Camatruder
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What an awesome country you guys have there. Spending some time in the USA has just moved up a lot of places on my bucket list.
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Desert Trip 2016: Trip Report
- Thread starter Larry
- Start date
Love these threads.
What do you guys air down to?
Martin
What do you guys air down to?
Martin
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It all depends on the truck, tires, wheels and personal preference. I think Tony in the Super Duty went down to 45 psi from 65 (way too hard IMHO). Not sure what everybody body else did but the K10 went down to 20 PSI front & 25 PSI rear. The Burb went down to 20 PSI all around. Make for a much softer ride and the 315 tires work well at that pressure.
Larry, I always look forward to your trips! Thanks for sharing!
-Rob
-Rob
Cool. Let us know when you're coming, I'm sure the folks on here could plan out 50 years' worth of itinerary for ya.
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Cool! Thanks!This. Adventure threads are the biggest single reason that I hang around CK5.
Last week I was traveling for work and had evenings free in the hotel to write the report. This week I am home with less time in the evening (have a 3 year old). Hopefully, I can sneak in an update today.
I feel you on the 3 yr old part...
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Awesome report and pics as usual!!
love it
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Tuesday Continued….
Our campsite at Toroweap wayyy over there..
Our crazy friend Michigan Mark over served himself the night before and got some crazy idea to just plop his air mattress on the ground out in the middle of nowhere. Lucky he didn’t have a coyote or rattle snake snuggle up to him in the middle of the night. The most hilarious part was Don’s dog took a dump about a foot away from him first thing in the morning. The smell of fresh dog poo at the crack of dawn on top of a hangover woke him right up.
Andy took the best photos of the area
LOOK!
I would like to see how this picture turned out
Wednesday, June 15th
So Wednesday morning we got packed up thinking about our 70 miles back to Hwy 89 and wondering what we were going to do for the next few days. While doing walk arounds on the vehicles that morning inspecting for anything coming loose, checking oil, etc. I discovered the grill on the K10 was barely hanging on by one screw. All of the other screw bosses had broken and the grill was cracked in several spots. I was able to zip tie it all back on with about dozen zipties. The grill is toast. I badly need a 77/78 grill. Let me know if anybody has a lead on a good one as the aftermarket ones do not have bowties. At this point we really weren’t sure where we were headed next but Super Duty Tony said he knew a cool trail from Page to Escalante, which Escalante is actually his home town.
Oh, and this coyote was intrigued with the convoy as we crawled out of the campsite. Mark is lucky this dude didn’t try to make little coyote puppies with him the night before.
As we got closer to Hwy 89 where the road opens up we started passing cattle truck after cattle truck. Also passed several VW test cars including a Euro full-size VW van and Passat, which is a totally different car than the US market Passat. Wish I could have gotten the camera out fast enough to nab them. They all had Michigan Manufacturers tags on them.
So several hours later here we are back at Hwy 89 near Fredonia airing back up. The other trucks were far in front of us so they went on up into Kanab to restock on supplies. Buddies Bill and Andy in the white Dodge bolted back Pueblo because their vaginas hurt or something. Bill is always the one that wants to go on these long trips then the first one to go home days early
Continued...
Our campsite at Toroweap wayyy over there..
Our crazy friend Michigan Mark over served himself the night before and got some crazy idea to just plop his air mattress on the ground out in the middle of nowhere. Lucky he didn’t have a coyote or rattle snake snuggle up to him in the middle of the night. The most hilarious part was Don’s dog took a dump about a foot away from him first thing in the morning. The smell of fresh dog poo at the crack of dawn on top of a hangover woke him right up.
Andy took the best photos of the area
LOOK!
I would like to see how this picture turned out
Wednesday, June 15th
So Wednesday morning we got packed up thinking about our 70 miles back to Hwy 89 and wondering what we were going to do for the next few days. While doing walk arounds on the vehicles that morning inspecting for anything coming loose, checking oil, etc. I discovered the grill on the K10 was barely hanging on by one screw. All of the other screw bosses had broken and the grill was cracked in several spots. I was able to zip tie it all back on with about dozen zipties. The grill is toast. I badly need a 77/78 grill. Let me know if anybody has a lead on a good one as the aftermarket ones do not have bowties. At this point we really weren’t sure where we were headed next but Super Duty Tony said he knew a cool trail from Page to Escalante, which Escalante is actually his home town.
Oh, and this coyote was intrigued with the convoy as we crawled out of the campsite. Mark is lucky this dude didn’t try to make little coyote puppies with him the night before.
As we got closer to Hwy 89 where the road opens up we started passing cattle truck after cattle truck. Also passed several VW test cars including a Euro full-size VW van and Passat, which is a totally different car than the US market Passat. Wish I could have gotten the camera out fast enough to nab them. They all had Michigan Manufacturers tags on them.
So several hours later here we are back at Hwy 89 near Fredonia airing back up. The other trucks were far in front of us so they went on up into Kanab to restock on supplies. Buddies Bill and Andy in the white Dodge bolted back Pueblo because their vaginas hurt or something. Bill is always the one that wants to go on these long trips then the first one to go home days early
Continued...
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Wednesday continued….
So we aired up and ran into Kanab to hit up the gas station, grocery store and beer store. I also needed to find a new CB antenna as the trees on the way to Kelly Point destroyed the Firestik on the K10. We found a decent antenna at the local Napa store in Kanab so I was back in action again!
Airing back down shortly after hitting the dirt near Big Water, UT (Northwest of Page off Hwy 89) as we entered the Grand Staircase National Monument area. A strange dust storm was brewing a head
This area was like something I’ve never seen before. Reminded me of the moon or some distant alien planet.
Followed a really cool canyon for several miles that lead down to Lake Powell. Rec Road 231. GPS showed we were driving in water for the last few miles
Videos of the lead in
The trail wasn’t difficult by any means but just interesting enough to keep the tourists in rental cars out. There were several deep sandy locations that required the loud pedal to be put to good use in order to power through
Then all of a sudden the canyon opens up to a huge peninsula. This spot is probably under water by now as spring runoff rolls into Lake Powell. We measured the lake came up about 6” over night!
We hung out on this peninsula for quite a while some of the crew swam and enjoying a few cold beverages debating to set up camp on the peninsula or seek higher ground. Ultimately, we decided to move up closer to one of the hills as the wind was brutal near the water
It was a bit toasty in the camper down there as well. The good news is the beer coming out of the 28 degree fridge was so cold it has ice floating in it
Coal was pretty happy to just sit still for a while too. This ole dog is a trooper!
Since we all decided to move on to find a better place out of the wind to set up camp I took off to check out an area behind us near a rock formation. I should have had the GoPro running when I first headed over there as I almost dump the truck over on its side in the sand. It was crazy as I went down this off camper hill in deep sand the entire truck started sliding to the passenger’s side down into a ravine. I had no choice but to drop the hammer and power out of it. Once I got to the bottom I turned around and took a different route towards the top on hard pack sand in hopes of finding a camp spot. This video isn’t very exciting as it doesn’t show the deep sand but you get the idea of the lay of the land.
Continued....
So we aired up and ran into Kanab to hit up the gas station, grocery store and beer store. I also needed to find a new CB antenna as the trees on the way to Kelly Point destroyed the Firestik on the K10. We found a decent antenna at the local Napa store in Kanab so I was back in action again!
Airing back down shortly after hitting the dirt near Big Water, UT (Northwest of Page off Hwy 89) as we entered the Grand Staircase National Monument area. A strange dust storm was brewing a head
This area was like something I’ve never seen before. Reminded me of the moon or some distant alien planet.
Followed a really cool canyon for several miles that lead down to Lake Powell. Rec Road 231. GPS showed we were driving in water for the last few miles
Videos of the lead in
The trail wasn’t difficult by any means but just interesting enough to keep the tourists in rental cars out. There were several deep sandy locations that required the loud pedal to be put to good use in order to power through
Then all of a sudden the canyon opens up to a huge peninsula. This spot is probably under water by now as spring runoff rolls into Lake Powell. We measured the lake came up about 6” over night!
We hung out on this peninsula for quite a while some of the crew swam and enjoying a few cold beverages debating to set up camp on the peninsula or seek higher ground. Ultimately, we decided to move up closer to one of the hills as the wind was brutal near the water
It was a bit toasty in the camper down there as well. The good news is the beer coming out of the 28 degree fridge was so cold it has ice floating in it
Coal was pretty happy to just sit still for a while too. This ole dog is a trooper!
Since we all decided to move on to find a better place out of the wind to set up camp I took off to check out an area behind us near a rock formation. I should have had the GoPro running when I first headed over there as I almost dump the truck over on its side in the sand. It was crazy as I went down this off camper hill in deep sand the entire truck started sliding to the passenger’s side down into a ravine. I had no choice but to drop the hammer and power out of it. Once I got to the bottom I turned around and took a different route towards the top on hard pack sand in hopes of finding a camp spot. This video isn’t very exciting as it doesn’t show the deep sand but you get the idea of the lay of the land.
Continued....
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Wednesday continued….
We found a cool spot out of the wind finally!
It took some jockeying but we all finally got our rigs leveled out. This spot turned out to be awesome that night as it was like camping right on the beach
Sand, sand, sand and more sand… it was weird, some spots were just dirt then a foot away the sand was a few feet deep
We all hiked up on the rock formation behind us for a photo op
We all must have been getting hungry because this rock wall sure was looking like a huge raw nicely marbled steak or piece of bacon!
Everybody has that one crazy friend…..Mark is ours
The next morning he said something about his head hurt. Good thing this trip is coming close to an end before we all need liver and lung transplants when we got home.
That is it for Wednesday…..more later
We found a cool spot out of the wind finally!
It took some jockeying but we all finally got our rigs leveled out. This spot turned out to be awesome that night as it was like camping right on the beach
Sand, sand, sand and more sand… it was weird, some spots were just dirt then a foot away the sand was a few feet deep
We all hiked up on the rock formation behind us for a photo op
We all must have been getting hungry because this rock wall sure was looking like a huge raw nicely marbled steak or piece of bacon!
Everybody has that one crazy friend…..Mark is ours
The next morning he said something about his head hurt. Good thing this trip is coming close to an end before we all need liver and lung transplants when we got home.
That is it for Wednesday…..more later
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Fricken Mark. That guy is nutty. In a good way. Never a dull moment with that clown riding along. Looks like he's getting over his fear of heights. Him walking over Tomichi pass with us was funny as hell. That being said, seeing him plop an airmattress right out on the ground is a typical Mark move. I laughed pretty good over that pic. So much so the wife wondered what I was laughing about. Showed her and said it was Mark and she didn't ask any more about it.
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Man, life and work life has been crazy busy! Can’t believe it is taking me this long to spurt out this trip report. Anyway, on with the rest of the story….
Thursday, June 16th
So Thursday morning we headed back out of this off-shoot back to Smokey Mountain Rd that leads all the way up to Escalante. Phoenix Tony in the Super Duty home town is actually Escalante so the plan was to ride the trail on up to Escalante which practically drops off at his dads house where we could air up and eat lunch….so we mushed on..
As we got close back to Smokey Mountian Rd the terrain started resembling the moon again
Then we ran across this cool sign. At this point the posse got smaller yet again as Scottsdale Don in the Land Cruiser pointed his hood back South to head home. From here it was just Super Duty Tony, Mr. and Mrs. T in my Burb and me in the K10
Then after following the trail for a few miles we made it to the top of a really nice bluff for a photo op
Mrs. T insisted we take another group photo of the survivors thus far..
A ways down the trail Tony started squawking something over the CB about some underground coal fire that has been burning for like hundred plus years that we to check out so we made a little detour off the trail for a while. This was one of the damnest things I’ve ever seen….or smelled. Talk about burn sulfer smell!!! AND HOT!! Wow, the air coming out of there was HOT and stinky!
Then back to the trail pointed towards Escalante… I tell ya, this looong asssss road, trail thing that leads from Big Water to Escalante is a long ride. This road isn’t really rough enough to be a full on 4x4 trail but it was remote. We didn’t see anybody for the 4 or 5 hours we drove it. I could see this road changing personalities real quick with just one storm real quick. This could be a Subaru road one day and a rock crawler/mud truck trail 20 minutes later
Sometimes the road is a road, then it is becomes a 4x4 trail, then you drive in a creek then it becomes a road again. Very odd trainoad.. My Streets and Trips software was so lost it didn’t even show we were on a road at all. It looked like we were trailblazing on the moon
More awesome sights along the way
Ran across this old homestead/man camp out the middle of nowhere. I would be way happy to call this my get away place! We’re about 2 hours South of Escalante at this point
A few hours later we finally rolled into Tony’s dad’s place. And he was right….his dad’s house is litteraly right off the road/trail thing that we had been following for the past several hours. Really cool to roll up with flat tires, clean up, air up, wash windows, chit, dump trash, reorg, eat an early dinner, etc.…what a perfect rest stop! Tony’s dad is a really sharp old guy too for age of 80+ years old living practically in the middle of nowhere alone
Mr. T burnt us up some Lamb chops and hamburgers!
After a somewhat quick rest stop we peddled on towards the Burr Trail. This is some Cliff dwellings near the Escalante River along the way
From Escalante we rolled on to Boulder where we caught the Burr Trail.
Along the way Mrs. T made us stop for another group shot….an action shot this time. TOYOTA!!!! Nah, wait…we’re all driving American iron…never mind
'MERICA!!!!
More later…
Thursday, June 16th
So Thursday morning we headed back out of this off-shoot back to Smokey Mountain Rd that leads all the way up to Escalante. Phoenix Tony in the Super Duty home town is actually Escalante so the plan was to ride the trail on up to Escalante which practically drops off at his dads house where we could air up and eat lunch….so we mushed on..
As we got close back to Smokey Mountian Rd the terrain started resembling the moon again
Then we ran across this cool sign. At this point the posse got smaller yet again as Scottsdale Don in the Land Cruiser pointed his hood back South to head home. From here it was just Super Duty Tony, Mr. and Mrs. T in my Burb and me in the K10
Then after following the trail for a few miles we made it to the top of a really nice bluff for a photo op
Mrs. T insisted we take another group photo of the survivors thus far..
A ways down the trail Tony started squawking something over the CB about some underground coal fire that has been burning for like hundred plus years that we to check out so we made a little detour off the trail for a while. This was one of the damnest things I’ve ever seen….or smelled. Talk about burn sulfer smell!!! AND HOT!! Wow, the air coming out of there was HOT and stinky!
Then back to the trail pointed towards Escalante… I tell ya, this looong asssss road, trail thing that leads from Big Water to Escalante is a long ride. This road isn’t really rough enough to be a full on 4x4 trail but it was remote. We didn’t see anybody for the 4 or 5 hours we drove it. I could see this road changing personalities real quick with just one storm real quick. This could be a Subaru road one day and a rock crawler/mud truck trail 20 minutes later
Sometimes the road is a road, then it is becomes a 4x4 trail, then you drive in a creek then it becomes a road again. Very odd trainoad.. My Streets and Trips software was so lost it didn’t even show we were on a road at all. It looked like we were trailblazing on the moon
More awesome sights along the way
Ran across this old homestead/man camp out the middle of nowhere. I would be way happy to call this my get away place! We’re about 2 hours South of Escalante at this point
A few hours later we finally rolled into Tony’s dad’s place. And he was right….his dad’s house is litteraly right off the road/trail thing that we had been following for the past several hours. Really cool to roll up with flat tires, clean up, air up, wash windows, chit, dump trash, reorg, eat an early dinner, etc.…what a perfect rest stop! Tony’s dad is a really sharp old guy too for age of 80+ years old living practically in the middle of nowhere alone
Mr. T burnt us up some Lamb chops and hamburgers!
After a somewhat quick rest stop we peddled on towards the Burr Trail. This is some Cliff dwellings near the Escalante River along the way
From Escalante we rolled on to Boulder where we caught the Burr Trail.
Along the way Mrs. T made us stop for another group shot….an action shot this time. TOYOTA!!!! Nah, wait…we’re all driving American iron…never mind
'MERICA!!!!
More later…
Wow Larry!! Great stuff, that looks like a ton of fun. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous, even a little. How much fuel you taking on these trips? I figure my burb has about a 370 mile range with the 42 ga tank..
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Thanks! Still got more to write when I get more time. Well, this year we didn’t keep track of fuel as much as we usually do but by easy math I know the K10 turned a little over 10 MPG for the entire trip, which it typically does (the Death Valley trip a few years ago it average 11.9 as a trip average) and Terence came up with a total MPG of 13.5 for the Suburban so that puts it at around 120-130 some gallons used for each rig over the 1850 mile trip. I am not sure how he came up with that 13.5 number but it seems about 1 MPG higher that I would have expected out of the Burb. The nice thing about these big engines mated to manual transmission is they can lug around out in the desert all day in 3rd and 4th gear at engine idle speed where they actually do quite well on fuel economy. On the highway flying along at 80+ MPH while turning high RPM’s is where we skew the fuel economy badly like way down into the single digits. Luckily the highway between here and there is mostly 65 MPH with a few blerps of 85 MPH areas to catch up on time.
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Man, I can’t believe it is taking me this long to finish up this report. Been busy lately
So, I left off where we left Escalante in search of our final campsite for the trip. The Burr Trail itself is often written about in magazines, etc. because of the beautiful drive. As far as off-roading, forget about it. The Burr Trail is nothing more than a dirt road and even dirt portion is not very long. That said, we were losing daylight fast and needed to find a place to set up shop for the night and still have time to cook up dinner. We found some side trails off the Burr Trail about 20 miles short of the Bull Frog Marina at Lake Powell so we started following these trails as far back as we could go until we could find something to suffice. And the wind! Man, it was windy this night.
The canyon and geography itself along the Burr Trail are awesome
The bad thing is 2/3’s of it is paved…
Our buddy in the Super Duty that is originally from the area knew of a neat little crack in the rock that leads way back into a cave-like place. Really cool!
Beyond these trees it is just opens up to a huge cavern
You could just imagine 150-200 years ago a banshee of Indians hiding in here just waiting to ambush some honkeys tootling by on their horses.
The road leading in was often hard to find the trail as it was so overgrown with weeds and the trail was washed out in many places. We actually ran into a huge washout that completely wiped out the road with no possible shortcuts so we turned around and went back to the retention pond in the GoPros below then followed a trail from there for another half hour or so. All in all, we probably drove almost 2 hours from the Burr Trail to find our perfect spot although some of that time was burnt chasing dead ends. And as usual, we didn’t see a sole once we left the main road. By the looks of the road, not many people come back here
By the time we picked a spot with less wind the shadows were getting really long
Setting up the shower/chit house in a wind storm
And the further the sun went down the more the wind died down…finally!
This was the awesome view from the drivers side of my truck
The next morning these goons made everybody a great breakfast. They're looking pretty shiny for as hung over as they were
More….
So, I left off where we left Escalante in search of our final campsite for the trip. The Burr Trail itself is often written about in magazines, etc. because of the beautiful drive. As far as off-roading, forget about it. The Burr Trail is nothing more than a dirt road and even dirt portion is not very long. That said, we were losing daylight fast and needed to find a place to set up shop for the night and still have time to cook up dinner. We found some side trails off the Burr Trail about 20 miles short of the Bull Frog Marina at Lake Powell so we started following these trails as far back as we could go until we could find something to suffice. And the wind! Man, it was windy this night.
The canyon and geography itself along the Burr Trail are awesome
The bad thing is 2/3’s of it is paved…
Our buddy in the Super Duty that is originally from the area knew of a neat little crack in the rock that leads way back into a cave-like place. Really cool!
Beyond these trees it is just opens up to a huge cavern
You could just imagine 150-200 years ago a banshee of Indians hiding in here just waiting to ambush some honkeys tootling by on their horses.
The road leading in was often hard to find the trail as it was so overgrown with weeds and the trail was washed out in many places. We actually ran into a huge washout that completely wiped out the road with no possible shortcuts so we turned around and went back to the retention pond in the GoPros below then followed a trail from there for another half hour or so. All in all, we probably drove almost 2 hours from the Burr Trail to find our perfect spot although some of that time was burnt chasing dead ends. And as usual, we didn’t see a sole once we left the main road. By the looks of the road, not many people come back here
By the time we picked a spot with less wind the shadows were getting really long
Setting up the shower/chit house in a wind storm
And the further the sun went down the more the wind died down…finally!
This was the awesome view from the drivers side of my truck
The next morning these goons made everybody a great breakfast. They're looking pretty shiny for as hung over as they were
More….
