Jeremy P.
Adventurer
Over the weekend I headed down to the Needles with my family and some friends to camp, hike and drive the elephant hill trail. We made it to the park Friday evening and met up with our friends who already had camp set up at squaw flats. Our friends have an FJ cruiser but it is stock and so they decided they would rather ride with us than take it on the trail. A stock FJ is capable of doing this trail, it would just have taken a lot longer to do it and they didn't feel comfortable driving it in this type of terrain. So we all loaded up in the 4runner: 4 adults and 3 kids, and headed out. I didn't get many pictures of the actual trail but the trail is a lot of fun since there were enough obstacles to keep me entertained and great scenery to keep everyone else entertained.
The narrow spot:
I think SOB hill is washed out a bit more now than it appeared in some pictures but I had no trouble on it. We stopped at the joint trail to hike in a little ways and let the kids have some fun in the slot canyon.
We then continued south because I wanted to see what caused Bobby's Hole to become impassible according to the park service. After the trail crosses out of the park there were some short sections of deep ruts in the sandy 2 track; basically each wheel track was washed out up to 3 feet deep in some spots. I straddled the ruts where I could, although the sand gave out at one point leaving the vehicle completely high centered. Since the ground is all sand in those sections it was easy to dig out where it was high centered and continue on our way. We finally made it to Bobby's Hole and it definitely was washed out bad. It will take some serious work to repair the road, and it is up to San Juan county to fix it at this point which may be in the spring according to the park ranger.
Looking up the first section:
The deepest part of the washout in the center of the road:
Looking down, the narrow rut behind my 4runner is actually about 4 feet deep!
We returned back to the main trail and completed the loop back to the beginning. We skipped the confluence overlook since I think everyone else was ready to be off the trail and back at camp. I really wish we had more time to stay out there, and I would want to camp at the devils kitchen campground to be able to have a more leisurely pace and more time to poke around. We didn't see any other vehicles or anyone camping the whole time; just a few hikers on the joint trail. Even though it was getting chilly at night, I think this is a great time of year to go in order to get the best camping spots and solitude.
The narrow spot:
I think SOB hill is washed out a bit more now than it appeared in some pictures but I had no trouble on it. We stopped at the joint trail to hike in a little ways and let the kids have some fun in the slot canyon.
We then continued south because I wanted to see what caused Bobby's Hole to become impassible according to the park service. After the trail crosses out of the park there were some short sections of deep ruts in the sandy 2 track; basically each wheel track was washed out up to 3 feet deep in some spots. I straddled the ruts where I could, although the sand gave out at one point leaving the vehicle completely high centered. Since the ground is all sand in those sections it was easy to dig out where it was high centered and continue on our way. We finally made it to Bobby's Hole and it definitely was washed out bad. It will take some serious work to repair the road, and it is up to San Juan county to fix it at this point which may be in the spring according to the park ranger.
Looking up the first section:
The deepest part of the washout in the center of the road:
Looking down, the narrow rut behind my 4runner is actually about 4 feet deep!
We returned back to the main trail and completed the loop back to the beginning. We skipped the confluence overlook since I think everyone else was ready to be off the trail and back at camp. I really wish we had more time to stay out there, and I would want to camp at the devils kitchen campground to be able to have a more leisurely pace and more time to poke around. We didn't see any other vehicles or anyone camping the whole time; just a few hikers on the joint trail. Even though it was getting chilly at night, I think this is a great time of year to go in order to get the best camping spots and solitude.
