came up to the turnoff for Dead Horse Point State Park I just had to stop cause the park sounded like so much fun! Okay actually i turned off cause the road to the park headed in the direction of Moab and I thought I might be able to pick up a cell phone signal. The road to the park is paved but a dirt road breaks off to the left and looked to be headed towards a canyon overlook so i took that one...sure enough I picked up phone service and found a campsite with some amazing views.

manuvering into position

sitting on my couch looking out the side door

It was a bit windy overnight but i slept great. I sure am glad the parking break and transmission held...could have been a bit ugly if the van started rolling while i was asleep :yikes:

The next morning

THE END!

...well...lets make it to be continued :victory:

ugh this should be in completed not in progress!

 

[ujoint]

Awesome pics, cool trip! 128 is an awesome rd, I actually rode my bike on a few miles of it last month. Great area, can't wait to get back there in my van.

 

[jeff@work]

Thanks! I can't begin to explain how bummed i was that i didn't have my mtn bike with me...next time the bike definitely comes with me :bike_rider:

I've put the rest of the pics from my trip up on my website if anyone wants to check them out.

http://www.jeffgully.com/images/2007/04/index.html

If one of the moderators could move this thread to the completed expeditions I would appreciate it.

 

[riverfever]

Cool pics and AWESOME van!! There is a similar Ford van (not as new) in town here that's for sale. It looks super sweet. My gal put the immediate kaibash on it though. I'd swap my Cherokee straight up for it though in a heartbeat. It doesn't have the pop up roof like yours. I bet you could put at least 10 fly rods in there and a few mountain bikes. I'm definitely jealous Jeff.

-Chris

 

[HenryJ]

Thanks for sharing! :26_7_2:

 

[Desertdude]

Really nice! one of my top favorite places to be

Well done... Thanks for posting !

 

[articulate]

What's the cover charge for this place?
Great photos, Jeff.

 

[kcowyo]

:iagree:

Nice stuff jeff. The Quigley looks right at home out in the middle of nowhere - :1888fbbd:

 

[DaveInDenver]

Nice report! The "Trail Through Time" is a pretty cool hiking trail through a dinosaur quarry. The Rabbit Valley area is fun in it's own right.

 

[mightymike]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[jeff@work]

No cover charge for that camping spot Mark! :camping:

Glad you guys enjoyed the pics.

I actually just wanted to post a follow up on this because I had emailed the park service to let them know that they had listed the wrong exit for accessing the Lost Spring Wash area off of I-70. I figured it would go unanswered but they actually sent me an email the next day thanking me for reporting it and I just checked the pdf file on the parks website and they've corrected it. I was glad to see that they were quick to correct it.