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Desert Off-Road Trip 2015: White Rim Trail & Lockhart Basin

You and MosesBurb have the best trip report threads on here.

Martin
 
Now this is living. Awesome!

I would seriously love to do a trip like this.
:thumb:

It’s addictive. Once you do one trip like this you will want to do it every year. :waytogo:


You and MosesBurb have the best trip report threads on here.

Martin

I think it’s because Nick, Lance and I are the only ones from the Chevy related forums that go on long distance off-road trips. Lance put his trip report on Expedition Portal and Nick wasn't able to go long with us this year due to his kids school schedule.
 
As Paul Harvey would say…. “And now for the rest of the story”

So after airing up a few of us headed into Moab to grab a late lunch at the Moab Diner then Don, my MIL and I headed up Kane Creek to camp for the night. I am not a big fan of driving at night and it was way too late in the day to start the 8 hour journey home. The funny thing is the Kane Creek campground is right at the start of the Kane Creek/Lockhart Basin lead in trail that we took a few days before. We basically made a few big circles over the week.

The final night of camping was not as spectacular as the several nights before but it is still better than sitting at home on the couch. This night was rather cold and windy with the looks of a promising rain storm yet again. So with that, we set up camp right next to the Kane Creek campground shower house up high above the Colorado River. The hill behind us and the shower house helped kill just about all the wind that was whipping around. If you all recall, this is the same camp ground we hung our hat on the final night of our desert trip last year as well. However, we learned last year that with the looming threat of rain, it is best to camp up high rather than down in the flood plain next to the river.
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The camp ground itself has some interesting features plus the people that run the place are really nice and hospitable.
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Directly behind where I snapped the picture above is a large cave that you can rent for $50 a night. That probably would be a fun place to have a party during the Easter Jeep Safari.
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The bigass black widow guard spider at the cave entrance comes at no extra charge
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The Kane Creek Campground is also the entrance to the Prichard Canyon trail
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The shower facilities at the campground remind me of a jailhouse shower but it was nice not to have to set up the shower tent this night
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It seems the final camping night went by way too fast as we enjoyed beverages, relived the stories from the week and poked fun at the endless amount of cars that went past the campground up the trail then returned back down shortly after. Early Thursday morning Don was packed up and ready to roll before I even had my first cup of coffee. He was back on the road headed towards Flagstaff before 8 AM while we took our time packing up.

We decided to take a different route back home that we haven’t done before just to check out the area. We shot straight South out of Moab for about 20 miles to Hwy 46 that shoots you straight into Colorado in short time. We’re talking 45 minutes from Moab and we’re back in Colorado although we still have 7 hours to go before we actually get home. At Bedrock, CO we took this little canyon road that runs up to Uravan then caught Hwy 141 up to Gateway then on to the outskirts of Grand Junction. The plan was to stop and visit the entrepreneur of the Discovery Channel’s Automobile Museum in Gateway but by the time was pass through I really didn’t feel like stopping and losing an hour of travel time so we mushed on.

Shots from the canyon drive between Bedrock and Uravan
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There were cows everywhere on this stretch of road
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Pretty cool old Flume that hangs from the canyon wall for a few miles. Some historic society restored a 48 foot section of the flume. Funny, as their restored section sure doesn’t look 48 feet long from where we are standing just due to the enormity of the canyon itself
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We no sooner got off the canyon road onto 141 at Uravan and ran into more cows all over the road. This one was pretty stubborn and didn’t seem one bit interested in mooooving out of the way.
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The swanky resort in Gateway, CO
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Hard to believe you are actually in Colorado in this area as it looks so much like Utah
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But about 4 hours down the road there is no question we are back in Colorado. This was near Gunnison
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We even got some snow going over Monarch Pass, which isn’t unusual even in summer months
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So that is it! That is what the 7 days of our Desert Trip 2015 looked like. The trip turned out to be a bit shorter than past trips mostly because we skipped the Overland Expo this year which would have added 3 days to the trip. In all, the total miles ran this year was only 1,191 miles while consuming 117.44 gallons of fuel, which comes out to a total of 10.14 MPG for a complete round trip fuel economy average. That is a little over 1 MPG less than we did 2 years ago on the Death Valley trip. I attribute the lower fuel economy of this trip due to the Lockhart Basin being 2 straight days mostly crawling in 4 low. Even at that, I am very pleased with the fuel economy in something this big and heavy powered by a big block.

Here is the summary from my mapping software and you can check out the SPOT GPS summary page, which allows you to zoom in right in our foot prints
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More pictures and videos may surface as the other guys start sifting through their collection as they get time. Until then, that’s it! :dunno:
 
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That spot setup sure is cool! Thanks again for typing up the report to share with us!

SPOT is cool! If it wasn't for that my wife probably wouldn't let me go out and play for a week at a time. Its also cool how you can create the summary after the trip to see exactly where we were.

What does that historical marker for the flume say?

Martin

Try this bigger pic :haha:
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We decided to take a different route back home that we haven’t done before just to check out the area. We shot straight South out of Moab for about 20 miles to Hwy 46 that shoots you straight into Colorado in short time. We’re talking 45 minutes from Moab and we’re back in Colorado although we still have 7 hours to go before we actually get home. At Bedrock, CO we took this little canyon road that runs up to Uravan then caught Hwy 141 up to Gateway then on to the outskirts of Grand Junction. The plan was to stop and visit the entrepreneur of the Discovery Channel’s Automobile Museum in Gateway but by the time was pass through I really didn’t feel like stopping and losing an hour of travel time so we mushed on.

Shots from the canyon drive between Bedrock and Uravan
17369667244_07b9f33a9c_c.jpg





17804417168_a6556abce9_c.jpg





17371802633_d1d1b00fea_c.jpg



There were cows everywhere on this stretch of road
17804523458_01e4f85f9a_c.jpg



Pretty cool old Flume that hangs from the canyon wall for a few miles. Some historic society restored a 48 foot section of the flume. Funny, as their restored section sure doesn’t look 48 feet long from where we are standing just due to the enormity of the canyon itself
17369956744_aec5e30c6f_c.jpg

17804943240_4c1263d7b6_c.jpg

17806268129_ec354b66db_c.jpg



We no sooner got off the canyon road onto 141 at Uravan and ran into more cows all over the road. This one was pretty stubborn and didn’t seem one bit interested in mooooving out of the way.
17992643605_1e3cdfa8a6_c.jpg



The swanky resort in Gateway, CO
17372203623_5d5eefe1a9_c.jpg



Hard to believe you are actually in Colorado in this area as it looks so much like Utah
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Although I haven't really spent much time running alot of the trails in Utah, I did run this section of roadway last fall, very cool and I enjoyed going this way to Moab instead of just running I-70 and down. I think it will be my new route when I head out that way
 
Larry's back, sweet:waytogo: I just found this and had to comment on my appreciation for the write up and photos. I don't have time right now other than to skip to the bottom, but I can't wait to read through it...
 
Thanks guys! Glad you all enjoy reading this kind of stuff. Stuff like this is why we spend so much time in the garage working on our junk in the first place. Writing these reports also helps me remember everything years later as there is a thread to look back on. It’s like a journal.

Of all of them, Canyonlands Maze, California’s Mojave Rd and this year’s Lockhart Basin were my favorites.

Here are the past trips:

Desert Trip 2009 – Toroweep and some Hole in the Rock. This was our first long distance off-road trip

Desert Trip 2010 – Hole in the Rock & some Maze District

Desert Trip 2011 – ¾ of White Rim

Detour home after 2012 Overland Expo

Desert Trip 2012 – UT & CO roaming with Mosesburb

Desert Trip 2013 – Mojave Rd & Death Valley Trip report starts on page 6

Desert Trip 2014 – Canyonlands Maze District

Next year we're laying the ground work going to a different state we haven't ventured around yet......Nevada
 
Love it. Makes me want to build an adventure rig.
Now this is living. Awesome!

I would seriously love to do a trip like this.
:thumb:
You and MosesBurb have the best trip report threads on here.

Martin

This, this, and this. I love these threads. Your K10 and the big orange Suburban are what brought me to CK5, what talked me into building an expedition rig instead of a street truck, and what keep me focused on the eventual goals for said truck.
And probably an influence on us coming out through your area last summer (and again for another round in a few weeks!).

Keep it up. I'll keep reading these threads as often as you post them. :bow: :thumb:
 
Next year we're laying the ground work going to a different state we haven't ventured around yet......Nevada

Awesome! Being that I live here now, I'll be paying close attention!
 
Wow! I`m very jealous of you guys that get to see these places for real!

Thanks for sharing the ride! :waytogo:
 
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