Off Roading White Rim Trail Expedition - Part 2

[DonCurley]

Here is part 2 ...

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What goes up must come down, so here is a shot of yours truly and Steve coming down the backside of Murphy Hogback:
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Here's an “advertisement shot” for Outfitter campers with Candlestick Tower in the background:
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For the second big obstacle, here is Steve & Ben coming up to the entrance of Hardscrabble Hill. This is much longer than Murphy Hogback, with a lot of switchbacks that are steeper in quite a few sections. You basically need to just keep on going up and up in 4-wheel-low (so not many photos got taken during this section):
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Here is Steve & Ben coming down the back side of Hardscrabble where it's getting pretty easy again:
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And here is a long-distance shot of our second camp at Taylor Canyon (at roughly the 80 mile mark on the WRT). You can see our three trucks parked down near the wash:
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It rained a bit on the night of 3/16, so while a bit damp, we did not encounter any significant mud on the remaining part of the WRT when we left Taylor Canyon that morning (versus the heavy rain that had been forecasted). Just when we thought we had put all the difficult stuff behind us, we ran into a really narrow shelf section of the trail with a rock wall on the passenger-side and a vertical drop-off on the drivers-side overhanging the Green River. We lightly tagged the casing of our side awning against the wall when we rocked a bit at one point (luckily it's mostly a cosmetic crease in the outer casing). Anyway, here is a shot of coming up the side of the mesa on the Mineral Bottom Road leading up to the top of Island in the Sky (and you can see the Green River down in the bottom of the canyon):
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Once we got on top, we saw that the rain we had down at the 5000 foot level on the WRT had turned to snow at the 6000 foot level of the mesa top. Here is a shot of that before we headed out the remaining 11 miles of the Mineral Bottom Road (or Horsethief Trail) before rejoining Hwy 313 and pavement.
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I might add that Steve had kidded before the trip that he hoped to run into mud since he had bought a new set of ProComp M/T tires for the trip. Well, he got his wish on this road. The further we traveled on it, the worse it got. We were all throwing copious amounts of mud up under our trucks and all over the leading surfaces of our campers. You had to keep your speed up though and stay in the center, crowned part of the dirt road as things got pretty squirrelly and it would be easy to get bogged down. This ultimately led to an almost hour visit at a car wash place in Moab, where we must have sprayed off more than a 100 pounds of mud from each vehicle. Here's a shot of that happy effort:
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After fueling up and grabbing a quick bite of lunch, we headed into Arches National Park just north of Moab. We hiked around the Windows section getting a number of shots of the many arches in that section of the park. Here is one of Double Arch:
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We then headed west on the Salt Valley Road, which is a sandy road in a wash bed that leads to Klondike Bluffs and then out of the park onto BLM land as Salt Valley continues westward. We scouted out a nice camp next to a rocky ridge on a side road for our last camp before we all split up and went our separate ways the next day on 3/18. Here is a shot of our camp for the night of 3/17:
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To say the least, we all had a total blast and enjoyed each other's company. The weather mostly cooperated, and the superb scenery was far better than our photos could do justice to. In many cases, the best shots of our rigs getting through the worst of the various obstacles couldn't be had as we were busy getting through or over them.

For those who might be interested in attempting the White Rim Trail, you have to get on a waiting list with the park service for the dates you are interested in. It can then sometimes take up to a year to finally get your dates and reservations for a backcountry permit, as it is really a popular destination and the park limits the number of people that can go in on the trail at any given time. Fall and spring are the best (and most popular) times to go on the WRT, with the summer months being far too hot, and the winter being too cold and snowy for most people's tastes. I would not recommend this trail for heavy, hard-sided campers, or DRW pickups. Going slow is the rule, with 2 to 5 MPH in the more difficult sections, and maybe 10 to 15 MPH when you hit “good” spots (the latter of which don't last very long). Of course, with a pickup without a camper on board (or with smaller 4x4 vehicles), the trail can be run much faster and easier.

Again, this was nothing short of a totally fantastic trip with good folks. And it just goes to show how full-sized 4x4 pickups and campers (in this case, with pop-up style campers), can really go into some pretty amazing and rugged country and make it out.

By the way, I have future plans to get a hitch extension so I can flat-tow our modified Jeep TJ, so we can hit some even more challenging areas while using our Dodge 3500 & camper as something of a base camp. But for now, we are really enjoying taking our Dodge 3500 & Outfitter camper into some pretty cool and rugged areas.

Don

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Edit: Sorry folks ... if I had connected the dots, I would have added the second part of this write-up as a second post to the first thread instead of starting a separate thread (due to the 10 images per post limitation). If I have any posts in the future that exceed the limit, I will definitely do it that way.

 

[JCoffey]

Once again great pictures. I really like the one of the three of you at the carwash. But I would prefer more of the difficult section action shots and I have come up with a way to get them. :-laf:-laf:-laf As each of you traveled with your wifes it sounded like; each of you should send them up ahead on the trail with the cameras. Thus, they can take pictures of you as you tackle the obstacles, they get to stay in shape as they basically get to walk the whole trail while you drive, and so on and so on. :-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf



On and if your wife reads this I do not you.



James

 

[Bob4x4]

Beautiful country... ... . and pics makes me miss my 4wheel pop top camper.



Bob

 

[DonCurley]

Once again great pictures. I really like the one of the three of you at the carwash. But I would prefer more of the difficult section action shots and I have come up with a way to get them. :-laf:-laf:-laf As each of you traveled with your wifes it sounded like; each of you should send them up ahead on the trail with the cameras. Thus, they can take pictures of you as you tackle the obstacles, they get to stay in shape as they basically get to walk the whole trail while you drive, and so on and so on. :-laf:-laf:-laf



On and if your wife reads this I do not you.



James

James,



We also wish we had more shots of the more difficult stuff on the WRT, however, during those times, we were in 4-low (sometimes pedal-to-the-metal) and just trying to get through and keep going. They weren't the times that one might say, "Hey, let's pull up here and take some shots". In fact, in a couple of places, you had no clearance to even open the passenger side door (rock wall right there), and if I had opened the drivers side door, I would have stepped right off the edge of a shear drop-off.



And actually, since we were leading this off-road trip (with our Dodge in front of the Fords to blaze the trail for them), my wife did get out numerous times and would take shots back at the other two trucks, sometimes scrambling up to a higher point for a better vantage. But again, in the really bad spots, there just wasn't much of an opportunity to do that.



Don

 

[DonCurley]

Beautiful country... ... . and pics makes me miss my 4wheel pop top camper.



Bob

Yeah, it is really beautiful country around here (and the Colorado Plateau in general). We were Californians (Bay Area), and recreated in this area for almost 30 years (mostly 4-wheeling) and got tired of leaving. So, we up and sold everything and moved here in '99 and have never regretted it. We were always tent campers with our smaller 4WD vehicles (Scout II, Jeep XJ, Jeep ZJ, and now a Jeep TJ), so it has been an interesting move up to a full-size Dodge pickup with a pop-up camper and taking this much larger, heavier, and higher COG rig off-road. But we love our Outfitter camper and would never go back to tents.

 

[Moab4x4]

Hi Don,

Welcome to TDR!

Great pictures!! Makes me want to go for a drive!

I don't have the camper, but I wheel my 92 CTD a little and it is a blast. I love that torque on the fins. I'll have to keep an eye out for your rig.

See ya around town.

Ken

 

[DonCurley]

Hi Don,

Welcome to TDR!

Great pictures!! Makes me want to go for a drive!

I don't have the camper, but I wheel my 92 CTD a little and it is a blast. I love that torque on the fins. I'll have to keep an eye out for your rig.

See ya around town.

Ken

Hi Ken,



Thanks much for the welcome! Believe me, strapping even a lighter-weight camper on the back of a full-sized Dodge pickup makes doing even "easy rated" 4x4 trails around the area a much different and bigger challenge than would otherwise be the case. Here are some shots of our locked & loaded 2000 Jeep TJ (with a modified 5. 9L Dodge Magnum V8) that we would typically do the trails around here in:

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I'll also keep an eye out for you and your Dodge in Moab.



Don

 

[MSicotte]

Beautiful pictures and write up Don, well done. You answered my big question there in the last paragraph. I have an Arctic Fox 860 camper and fully loaded its 4900 lbs. Looks like that trip is off the list, but at least I can see some good pics, Cheers, Marc.

 

[DonCurley]

Beautiful pictures and write up Don, well done. You answered my big question there in the last paragraph. I have an Arctic Fox 860 camper and fully loaded its 4900 lbs. Looks like that trip is off the list, but at least I can see some good pics, Cheers, Marc.

Thanks Marc. And sorry to say, but honestly, if you took your AF 860 on the White Rim Trail, you would likely not get out of there without some potentially major damage to your rig. True, an Earthroamer made it once upon a time, but not without hitting an overhang pretty badly. I know one die-hard guy on RV.net plans to make the trip this year (might even be this month if IIRC) with his Ford F-250 long bed along with a Lance 815 extended cab-over camper. Truthfully, off-road driving experience and a good dose of luck definitely play a role, so anything is possible I suppose.



Don

 

[cksh8me]

Great job! I like the speeds you travel it's alot easier to see the country at 2 to 5 and 10 to 15 than 35 to 40.

 

[DonCurley]

Thanks, and that's true about seeing the scenery better, but with a camper in your bed and considering the terrain in many spots, you can't really go much faster without trashing the camper or perhaps even some suspension components.

 

[DonCurley]

Thanks Marc. And sorry to say, but honestly, if you took your AF 860 on the White Rim Trail, you would likely not get out of there without some potentially major damage to your rig. True, an Earthroamer made it once upon a time, but not without hitting an overhang pretty badly. I know one die-hard guy on RV.net plans to make the trip this year (might even be this month if IIRC) with his Ford F-250 long bed along with a Lance 815 extended cab-over camper. Truthfully, off-road driving experience and a good dose of luck definitely play a role, so anything is possible I suppose.



Don

As a follow-up, I did hear back from the guy with his Ford F-250 long bed along with a Lance 815 extended cab-over hard-sided camper. He and his wife did attempt the White Rim Trail in June, but he only got about 1/4 of the way around the easy side before Park Rangers turned him back. There had been some thunderstorms that dumped over on the second (more difficult) half of the trail which caused them to close Murphy Hogback and Hardscrabble Hill. I didn't say this to him, but I personally think it was a good thing that he got stopped because of weather and road conditions while over on the easy side, because even if there hadn't been the weather and he continued on, I remain convinced that he could have damaged his rig pretty badly over on the bad sections of the WRT.

 

[RDusch]

This Unimog made it. great story.

 

[Boomer II]

I've been on parts of the WRT, actually camped there on my honeymoon in 77. Thanks for the pix, I never get tired of seeing pix of that area.

 

[bjonesAZ]

I also remember the Island in the Sky country from the '70s, dirt road to Green River Overlook and the Ranger 'office' was in a 25' bumper hitch trailer.



These are some great pics that bring back a lot of memories. Haven't done much there once the road was paved.



Did the Doll House several years back with the CTD, now one of my favorite off-road trails. The Maze and Horseshoe Canyon are also neat places to explore.



Bob