Introduction and stock rig trip advice

[XCRunner200U]

Hello all, long time lurker who is just starting to actually get into overlanding.

TL;DR-Hi, vehicle hunting, looking for some trips a stock tahoe or trailblazer can do near western Colorado, grand junction, ouray, arches np. Thanks.

I first was introduced to Overlanding several years ago when watching wheeling videos on youtube and i came across the Expedition Overland channel. Well life got in the way and several job changes later we are finally in a position to be able to pursue this more seriously.

I am currently in the vehicle planning phase, but the good news is that my beautiful wife is on board so far, and has been sending me a bunch of vehicles she would like to go and test drive. Haha its awesome to have her support, she even gave me a year subscription to the Overland Journal for my birthday.
We have been looking at all of the usual vehicles, 4runners, jeeps, zr2s, powerwagons and/or slowly building an aev cummins. We have also considered converting an older tahoe. (Currently leaning towards the truck because we need the bed and towing capacity)
Our current vehicles are a 05 trailblazer and a 13 tahoe. Both are bone stock and will likely stay as such. (Though id love to throw a full set of lockers and a lift on them but they are our current dds and im driving about 2400miles a month on mine)

My wife and I are planning a trip out to Grand Junction Colorado later this month to head to the lavender festival. From there we are thinking about heading to arches and then hitting the black canyon near montrose and then off to Ouray for a day or two. Ive spent a bunch of time in western Colorado with work a few years ago and this is my 1st time back in almost 5 years so im struggling trying to not cram too much in on this 1st trip hahaha.
The current plan is for me to drive out from Ohio to Denver 2 days before the start of the trip and then my wife and son would meet me out there. Im hoping to rent a roof top tent out there and use this as a good intro to vehicle exploration with the family for a week. I looked at vehicle rental but most places are either booked or too expensive.

Any suggestions of places to rent from or trails we could go with a stock vehicle? I have some wheeling experience and lots of camping/hiking experience but nothing that combines everything plus my family lol.

Thank you all so much and sorry this was so long!!

Runner

 

[Hackopotomus]

You should probably post this in the Regional (Four Corners) section for local advise. I am in that area quite often but not enough to recommend any trails. Hopefully some locals can get you the info.

I'm assuming both your rigs are 4x4s? Which one are you taking out? My recommendation would be to take the Tahoe (more interior room) and buy a cheap tent from WallyWorld or some place and ground tent camp. I never heard of a place that rents RFTs but you never know. Could be a bit of a hassle mounting one for a short period and then dismounting it. Heck, you could buy a tent this weekend and then spend a couple nights camping out in your back yard to get yourself dialed in and prepped for the trip.

A lot of people think they need to build a big lift, fully outfitted rig and spend a ton of money before they start exploring. They think they will want to hit extreme trails and go rock crawling. You may find that while crawling is fun, you get tired of the slow going, breaking parts and expense. Overlanding is more about covering a little more ground and seeing more stuff. You'd be surprised how much a stock 4x4 SUV can do, if equipped with decent tires.

If you are racking up 2,400 miles a month commuting you might want to think about buying a more economical DD like a cheaper used Toyota or something instead of a new expo rig. Then do a mild build on the Tahoe with good tires, roof rack and tent, interior storage, etc. Get some trips under your belt and then decide how much you want to get into this whole hobby before making any big financial and time commitments. Look around on this site and you'll see a lot of folks with mild builds that are very capable and get them way into the back country.

I have a couple built Jeep XJs but don't really use them for overlanding. They will pretty much go anywhere but I use them for more hard core wheeling (I live near the Rubicon). I use my truck for overlanding trips. It has way more interior room and I sleep in the back. I am building a bed/storage system for the back and I just got cut out fender flairs, new wheels and a set of 35" tires for it. It is way more comfortable to drive and on a trip to NM last month I got just under 20 MPG with it (diesel).

These are just my thoughts. Good luck and have fun!

 

[rayra]

I suggest you get a $200 dollar family ground tent and see how the family likes camping, before spending the very high price of the RTT.
The Tahoe will work plenty well enough, as evidenced by the Tahoe owners here (and Subs too)

 

[Martinjmpr]

As a good friend of mine once said "the cheapest vehicle is the one you already own."

For your Colorado trip I would second the Tahoe. I'll bet it gets the same MPG as the Trailblazer (or maybe even better) while being bigger, more comfortable and more capable.

Ground tent + decent air mattress (the kind that inflates with an electric pump and keeps you up off the ground) is all you really need, RTT is not essential (and if you have to get up to pee in the middle of the night you'd probably appreciate being on the ground anyway.) Other than that all you need is a way to cook (get a Coleman or similar propane stove for ~ $50) and a place to store food (decent cooler - use dry ice if you want it to stay cool for a really long time) and you're all set.

There are plenty of dirt roads in CO that offer spectacular scenery and that your Tahoe is more than capable of traversing: Alpine Loop, Ohio Pass, Boreas Pass, the Flat Tops, etc.

NOTE: Before you go camping, make SURE you check for fire restrictions! We are in the midst of a really bad drought in Colorado and large portions of the state are under a fire ban - NO wood or charcoal fires of ANY kind (propane cooking is still allowed.) There is a fire burning right now North of Durango in the San Juans.

 

[TexomaPowerboater]

+1 on ground tent for starters or even the back of a truck can work well too. For the price of an RTT you can get a decent pop up camper.

 

[rayra]

heck for the price of an RTT you can take half a dozen family road / camping trips.

 

[TexomaPowerboater]

I would also advise against a designated overland vehicle. One thing I found out quick when I bought a used Quigley 4x4 van was that the annual cost of repairs and maintenance was enough to go on a nice beach vacation every year or half a dozen camping trips. I thought it would be great for vacations and it was, but the cost ended up costing me vacations. Now I use a crew cab z71 as daily driver and road trip vehicle.

 

[CCH]

I'm in Grand Junction and can loan you a good four person tent and a propane stove so you can test the concept without investing too much. As long as you aren't hitting the Jeep trails, your Tahoe will get you many places along the Western Slope, and you'll enjoy the highway miles in between destinations much more. That is an aspect of "overlanding" that is often minimized. In the U.S., you are likely to put a lot of miles on the pavement to get to where you want to be and having a vehicle that soaks up those miles in comfort is no small thing. I miss my Jeep, but simply can't compare it to the comfort and utility of my truck.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Look into a trail called The Rim Rocker. Nothing extreme but it connects Montrose to Moab using a bunch of dirt roads/trails. You can pick it up in many different areas where it crosses paved roads. If it’s dry, a stock vehicle is plenty capable. If it’s muddy, it’ll be a lot more “fun”. But summertime in CO is usually pretty dry.

And then Ouray has tons that a stock vehicle could do.

 

[XCRunner200U]

Thank you everyone for your replies, they are very much appreciated! I apologize for ghosting here after that 1st post. Work got busy and then my schedule for next month was released and I ended up having to work right in the middle of this planned trip. I tried to trade out of it but was unable too, so my planning didn't really go much further. That is until about 1pm yesterday afternoon...

I was working on some schedule stuff for next month and noticed that someone had picked up my 2 days for work that i was scheduled for right at the last minute. Initially I was bummed because now im out of the work that was preventing me from going on the trip but now it's too late to throw stuff in the car and make 24hr drive over from NE Ohio. As im talking to my wife about this she recommends that i see what it looks like to do the trip and just not explore as much vehicle based. So I figured what the heck start looking at stuff. We found a cheap flight out of Cleveland but the rental cars was over $600 even for the cheapest smallest one. (Ive rented cars for 2 weeks for less than that price lol) if we went to a mid size the price jumped to almost a grand. Hotels were about another 750-900$ but because of the holidays and being last minute vacancy was a bit of an issue. My last thought was to check out the place where i was going to rent the rtt from and see if they had any cancellations, because I knew from when I had looked earlier in the month all they had available was the rtt. Low and behold they have a 2014 4runner trail premium that they have done some nice modifications to all for less than the price of the rental car and hotel combined.

All of this took a few hours to come together and we had to be out mid morning for the flight out of Cleveland. Oh and I still had to make a 3hr round trip to go drop our dogs off with my parents haha. Needless to say it was a really late night, like crawling into bed at 5am late lol.
Of course our flight ended up getting delayed over 3hrs which puts us at the rental company at 9pm local, but they have been absolutely amazing to work with. Answered lots of last minute questions and even changed some of their plans at the last moment to help take care of us! I write this response during my 1st moment of free time (entertaining a 4yr old on a 3hr delay doesn't count as free time haha) on the flight to DEN. I spent a few minutes last night looking at some of the trails you all had recommended and wanted to thank you guys again for all of the help.

Im thinking we might try to hit arches Sunday evening/ Monday morning and the start heading east towards uncompahgre with owl creek pass and California pass and then towards ouray and engineer pass/alpine loop. We are open to the thought of skipping arches if you guys think we should spend more time exploring the other 2 areas. Because of the adjusted and compressed time table there are several places from the original plan that are on chopping block. I am more of the mind set of taking my time and really exploring each area than trying to get a bunch of different things in.

Any help or suggestions you have is very much appreciated!! Ill try to respond to your other posts more directly later.

Thank you again!!

Runner.

 

[snowaddict91]

Don't have time for a long reply at the moment and my phone is about to die, but I'd skip arches. Moab is way too hot this time of year. Stay up high in the mountains.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Agree. Moab is an oven. Alpine Loop has awesome views and history.

 

[Stryder106]

Third vote for CO. Since you are just getting started, here is a bit of unsolicited advice. 1) Heed the previously mentioned ground tent advice until you are sure you guys really like this; 2) Heed the advice to avoid the deserts - there's a reason you can easily get camp spots in/near those places this time of year (similarly - know the difference between air temp and ground temp if you are planning to hike; 3) Take the Tahoe; 4) Take a note pad and pen - right down what you liked and disliked about your vehicle, the tent, sleeping on the ground, cooking, etc (many of us have spent money doing a mod or buying something based on what we saw or heard - only to actually use it and then change course); and 5) Have Fun.

 

[rayra]

If time is short you might just treat it as a scouting trip and really explore just one 'destination' spot. And I'd suggest the longer stay NOT be Moab in July for a first family outing. The visual are great, but so's the arid heat. Got to keep in mind that you are selling your family on the idea of road trip / camping outings. Don't make the first few too uncomfortable. Your endurance and enthusiasm shouldn't be the yardstick you shape your trips with.