Utah in the fall 2015 - 9 days, 475 off-road miles, and 14 hours of digging! (PICS!)

cruiseroutfit

Supporting Sponsor: Cruiser Outfitters
...I gotta admit, cruiseroutfit took some wind out of my sails! I honestly didn't think anybody had been through here in months. At the time, we might as well have been at Al Gore's North Pole (no ice); it felt that remote...

Sorry dude, didn't mean to deflate your effort. You freaking battle through with a big rig, a trailer and solo. If you asked me, I think getting to Al Gore's North Pole would be easier :D

Loving the pics!
 

tienckb

Adventurer
Ridge, how did the KO2s hold up? Any chunking?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
2002 LX470 expo ready
2008 Ford E350 EB V10 4x4 Sportsmobile PH top
Custom off road trailer
 

RIDGE

Adventurer
The entrance to the climb out of the canyon looked way easier until I actually got the van to it.








LOL.


Second attempt...






This next segment was going to be the hardest. I wasn't sure if I should crawl it or throttle it. I decided to crawl it.








Crawling didn't work. I slid off but luckily was able to back up and get a faster run at it. When in doubt, throttle out...right?


This pic is a little out of order but you get the gist of it. She fixed the shelf for the speed run. Hahaha.


And here is what it looked like from the drivers seat...


Second attempt at the summit. That didn't work either. This time I slid too far off to the left and put the van in a bad spot. Did some more modifications to the body, unfortunately.


Because of where the trailer ended up, I was unable to back out. In fact, the trailer was leaning over enough to cause some concern.


Our only option was to dig the van out and unhook the trailer. One of the cool features about this trailer is it has parking brakes on it. We locked the brakes on, carefully lifted it off the van, and crawled the van up to the top. In hindsight, without the trailer, this would've been much easier.




I wasn't really sure how this was going to work, but our only option was to pull the trailer up with a strap! There was a slight issue with the huge drop off to the left of the trailer, so it had to be pulled straight up. Luckily there was an uphill that the van could make.

Getting the strap and shackles ready...kind of wondering if this was the best idea.




Got it!


Hitching up wasn't super easy just because there was another washout like 10 feet to the right, which is the direction we needed to go. I hitched up and then had to make a u-turn. We were finally back up on the trail, after 9 hours. We had only gone a mile and a half since the previous nights camp!!

This was the washout which started to give away as I drove over it. I tried to get high enough on the hill to avoid it but I think that actually loaded the right rear and the dirt gave away.
 

RIDGE

Adventurer
Sorry dude, didn't mean to deflate your effort. You freaking battle through with a big rig, a trailer and solo. If you asked me, I think getting to Al Gore's North Pole would be easier :D

Loving the pics!
LOL! It's all good man...and thanks for the props!
 

RIDGE

Adventurer
Ridge, how did the KO2s hold up? Any chunking?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
2002 LX470 expo ready
2008 Ford E350 EB V10 4x4 Sportsmobile PH top
Custom off road trailer

They did okay. I haven't noticed any chunking but they packed up a little. You can see that in a couple pics. The highway performance is excellent. I had Goodyear MTRs on it before and those were awesome off-road. On the road was awesomely loud as they wore down.
 

Climberclimb

Observer
Well done!! Great trip report - good for you two to push through! I would have turned around at the water crossing lol. Enjoying this one and looking forward to more. Cheers
 

mph

Expedition Leader
Well played sir...Looks like you had a grand adventure. Your stellar pics and narrative are great. Your last post is the reason I sold my trailer:) Much props for you on getting everything through. Well done. BTW...The country is gorgeous out there, right? Great shots!
 

onemanarmy

Explorer
that is tough.

Time to outfit the van for storage rather than drag that trailer everywhere.

thanks for the pics. Scenery is amazing.
 

RIDGE

Adventurer
Thanks again guys. This was so much fun. There's a little bit more to come...still have some digging to do! Lol.
 

Jacket

2008 Expedition Trophy Champion
Damn - what an adventure. I really love your van, and the work you make it do. I was out there about a week after you and camped along Poison Springs Road with the same plan as you to cross into Canyonlands via the middle route/Dirty Devil crossing. But I heard about the wash out on the east side of the river, and with all the rains that had fallen in the previous weeks we decided to head into the Maze via the Hans Flat route. Your pictures certainly paint an interesting story of the worsening conditions of the washout.

When I spoke to the Hanksville ranger it didn't sound like there was any motivation to fix that washout, so who knows what'll come of that route through Hatch and Poison Springs. Hopefully some good Utah folks will get out there and do the needed road repairs.

Looking forward to the rest of the trip!
 

calicamper

Expedition Leader
I grew up doing back country trips in a E250 2wd 351 windsor. Just amazes me what your able to get yours through. Man that 85 E250 was a beast and terrible on the PNW logging roads ha ha!! Then again we took the nonturbo vw diesel Dasher on most of those trips, it could do 30mph down the roads the E250 could hardly do 15mph on. As for shoveling. Most people that horse around with horses know how to shovel its a mandatory skill. Fun trip thanks for sharing.
 

RIDGE

Adventurer
Well played sir...Looks like you had a grand adventure. Your stellar pics and narrative are great. Your last post is the reason I sold my trailer:) Much props for you on getting everything through. Well done. BTW...The country is gorgeous out there, right? Great shots!
Utah is my favorite place by far. Nothing compares!
 

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