Terra Incognita: Into the Maze

[yeti_in_ga]

great trip ! and the added logistic information is great. thanks !

 

[Woodsman]

Great write up. I was in the Maze just a couple of weeks ago with a group of Toyota guys from Colorado. We entered and exited via the Hans Flat ranger station and Flint Trail switchbacks. It's a great place that I am excited to return to.

 

[cnynrat]

Thanks everyone. I'm glad others find the logistics information useful.

tdesanto - Just trying to use the AT as the designers intended.

Overland Hadley - I'm trying to visualize where you had that view - in the Needles perhaps?

mph - Thanks again for your advice before the trip. It was cool to see the Harvest Scene, and to spend some time hiking down in the Maze. Very pretty down there, especially with the Cottonwoods in full splendor. Spanish Bottom was something to do on a first time visit, but I'm not sure the work/reward ratio for that hike was worthwhile. I'd like to go back and arrange to have a few days to do some hikes into the fins, and also to explore up on the high spur.

Moody - I got a kick out of the Ranger's comment as well. I was surprised to hear her say that in this day and age.

Woodsman - I read your trip report over on the FJ Cruiser forum. I think you may have been there a week or two after us. I enjoyed your pics with the snow.

 

[Overland Hadley]

Overland Hadley - I'm trying to visualize where you had that view - in the Needles perhaps?

From Canyon Rims BLM RA. Truly one of the best views in that area.

 

[Mr. D]

excellent trip report and useful information

 

[offroadmammy]

thanks

Thanks Dave and Jodi for a great trip. We look forward to more in the future. And I concur, great trip report! You should be writing travel articles.
Mike & Denny

 

[nat]

Wow, very cool trip report! I have been considering going there, thanks for the logisitical info.

 

[mannytranny]

Gotta love that term....'Terra Incognita'

He certainly had a way with words.

:ylsmoke:

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Great write-up. Ditto to what everybody has said about the logistics report. I have done very little research on the area but it holds an interest for me. Having travelled it with your trailer, do you think my full size P/U will have any problems? :sombrero:

 

[cnynrat]

Thanks all for the positive comments.

With a full size the thing I'd worry about would be turning radius, but I think you could do this trip in a full size pickup. There will be a few sections where you will need to perform some 2 or 3 point turns to get thru the tighter sections, but with some patience and good spotting it shouldn't be a problem. Before our trip I found a video on line of a guy in a full size going thru one of the harder sections of Teapot Canyon. He did make it thru without too much difficulty. I'll try to find the link again.

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Muchas gracias! :sombrero:

 

[ETAV8R]

Dave!
Fantastic report and pictures. You have now intensified my wanting to visit Utah for something other than the snow. What maps/books did you use for trip research and navigation of the area? I like your use of the sprayer for cleaning and bucket for the PETT bags. Do you think this kind of trip is doable w/o an onboard refer/freezer?

Let us know next time you're planning something like this. We would gladly join in some adventures schedule permitting.
:smiley_drive:

p.s.
Where is a good place to get the jerry cans for fuel?

 

[cnynrat]

Dave!
Fantastic report and pictures. You have now intensified my wanting to visit Utah for something other than the snow. What maps/books did you use for trip research and navigation of the area? I like your use of the sprayer for cleaning and bucket for the PETT bags. Do you think this kind of trip is doable w/o an onboard refer/freezer?

Let us know next time you're planning something like this. We would gladly join in some adventures schedule permitting.
:smiley_drive:

p.s.
Where is a good place to get the jerry cans for fuel?

Eric -

Hope you and Jane are doing well.

Frankly, the best source of info was other people here on ExPo. I searched through all the trip reports I could find here and also on Expedition Utah. A number of ExPo members who had traveled to the Maze all provided some very helpful information and advice in my planning thread.

I did a lot of the planning based on info I found on the Canyonlands web site. Some of the most useful maps I found were on their web site. They have a big map that shows the whole park, as well as a more detailed map of the Maze district that shows all the camp sites with mileages and their estimates of travel time. I also found the Trails Illustrated map of the Maze District to be helpful for the big picture. As far as guidebooks, I did pick up a book called Canyonlands National Park: Favorite Jeep Roads & Hiking Trails by David Day. I used it to get some hiking info, not so much for the jeep trails.

I also spent a lot of time Googling around the web. It's amazing what you can find. I realized after we got through Teapot Canyon, which is the most difficult part of the trail, that I had seen YouTube videos of rigs going through every one of the more difficult obstacles on that section of the trail.

For navigation during the trip we use Overland Navigator running on a rugged laptop. You might have seen that on our Inyo Mts trip. I also carry paper topos as a backup just in case the laptop dies on us mid-trip. Truth is, once you are in the Maze navigation is not difficult as all of the significant trail junctions are signed.

I think you definitely could do a trip this long without a fridge/freezer, but it might change your menu a bit. At the extreme you could do it with all freeze dried food like a backpacking trip. The advantage of the fridge/freezer is you can eat better! :chef: You'd have to assess how well your cooler would work over a long period of time like this and based on that figure out what cold food/drinks you could bring. Scheduling the trip for late fall would help as temps are cool during the day and cold at night.

As you may remember, we have two fridges, one in our trailer and another in the back of the FJ. Mainly because our friend's TJ was stuffed, they didn't bring a cooler. We set one of our fridges to be a freezer, and the other to be a fridge. When we left both were completely full, and additionally we had our beer in a separate cooler being kept cold with blue ice blocks. We had a second set of blue ice blocks in the freezer, and we swapped those each day with the set in the beer cooler. Once we had room in the beer cooler we also put our frozen dinners in the beer cooler to defrost and keep the beer cold at the same time. :sombrero: I've read about others who used this technique to keep a couple coolers cold over the course of a long trip. I think a group with one freezer that was dedicated to refreezing water or blue ice to rotate into coolers could go for quite a while.

Not sure what to tell you about jerry cans. When we bought the trailer earlier this year that came with two Scepter cans, and I had some others that I bought back when they were still available, so I have a collection of them in my garage now. You can find the metal cans around from a number of off road suppliers, but I don't hear good things about how the Carb compliant cans function.

You guys are on our list for future trips. :elkgrin:

 

[sinuhexavier]

Nice pics. One of my favorite places on earth.

These are actually the La Sal Mountains...

Abajos beyond Standing Rocks

Alpenglow over the Abajos

These are the Abajo Mountains... A much smaller range that isn't nearly as jagged or snow capped.

Chocolate Bars standing over the Maze

Sunset at Maze Overlook

Great weather huh?

 

[cnynrat]

Nice pics. One of my favorite places on earth.

Thank you.

These are actually the La Sal Mountains...

These are the Abajo Mountains... A much smaller range that isn't nearly as jagged or snow capped.

Confusion reigns

Great weather huh?

We were very lucky with the weather, I think we had the only mostly dry week in October.