Desert Trip 2016: Trip Report

[Larry]

As most of you guys know a few buddies and have been doing an annual 7 to 10+ day off-road trip for the past 7 years to some remote Desert destination. It is just nice to get away from the masses for a while to get out and appreciate what the great Southwest has to offer. This year we chose to return to the Arizona Strip (North Rim of the Grand Canyon) to check out Kelly Point. This area is not by any means an area where technical trail riding will take place but it is remote as hell. Kelly Point is around 130 to 160 miles South of St. George or Colorado City/Hillsdale, UT depending on which road you take in. You really don’t need anything special to get into this area other than a dependable vehicle with good off-road tires. Hell, we even had a bone stock Stupid Duty Powerjoke in our convoy this year. Yeah, we make sure we brought an extra tow strap just in case….hehe. Don’t get me wrong, we got some decent wheeling in but not as technical as years passed.

This year we also had a return attendee that was with my buddy Bill and I on our first Desert Trip in 2009. One of my coworker friends and his wife flew out from Chicago to join us for this adventure. He and his wife are originally from South Africa where they have been in the States since 2002 and have a huge appreciation for the back country. It was great to have them along. They piloted the Polar Bear Suburban while I drove the K10.

We also had another return Desert Trip victim (2010) coworker character from Michigan that flew to Phoenix to join us. It was a much cheaper flight for him to fly to from GRR to PHX vs. GRR to COS so he rode with one of the PHX domiciled guys instead of the Colorado crew.

We departed Pueblo, CO at O’dark:30 on Saturday morning, June 11th and returned Friday night, June 17th as I had a dance recital to attend for my 3 year old daughter so our trip was cut short about 1 day than usual. This year, we were actually ready to go home a day early anyway. More on that later….

Trip Summary…. We turned around 1,850 miles this week with 500 to 600 in dirt

Friday night as we did our final packing.

Mr. T and his wife enjoyed the great sunsets Southern Colorado has to offer from my garage. They just don’t get stuff like this in Shitcago.

Mrs. T enjoying the 98 degree dry heat of So Col!

On with the trip pictures!
Saturday, June 11th, 2016

Saturday morning about 30 minutes before departure

The plan for Saturday was to migrate to the Holiday Inn in Kanab, UT to meet our other convoy friends driving up from Phoenix then hit the trail first thing Sunday morning. The two trucks from California pulled no shows due to schedule conflicts and health issues so piss on them.

First stop along the trip was breakfast in Alamosa, CO which is around 100+ miles from Pueblo where Mrs. T insisted we take the first of many group selfies…. Uh

And of course, the K10 started its shenanigans again this year where it started belching gear oil out of the rear axle vent tube again so I had to wipes its ass in McDonalds parking lot. This is going on 3 years of this chit and several axle tear downs and getting very OLD!!! Guaranteed!!!! Last year for this axle! I am sick of this gear oil purge and sick of the Detroit locker. Going to have to be some upgrades to the ass-end of the ole K10 in the next 11 months…..More on that later!

We mushed on over Wolfcreek Pass

And stopped for some obligatory tourist pictures along the way

Stopped in Cortez, CO for lunch before entering the Navajo Nation. Sonic green chili cheese burgers are good for your gut on a road trip. Not....

Then stopped at probably the chittyiest truck stop in CO before entering the Navajo Nation

Just leave the credit cards in the door pocket for quicker fillups and get a-ways!

Stopped in the 4 corners for a few pics. My buddies Bill and Andy are in the Dodge

So much scenery as you cross into the 4 corners!

Finally got cell service around Kaibito, AZ where we learned our pals coming up from PHX were on the highway parallel to us pointed North to Page so the race was on to get to Page… We lost a lot of time behind jackwhads on 160 through the Navajo Nation so we needed to make up some time. Hammer down…. Too buzss driving to snap pictures at 89 MPH. LOL

More.....

 

[Larry]

So we met up with one of the PHX parties at the gas station in Page (Super Duty with buddy from Michigan riding shotgun), refueled then started pettling towards Kanab. This is shortly after checking into the hotel in Kanab while waiting for the second rig from PHX (Lexas….Err, Toy Land Cruiser). My buddy Bill showing off in his chair

Mr. and Mrs. T took off walking around the hotel and found a great steak joint and bar down the street from the hotel. Great food, great times! This is what vacation is about!!!!

When in Kanab, eat at the Iron Horse. You won’t be disappointed!

Great live music too… Kanab is a happening place on Saturday night even if you are Mormon!

After a 12 hour drive, I was ready to eat and throw down some beverages for sure!

Next up…..Sunday wagon round up and beginning of the trail

 

[sreidmx]

Dang looking good! Some open country out there.. bet having that overdrive and 8.1 are nice!

 

[ZooMad75]

Been sniping pics and video's from flicker and youtube of the events. Love it. Can't wait for more of the narrative. Oh, the CB chatter from the videos to Kelly point is funny. Sound came through the video from the speaker clear as a bell. Good job so far dude!

 

[Larry]

After dinner concocting our final plans for Sunday morning…

Sunday, June 12th 2016


An early morning fine breakfast that any Holiday Inn Express could offer. No, I didn't experience this. This is Mr. and Mrs. T's romatic picture...... My Sunday morning was more about nursing a hangover, missing breakfast and sipping coffee while eating Hostess snacks out of the back of the truck and wondering if I was going to puke or not . My buddy from MI and I were up late catching up on lost time over many beverages...

So our plan was to head from Kanab to Colorado City, AZ/Hillsdale, UT to top off with fuel before hitting the trail lead in down the road first thing Sunday morning. That plan was quickly squashed as we rolled into Colorado City only to find the gas station under construction and closed so we had to keep peddling way North towards Hurricane, UT to the next station then back track to the trail head. What a pain in the....and a unexpected waste of time and fuel. I also discovered one of my four Sceptor fuel cans had a hole in it so now we only have 3 extra fuel cans for 3 gas trucks instead of the planned 4 cans. This is a long trail...so fuel is pretty much important. More on that later too. (the sceptors you saw in the pictures in the back of the Polar Bear Burb in earlier post are water...the K10 was carrying the extra fuel)

Oh..yeah, Don, Cole and Lexy showed up late Saturday night but were bright eyed and bushy tailed Sunday morning eager for a week of back country travel

Wagon round up at the gas station somewhere near the AZ/UT border…

About 40 minutes later we finally found the place we were looking for…. The trail head to air down tires for a few days!

Mr. T taking down the Polar Bear

Oh, and a snake behind us wanting to know what all that tire hissing was....

And we’re off and away from civilization for a few days...

More tomorrow….

 

[Smokinthehippies]

In

 

[Bent77]

In

 

[AgDieseler]

Great story so far. Subscribed.

David

 

[brut4s]

Subscribed

 

[Big Ray]

I love yours and Mosesburbs trips.

 

[ekajkrats]

Hey Larry,

Thanks for the update! What is the longest stretch between gas fill ups? Miles and/or days. I saw you mention 130-160 miles for one stretch and obviously a technical off road stretch would tend to take more gas than say a smooth highway stretch. Also how much fuel do each of you carry with you?

No rush to respond, just wondering about some of the prep you make going into this sort of trip. All very interesting to me!

-Jacob

 

[GWeakland620]

I'm so happy to read this. IN!!!

 

[Larry]

Hey Larry,

Thanks for the update! What is the longest stretch between gas fill ups? Miles and/or days. I saw you mention 130-160 miles for one stretch and obviously a technical off road stretch would tend to take more gas than say a smooth highway stretch. Also how much fuel do each of you carry with you?

No rush to respond, just wondering about some of the prep you make going into this sort of trip. All very interesting to me!

-Jacob

Well, that is a tough one…. The longest stretch off-road was from Apple Valley, UT (South of Hurricane) to top off before we hit the trail Sunday morning then refilling in Kanab Wednesday afternoon. So that was pretty much 3 full days of back country roaming. Didn’t really check the mileage but if you look at the maps of the area that is A LOT of backcountry travel. The Suburban did the entire AZ Strip on one tank of fuel and still had a little over a ¼ tank before getting back to Kanab. The K10 carried 3 Sceptor 5 gallon cans (had 4 but one had a hole). The Lexus (Land Cruiser) ran out so he got one of my 5 gallon jugs. I dumped the other two jugs in the K10 as there was room in the tank for the sake of getting the weight off the bumper. If I recall the K10 had one tank practically still almost full when we rolled back into Kanab. The diesel guys also dumped fuel into their trucks each night as they had room in the tanks for the sake of lightening the loads in the back of their trucks. Off-road, the Cummins and Powerjoke trucks really didn’t better the gas trucks by much in fuel consumption….except for the Toyota that used up his fuel jugs and one of mine and still rolled out on fumes.

In 2013 we did the Mohave Road where my other buddies 2005 Dodge Cummins and my big block K10 both got the same MPG on the trail at 10 MPG. The Mohave Road is a non-technical 140 mile jaunt through the desert. Remote, but not technical

Hopefully I’ll be able to continue on with the story tonight when I get back to the hotel from dinner

 

[ekajkrats]

Awesome, thanks for the great reply!

 

[campfire]

Yay for another trip report! I love reading these.

 

[campfire]

First question...is that an old copy of Streets & Trips that I'm seeing in the background of the laptop shot? If not, what sort of navigational aids are you using?

 

[Larry]

First question...is that an old copy of Streets & Trips that I'm seeing in the background of the laptop shot? If not, what sort of navigational aids are you using?

Haha, yes it is Streets & Trips 2006 with GPS, speedo, altometer, etc.! I used S & T since I became a company road warrior in 2000 and really love it. Hell, I still use it a lot for work travel still today…..call me old school. For off-road navigation, I also have Delorme Topo but it won’t run more than 10 minutes without locking up the computer and turning to the blue screen of death. Plus, I find Delorme finicky and overwhelming to use for the short time the crap actually works. This old Streets & Trips program works 90% of everywhere and is a dirt reliable software package running on the little laptop. We use real paper topo maps for real off-road navigation. The laptop just keeps track of where we are at the moment

Better view of it

 

[campfire]

Haha, yes it is Streets & Trips 2006 with GPS, speedo, altometer, etc.! I used S & T since I became a company road warrior in 2000 and really love it. Hell, I still use it a lot for work travel still today…..call me old school. For off-road navigation, I also have Delorme Topo but it won’t run more than 10 minutes without locking up the computer and turning to the blue screen of death. Plus, I find Delorme finicky and overwhelming to use for the short time the crap actually works. This old Streets & Trips program works 90% of everywhere and is a dirt reliable software package running on the little laptop. We use real paper topo maps for real off-road navigation. The laptop just keeps track of where we are at the moment

Cool. I've enjoyed S&T 2002 for...well...I guess I've been enjoying it since it was new.

It has a number of nice features that Google Maps still doesn't offer all these years later. But I've never had a GPS to hook it to, so I guess we're even further in the past. Thinking about options for trip logging, I wanna be able to spit out a route map like you did at the top of the thread.

 

[Larry]

Cool. I've enjoyed S&T 2002 for...well...I guess I've been enjoying it since it was new.

It has a number of nice features that Google Maps still doesn't offer all these years later. But I've never had a GPS to hook it to, so I guess we're even further in the past. Thinking about options for trip logging, I wanna be able to spit out a route map like you did at the top of the thread.

Ya, for sure. If I recall correctly the S&T 2006 was the first version that was GPS compatible. I remember my company sent me the box and it had a GPS puck in it. The puck sat in my desk for probably over a year before I actually used the GPS function. Once I did, I was hooked. Unfortunately, I lost the actual GPS puck that came with S&T but the puck that came with Delorme works with S&T…so I guess Delorme wasn’t a total waste of money after all.

BTW, the overview picture is actually from SPOT GPS Adventures. In the past, I used S&T to post a picture of the trip overview map but this year I forgot to press the button to trace tracks so there are days’ worth of missing footprints making a worthless overview map.

Here is the SPOT GPS Adventure page that traced our entire trip. I was saving this link for later but it probably helps you all get a lay of the area as I post pictures. SPOT is an awesome tool for these trips! It is really neat as you can zoom right into where we actually were as well as click on satellite view for for a real image. I posted the live spot feed on the CK5 Facebook page as we were on the trip. I know some of you were following us in real time

 

[ZooMad75]

Shoot, I had my Dad hooked on following the spot link. Something caused him to loose the website and he texted me at work wanting it sent to him again. He had a blast checking in on the location. We both got confused when we saw the feed go much further into Utah on the first Sunday. It wasn't until he got to Kelly point and ended up catching a halfway decent cell signal from the ways of Vegas when I got the text explaining about the closed down gas station.

I don't know where the trailboss has planned for next year's travels, but the K5.3 will be ready. I'm up for the ride.

More story time now please..