Utah Expedition 2015
Trip Report
19 September [Day 01] – Drive west, stopping in Effingham, IL
We departed home around 0645 and this was about as eventful as you’d expect. Some of the scenery through the mountains was nice, but what I remember the most is being reminded of the torque curve of the Cummins 4bt. I fought with the automatic transmission the whole time as it wanted to shift (thus dropping/increasing rpms out of the optimal power range) at the most inopportune moments. I don’t mind riding the right lane with the big rigs, but unfortunate for the Jeep that was caravanning with us.
We arrived in Effingham around 1900 and were joined by my brother riding his KLR from Champaign, IL at 2045. We quickly realized there was a Corvette convention in town and that our vehicles would stand out more than normal in this particular parking lot.
Miles covered: 726
Accommodation rating: 4/10
Mileage: 19mpg
20 September [Day 02] – Drive west, stopping in Elk City, OK
We departed the hotel around 0730 to head towards Elk City, OK. It was another fairly uneventful day, but there were miles and miles of wind farms and, of course, the open sky that I love about Texas (and I guess it even looks ok from Oklahoma). But it turns out it’s impossible to drive through OK on interstate without paying to use their roads.
We arrived at the Clarion Inn in Elk City just in enough time to get an order in to Pizza Hut. My hat’s off to my brother who rode through hard wind at night to finish up this drive (I’d later find out that this was a non-event for him). We had our last shower for a while, slept hard, and had a pretty darn good breakfast the next morning.
Miles covered: 710
Accommodation rating: 5/10
Mileage: 17.6mpg
21 September [Day 03] – Bandelier Group Campsite
We departed a little later than desired – around 0815 and, again, we started out the day with wind farms. Speaking of wind, we spent the majority of the day driving into a strong headwind as the engine was fighting against the headwind causing frequent up/down shifting and poor mileage (14mpg). This was the day I noticed that 4th gear/Overdrive in the transmission was behaving a bit fickle.
I wasn’t the only one getting poor mileage. Apparently the KLR has no fuel gauge so you fill up when you’ve driven a number of miles that would typically consume 5 gallons of gasoline. But the cross-section of a human on a KLR is about as aero dynamic as the Cruiser. The bike ran out of fuel on the interstate and fortunately my brother knew that, due to the geometry of the fuel tank and the location of the pick-up line, we just had to tilt that heavy bastard on its side and back up again and voila! A couple extra ounces of fuel to use! We drove another couple of miles to Cuervo, NM and the KLR was refueled.
Toward the end of the drive we started entering the beautiful New Mexico country. We plowed through Santa Fe pretty quickly, drove through the Los Alamos National Lab (but not without stopping at the guard booth and being reminded not to take pictures of any of the research facilities; my wife had to briefly put down her camera, much to her chagrin) and made it to the Ponderosa Group Campsite in Bandelier, NM where my dad and his friend were waiting with their Land Rover Defender and FJCruiser, respectively.
We ended up driving back into Los Alamos (8 minute drive) for some firewood and to top off the beer supply. Mighty convenient having a city so close.
After a quick dinner (thank you Campbells chunky stew), and an hour of sitting around the fire, we were off to sleep.
Ponderosa had a pit toilet, fire pit, plenty of room for tents, a couple shelters (one for each of the group campsites) with picnic tables and plenty of room for parking. It rained all night (only night it rained on the expedition) and the shelters came in handy as my brother had committed to just throwing a thermorest and sleeping bag on the ground. We stayed bone dry in the roof tent. I thought about how peaceful the sound of the rain was, rather than count the minutes until my sleeping bag started to get wet.
My wife was a bit timid on the picture front after the guard at the entry to Los Alamos told her no pictures of the facilities.
Miles covered: 464
Accommodation rating: 5.5/10
Mileage: 14.8mpg
22 September [Day 04] – Hamburger Rock (just outside of Squaw Flats campground in Needles)
After an even quicker breakfast of coffee and oatmeal, we set off for our first night in the Canyonlands. This was a much more interesting drive. We stopped for a quick photo-op at Valles Grande (and to let the turbos on the diesels cool down after a drive through the mountains). Then we took the long stretch of dirt road that is Route 126 to Cuba, NM where we refueled and got some awesome gas station carne asada burritos. We made a grocery/ice/beer stop in Farmington, NM where we had to post guards at the vehicles and actually run-off some would be thieves from stealing gear off the vehicles while we were in the store shopping. We stole enough from the Indians; I suppose they were just trying to get some of it back.
We made it to Hamburger Rock just before dark and got camp set up. I was surprised to find out that NPS had installed an enclosed pit toilet at the entrance to Hamburger Rock (but they’re also charging $6/night; I guess that’s a trade-off I can handle). We had time for a decent meal of sausage, red beans, and rice and a couple Tecates. Since we were outside the park, we didn’t have to worry about fire restrictions so we enjoyed a fire for a while after scrambling around on Hamburger Rock, and before turning in.
Miles covered: 334
Accommodation rating: 6.5/10
Mileage: 16.1
23 September [Day 05] – Wooden Shoe Group Campsite
Typically, our modus operandi is to leave Hamburger Rock early enough to grab a site at Squaw Flats campground. On this particular day, there were earlier birds than us and we found ourselves SOL. Maybe we should’ve skipped the breakfast burrito cooking time and opted for coffee and granola bars to get to Squaw flats earlier. Fortunately, we ran into a very helpful park ranger and he suggested the Wooden Shoe group campsite. After working with another incredibly helpful park ranger at the visitor center, we secured two nights at the Wooden Shoe group campsite. Lucky for us, we got it for the last couple of nights before the nightly rate went from $33 to $70.
The Wooden Shoe group site has a lot going for it. Seclusion, pit toilet, water source, lots of room, 3 picnic tables, fire ring, and lots of rocks to scramble around on. I have to say that I’m hesitant to even mention it at the risk of increasing its popularity. The ground dwellers all decided to forego tents and managed to find good flat spots to throw down ground tarps and sleeping bags. There were a few good flat parking spots for those of us with RTTs as well. After making camp, we set out to do the Squaw Canyon/Big Spring hike which was around 8 miles of good hiking with rock scrambling, cool scenery, and plenty of shade spots for resting and lunch. We started the hike around 1330 and we made it back just around sunset, around 1800.
After a challenging hike, we decided it’d be best to reward ourselves with a ribeye dinner, some high quality box wine, and a couple cigars around the campfire.
Miles covered: N/A
Accommodation rating: 9/10
Mileage: N/A
24 September [Day 06] – Wooden Shoe Group Campsite
Breakfast was redneck Eggs Benedict (English muffin, topped with fried Canadian bacon, fried egg over-easy, and Tabasco), followed by unloading the vehicles of extraneous weight and setting off for Elephant Hill around 1100 (a bit too late, as it turned out).
The 80 Series, Defender, FJ, and Jeep made their way over Elephant Hill handily, but slowly. Four vehicles and their four respective spotters, take a little longer than one vehicle trucking along. We were also being fairly careful as we all had to drive our vehicles home (2100 miles, 1400 miles, and 1000 miles). The speed wasn’t enough to get us to the Confluence Overlook trailhead in enough time to make the hike and get back over Elephant Hill before dark. The thought of going over Elephant Hill at night didn’t thrill us, so we made the overwhelmingly disappointing decision to NOT hike out to the Confluence Overlook. However, we all still completed Elephant Hill without major breakage, and that was accomplishment enough for the day.
Due to the disappointment of not doing the Confluence, we all needed an extra beer to wash down the side of sadness that accompanied the Jambalaya.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih1IP9Sf_qE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMZt7kO1dQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBNDP23BdhM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66qAMKXuJQo
Miles covered: 17.2
Accommodation rating: 9/10
Mileage: Not good
