10 Days on the Road. From NC to CO, UT, and Back!

[Jeepinaaron]

Jeeps and adventure has been a mainstay of my entire existence. My childhood was filled with camping, fishing, and summer trips spent in the west exploring national parks. I am one of those lucky guys who found a wife who also shares a love for adventure. Our relationship has seen cold nights in a tent, rock climbing adventures, and trips to foreign countries. I have never owned a vehicle other than a Jeep and am currently on my fourth Jeep. They have always served me well and provide a means for adventure. Recently after having our first child I have been thinking and looking for a way to combine my love's for Jeep and adventure. Enter Overlanding.

I have been to Moab Utah three other times and when it came time to plan this trip I wanted it to be filled with adventure and away from mainstream. My previous trips have been spent in rental houses and this one would be different. My intention here is to chronicle my adventure so that I can share the successes and failures of my first Overland trip.

The plan for this trip would include driving my 03 Jeep Grand Cherokee and my Dad's 05 Jeep Unlimited Rubicon from NC to Colorado and then on to Moab. I recently acquired a modified Fleetwood Off-Road camper which would serve as our home away from home. Once arriving in Colorado we intended on kissing the Interstate goodbye and relying on back roads as our route from destination to destination. Unfortunately due to work schedules my wife couldn't join us for this trip. In addition to my Dad and I, my friend from work Tyson accompanied us on this adventure. Our trip included mountain passes in Colorado, hard trails in Moab, and time in Canyonlands National Park.

This trip took place from September 12 through the 22nd. I am in the process of sorting through my picture and video and will update this post in a day by day format as quickly as time allows.

Sneek Peak: Shafer Switchbacks of the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands NP



Dad making Moab Rim look easy.



The WJ (Lola) on Poison Spider.

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Day 1 and 2, On the road and finding camp!

We decided that we would drive through the night on the 11th of September and into the evening of the 12th. We had a goal of reaching Amarillo Tx for our one and only hotel stop for the trip. I hoped to have plenty of time to catch a few Zzz's before we left but that was not to happen. I love watching Expedition Overland and every season on the season opener they are scrambling to get things together at the last minute. I didn't get that and wondered how in the world you could be scrambling at the last minute to get a trip together which you have known for months about. Well, this time it was me! I was up finishing last minute details on the trailer, getting things mounted and adjusted for the trip. My nap was not to happen.

I met up with my buddy Tyson at his volunteer fire department and then embarked to meet my dad about an hour away. At 2200 hours we met up, grabbed some grub at McDonalds, checked the air pressures in the tires, filled up with gas and we were on our journey. This was really my first oportunity to tow the Fleetwood since I have had some recent modifications done. It towed like a dream, the new suspension system was soaking up the highway bumps like a champ, and the WJ's 4.7 handled the extra weight without a problem. I do not have much to write about the journey from NC to TX other than it was long. I am always surprised how long it takes to drive across freaking TN. We arrived in Amarillo with plenty of time to spare and quickly grabbed some dinner and hit the bed. Morning came quick, we were up and out of the hotel in no time.

Some windmills in TX.



We made it to Bloomfield New Mexico by lunch and stopped for some food. We are always looking for something local, or different from home, so we stopped at Serious Texas BBQ. I later found out this was a chain as I saw several other restaraunts in Colorado. But we didn't care because to us it was something new and different. My main reason for including this seemingly routine stop for food, other than the awesome BBQ, was the sign which was posted on the door. On the door was a sign which honored Law Enforcement Officer's, thanking them for their service, and offering free food to any LEO and their families from Sept 11 through the 13th. As a LEO I really appreciated this, especially given the recent media driven climate against Officers. We didn't take them up on their offer in order to support their business.



The rest of the trip was uneventful. Tyson and I were drawn in by the huge views and big mountains but I knew that we had much more to come. Even though I live in the mountains of NC I am always jealous of the magnitude of mountains which are offered in the west.

Descending into Silverton on the "Million Dollar Highway" (Is it named this because of the big views?)



We quickly located our trailhead for 585 which would take us past South Mineral Campground. I took some advice from some ExPo members to locate a place to drop the trailer before we hit the mountain passes as opposed to taking it over some of the passes. I wanted to locate a nice secluded site which put some distance between us and others. My goal were some dispersed camping sites located near the Bandora Mine. I couldn't find much information about these sites other than they existed. The road turns "rough" past South Mineral Campground and required us to finally switch the Jeep into 4Lo with the camper. The camper again soaked up the trail with ease and it was a blast taking the trailer down its first trail. As we continued down the trail we wondered if we would locate a site big enough for us to deploy the camper and awning. With the three of us we intended to utilize the awning room as a sleeping quarter. We located a killer campsite just below the mine, along side Mineral Creek....

585 on the way to camp...







...our home for three nights just below what remains of the Bandora Mine.





Tyson checking out one of the last structures from the Bandora Mine.

 

[DailyJeep]

Awesome, can't wait to see the rest!

I'm out in CO now (was in NC); I'm with you on the difference in East versus West mountains. Magnitude aside, so much beauty found no matter the size. Love being at a tree filled 3,000 feet as much as being above the treeline at 11,000.

 

[1leglance]

Following along for more...being in Arizona we get up to Colorado alot...really enjoy when I read about or hear from folks far away and how they see it all.
Great pics and looking forward to the rest of the story

 

[keylay]

Looks like it was a blast. Can't wait for the other portions of the trip!

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Day 3 - Black Bear Pass and Imogene Pass

For our first real day of four wheeling we decided to check out Black Bear Pass. I should side bar here and state that by "we decided to check out..." really meant that I looked over the guidebook and decided on our own that we were going to hit Black Bear and over to Imogene. We had a decent breakfast that morning, packed things up and bounced our way back out to 550. Apparently the first time that I discussed our plans with my dad that we were going to hit Black Bear Pass was when we made the left hand turn at the trailhead. Dad mentioned "I read that we really don't want to attempt this trail if its going to be raining." The weather forecast for the week was hit and miss, there would be no perfect day to attempt this trail so I felt there was no better time than the present.

Felt this was a good ARB advertisement. I am beginning to become a rolling ARB store and their products have not let me down.



The beginning of the trail was pretty mild and worked its way up to some fabulous vistas. I have tons of pictures and videos from this trail and only picked about a dozen for the forum. I will put together a video from our trip when I get the time, and will post that at the end. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I had my Contour camera set at such a high resolution and the memory card filled up before we even got to the spicy part of the trail.






The WJ on her first mountain pass.



Here we are dropping down after the "summit" of the pass. Things changed a little when we were at the top of the pass. Light drizzle moved in briefly while we were taking pictures and we joked "its almost cold enough for ice". Before we got into the jeep it began to sleet. We thought that we could drop down in elevation a bit on the back side, towards Telluride, and we would be out of the ice. We jumped in the Jeeps and took off. Several vehicles caught up with us at the top and were now following behind us at a distance. The ice indeed did stop as we dropped in elevation and the drizzle was on and off.

Beginning to drop down into Telluride.



Things became even more interesting as we worked through a twisty portion of trail, which while dropping down hill I completely flexed out the WJ. Things were going well, I could hear the passenger's side tire stuff up into some plastic and then we heard a "clunk, ping...ping...ping". Immediately I knew the ping sound was my front driver's coil bouncing down the trail. I was enfuriated because I had installed a custom upper and an IRO lower spring retainer. Tyson jumped out of the Jeep and retrieved the spring. We pulled down a few feet and level the Jeep out some. I was able to find a flat portion of ground off to the right side of the trail. I was a bit hesitant to even pull off the trail because I believe strongly in Tread Lightly and staying on the trail but I felt this was our only option. I knew how to fix the problem, deployed the Hi-Lift, and about an hour later we had the spring back in. I slightly adjusted the spring retainers with a BFH and hoped for the best. We made a few jokes about how we were glad this didn't happen on a tight switchback or my OME spring may have been lost forever. I flexed the Jeep to the max a few more times descending into the bad switch backs but my "massaged" spring retainers seemed to be holding. We continued down the trail until we reached a point where I was wondering where the trail went as it seemed to just drive us off a cliff.

Dad checking out the "sketchy" turn on Black Bear.



I will admit, I was a bit nervous dropping into the difficult one-way portion of Black Bear. I knew that I had the exerpience and skill, I knew the Jeep was in good condition, but it is a fact that any mistake here could be fatal. Nevertheless we pushed on down this amazing trail. Our minds and conversation immediately began to dive into the topic of how in the world would anyone use this pass back in the mining days, or was this a dedicated four wheeling trail. Either way the fact which we were driving this close to such a sheer drop off was crazy!






Bridevail Falls. How-in-the-world did they build this structure here.



We made it into Telluride for a late lunch around 1:30PM. I have read mixed reviews about this town. I appreciated it for what it is, as there are similar towns near where I live. I found it interesting that there were no food or retail chains here. We ate at a pretty decent pizza joint called "High Pie Pizzeria and Tap Room".



After a short time checking out some of the stores we were back on the trail and headed up Imogene Pass. This trail would end up being one of my favorites but I would be spending the time in the passenger seat. I drove Black Bear Pass and I wanted to share the wheel time with Tyson, who has expressed interest in purchasing his own Jeep or ExPo rig. It was extremely difficult letting someone else drive my rig.






One of the best views I've ever seen, taken just above the Tom Boy Mine area.






Weather rolling in again!



We finished out the trail and rolled back into camp in the dark. Chicken and wild rice soup rounded out the evening.

 

[mph]

U found the goods! Congrats! That is some epic country indeed!

 

[PetitFrereArmada]

These are some great pics. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Day 4 - California Pass, Poughkeepsie Gulch, Corkscrew

I should have mentioned a discussion which we had last night after returning to camp from Imogene Pass. This trip did not have a carved in stone itinerary. Loosely we had planned to spend only one full day in Colorado and then begin to work our way to Utah via Ophir Pass, then some pavement to Gateway Colorado where we would seek the dirt again via John Brown Canyon. I knew that it was between 2 and 3 hours from Silverton to Moab via main roads and as a group we were ok with making it a full day of dirt and scenery because that was the focus of this trip. On our day in Colorado I didn't get as many trails done as I wanted to and mainly we had missed doing Poughkeepsie Gulch. I didn't know anything about this trail only that it seemed to be the difficult "to do trail" in the area. After a short discussion and a lot of "it doesn't matter to me" we (I) decided we would cut one day from Moab and spend an extra day in Colorado.

Fast forward to 0700, my alarm is going off and the rain is coming down like "cats and dogs". After sleeping in until 0800 and then cooking a soggy breakfast under the rear awning and getting everything ready with the Jeep we set off. I had intention of going up to Animas Forks and then hitting Mineral Creek from the back side, jumping over to Poughkeepsie Gulch and then exiting on Corkscrew. We drove up to Animas Forks up an easy, but ever so annoying road. It was neat driving through Silverton even though we didn't stop. It seemed like a town where I could come hang out at. There was a section of roadway just outside of the town which had mine carts suspended from a cable car running up a mountain. It seemed like they just turned off the plant one day and that is where they stopped. Animas Forks was a neat tourist attraction to check out. Tyson and I were starting to get into the whole mining thing and it was interesting to see the remains of a well preserved town. After disembarking from the remaining tourist at Animas we set out. There was a decent amount of traffic in this area with all of the vehicles taking the Alpine Loop. We were not taking said loop and set out or Mineral Creek.



Animas Forks





Things were going well until I missed a turn. Apparently I should have made a right just past Animas Forks across the river to continue up the road until I hit Mineral Creek. I instead continued straight at said fork and ended up on California Pass. It wasn't until a good ways later when I realized it, as we were climbing up to the pass. I checked out the book, realized my error but decided to truck on. I blame the scenery for the missed turn as this area of the mountain was displaying every color imaginable. We made it to the top of California Pass where it was chilly with some slight snow/ice. From this picture you can see California on the right, Poughkeepsie going down in the middle just to the right of lake Como, and Corkscrew going to the left.



Tyson and I



We drove down from the top of the pass to the trail intersection with Poughkeepsie. It was chilly with the wind blowing so we decided to eat in my WJ. A lone rental JK Rubicon drove by which prompted a discussion how you shouldn't wheel alone. After eating we embarked down Poughkeepsie.

Dad dropping down into the trail.



The WJ climbing some unnamed wall before we dropped down to a hard obstacle called "The Wall". After this picture I made a hard right turn and flexed the driver's side tire up into the wheel well and ripped the washer motors out of the resevoir. Everyone freaked for a moment because the Jeep was gushing fluid but before I even got out to check it out the Jeep was dinging at me about low washer fluid. I also ripped out the wires for my rock lights which was more of a bummer to me. I intended to move the washer resevoir eventually anyways, now that just got bumped up the list. I zip tied everything out of the way and we continued. We ran into the rental Jeep guy who was wisely on his way back. After some comments about how he couldn't believe the WJ was doing so well we continued on.



Just above the obstacle "The Wall" we ran into two Jeeps and an H1 Hummer. The Jeep guys recognized us as the WJ on Black Bear with the missing spring. We talked a brief moment about my trail fixed and then they started to give me warnings about getting in over my head with the WJ. I appreciate the concern but really guys, give ole Lola a chance to prove herself. We continued down to "The Wall" despite our ominous warnings to turn back. I checked out the obstacle, formulated our planned descent lines and we got at it. It began to rain heavily which didn't help. Dad dropped down the line well with just dinging his rear bumper. The WJ did fantastic and only smashed in the stock plastic bumper.





We continued down Poughkeepsie with the intentions of hitting Mineral Creek. With all of the trash talk that I had received about the WJ I had some internal conflict about needing to prove her worth by going back up the trail. So I convinced dad, who has a very cool attitude about trying anything, to turn around. We headed back up. I let dad lead as the guidebook warned about a "steep loose rocky area which is difficult for vehicles without lockers". Lola did fine and we made it back to the base of "The Wall". Everything was soaked from the on and off rain. I drove up to the wall, climbed the smaller bottom ledge with ease and about made it half way up before vertical momentum and climbing came to a halt. Time for the winch. I winched up with no problems, turned around and winched dad up. Apparently all of the previous vehicles had to winch also. At this point I switched driver's with Tyson and let him have some experience with difficult sections. He did well, only got us high centered once. We did manage to pick up a hitch hiker rock stuck between the exhaust and the transmission crossmember. I thought it was a big deal and it sounded awful until Tyson discovered the problem. We made it back up to California and took a right turn on Corkscrew. Corkscrew was uneventful. The trail was beautiful and we could still see the red rock mountains but Corksrew added a hint of yellow soil, and farther down bright yellow leaves from the changing trees. Oddly enough we passed an elderly couple in a Mazda SUVish vehicle. They were puttering up Corkscrew and went by us like they didn't have a care in the world. I hope they were able to turn around at the pass safely and I felt a bit guilty for not stopping and warning them they may be in over their heads. But, at the same token everyone was warning me about the WJ and I was already sick of it.



Corkscrew could be dangerous. Especially with days like today, the mud was slick.



My take away from today should have been to focus more on navigation. I think I took for granite that I was experienced and these passes should be easy to navigate and that cost me. While it all turned out ok, we will make similar mistakes in the future that shouldn't have happened. On my next trip I will be plugging in some GPS coordinates and paying attention to them. We made it back to camp after dark. Another late night meal which was thankfully prepared by my lovely wife before we disembarked on this journey.

 

[chicken corners]

Nice pictures, looks like a great time.

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Awesome, can't wait to see the rest!

I'm out in CO now (was in NC); I'm with you on the difference in East versus West mountains. Magnitude aside, so much beauty found no matter the size. Love being at a tree filled 3,000 feet as much as being above the treeline at 11,000.

Yea I agree. I love living in NC but it is always a good change to get out west. Here we still have mountains, snow, rock climbing, and Im still only 5 or so hours from the Outer Banks. I think if I lived in CO or UT I would miss being so close to the beach.

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Day 5 - Good Bye Colorado. Ophir Pass to John Brown Canyon to Thompson Canyon

Have I mentioned how much it rained at night in Colorado? It wasn't so bad during the day but at night it rained significantly every night. It caused a problem on the night of the 4th night because rain ran into the camper via the slid out, some how I am still confused by it, and dripped so conveniently right onto the charge controller for the solar panel. Luckily it didn't cause any damage and only faulted the controller, as soon as I realized it I disconnected everything, with care as the solar panels pump out some decent juice.

So on the morning of day 5 the weather didn't disappoint and it was again raining. We had to pack up a wet and soggy camp. The only thing that was really awkward was packing up the awning room. We ended up just folding it up and putting it inside of the camper. We left our sweet little camping spot and headed over to Ophir Pass which was promised to offer us an intermediate route over towards Telluride and Hwy 145 (or 141?? can't remember) We would take those roads up to Gateway where we would jump into John Brown Canyon. At the beginning of Ophir pass which stated "No Trailers Beyond This Point", we theorized they couldn't be talking about bad a** trailers like ours so we pretended like we didn't see it. I didn't intend to be completely careless with the camper because I knew this pass to be narrow, my dad's Jeep would run ahead to make sure the pass was clear so we didn't cause a traffic jam. Ophir was easy and the switchbacks were not too bad making our way up to the actual pass which was perched between what seemed like the worlds two biggest gravel piles.

Rock pile to our left.


And rock pile to our right.


This is where my dad ran ahead. He radioed in that two Jeeps were headed up the pass so we sat and waited. A WK with a nice couple pulled up behind us and the lady seemed quiet perplexed about how I knew there were Jeeps coming, even as I was holding the radio in my hand. I found out they were taking the pass because 550 was closed and they were headed to Telluride. After a wait we dropped down the other side. It was tight, there was one sharp right turn where we used a spotter with the trailer but it wasn't a problem. On the way down we passed a few vehicles to include a white Toyota Tundra, who's occupants yelled out some compliments about how cool they thought the trailer was.

Ophir was a picturesque little town with a bustling post office.



I hoped to buy stamps here to send a post card to my wife but it was not meant to be.



The paved portion of our route to Gateway was uneventful with nice scenery. We stopped in Norwood at Happy Belly Deli for lunch. Norwood was a sleepy little town perched on a very windy mesa.

We arrived at Gateway and found John Brown Canyon with ease. Quick stop to air down.



We made good time on John Brown Canyon Road and only passed a hand full of vehicles and a lot of cows. It is another scenic route which takes you through the desert canyon and then up to the mesa (or plateau?) and on this date it included a 15 degree temperature drop as we made the climb. We followed the route over and intersected with Thompson Canyon. Hide-out "Campground" was our destination on Thompson Canyon. The trail was easy but it did slow us down a bit as it was rougher than John Brown Canyon Road. I hoped to make it to the campsite before dark and we rolled into the access trail for the "Campground" just before dark.

This cow gave us a stare down for a moment.



Rough section of Thompson Canyon just before we made it to Hide Out "Campground".



I keep putting quotations around "Campground" because even though that is what it was called in the book it was more of a campsite, and a rough to access one at that. The road obviously hasn't seen much use and was very eroded. It was a hard left hand turn followed by a series of off camber wash-out crossings. I was able to snake the trailer through with some good spotting. Unfortunately for dad I smashed down part of the trail which caused some three wheel action for him as he came through. There are two good camp sites on the left and several other not so good sites. Luckily the area was unoccupied and I could take up both campsites with the trailer and vehicles. I am sure it was an awesome location but we didn't enjoy it because it was already dark by the time we sat up. Our simplest meal of the trip would be had on this night, hot dogs and Bushes baked beans!

The wash out.










Of course it rained this night also but it was only brief.

 

[fireball]

Looks like lots of fun thanks for sharing!

 

[Jeepinaaron]

Day 6 - Getting another camp set up and Hell's Revenge

We woke up at Hideout Campground with great weather. Tearing down camp was a breeze and I believe we clocked in a time at around 40 minutes which included repairing a bent awning pole.

Here is the awning room deployed on the WJ. We made the awning removable with wing nuts so it could be placed on the trailer or kept on the WJ. Since we only stayed here one night we kept it on the WJ.



We made quick time getting out of Thompson's Canyon and onto Onion Creek Trail to Hwy 128. Nothing to report, the trail was super easy and the scenery was great but familiar to what we have already seen and will see. We bounced into Moab and made out way up to the Sand Flats Recreation area. We spent some time driving around the different campground loops in an effort to find a cool spot. We found one at the end of a loop with plenty of parking and pretty much away from everyone else.



We didn't waste much time in getting to the good stuff and after we set up camp we went to hit Hell's Revenge trail which is accessed from Sand Flats. I have done this trail once before and it is one of my favorite Moab trails. I am not sure what day of the week it was at this point but the trail wasn't very crowded at all and only met one H1 Hummer from one of the tour companies and some side by side's. The H1 stopped us while going down an obstacle because he felt the need to correct the line which I had picked. I don't know what his problem was, my dad already took the line and after I thanked him for his help but sent him on his way we also did the line just fine. The WJ has really surprised us with her capabilities. Everywhere we went we encountered people who were surprised that the WJ was out there on the trails. So far the Jeep has been exactly what I wanted it to be; overland vehicle, able to take on difficult trails, great daily driver.

Here are a few pictures from Hell's Revenge.

As soon as you begin the trail things get spicy.



Route finding isn't very difficult. :smiley_drive:

















Tyson cooking up some grub.

 

[unkamonkey]

Looks like fun. We spent a few nights at Onion Creek, the noseeums were terrable In June.