3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

Rimrocker to Moab - Part 1

Day 1- October 14, 2017

@mountainmonkey and I
kicked off the trip in Montrose with dinner and live music at the Horsefly Brewing Company on Main Street. After dinner we hit the trail and made it about 20 miles before setting up camp in the Uncampahgre National Forest on an offshoot of the main trail.




Day 2

After fighting with a stubborn zipper on CVT for about 20 mins, we hit the trail and stopped for our first photo shoot as we hit Nucla around 10am. The rolling landscape was mostly covered with conifers, but we did get to see some fall colors here and there.




Around lunchtime we made our way up another offshoot from the main trail to get a good view near Naturita. The whole area was speckled with abandoned mines, and tracts if land that are apparently being leased by the government for uranium mining.







We hit the Colorado/Utah border around 4 o’clock, and drove for what seemed like forever into the Manti-La Sal National Forest as the sun was setting. We covered 118 miles that day, leaving just 20 more miles to get into Moab on Day 3.

 

Remember the hiking zombies? That was the worst part about that day for sure! The trail was already narrow enough without having to try and pull over for them.

 

Moar please.

 

I wanna go run that trail

 

I completely forgot about them! I was glad to be in my truck with a cooler full of beer and air conditioning running. Some of them were tapping into there last ounces of self motivation and looked like they hadn’t eaten in days.

Stay tuned...Arches and White Rim are coming soon.

I recommend doing it at least once in your life. It’s a scenic drive that really makes you feel like you’re out on your own blazing across the Wild West. It’s by no means challenging and can be done in 2WD under dry conditions, but a spectacular way to get to Moab if you have time.

 

Rimrocker to Moab- Part 2

Day 3 -

With just 20 miles to go into Moab, day 3 was a pretty easy one, and pretty uneventful as far as photos in the AM. Upon arriving in Moab, we checked out the sand dunes camping area to see who had arrived and found it almost completely empty. We were a few days early for Rock Therapy so it was it was only a little shocking that we couldn’t find and TW folks.

We decided the best way to kill the day was some exploring in Arches National Park. I had just been there in June (see a few pages back), so I didn’t take as many photos of things that I had seen before, like Balance Rock and Skyline Arch, but I snagged some photos of other goodies and we hit things off the beaten path to avoid crowds of people.

Petrified Dunes:


We turned off on one of the few dirt roads you can travel in Arches, which takes you up to Tower and Parallel Arch at the north end. You can only get there by bike, foot, or high clearance vehicle so that keeps the masses away which flock to the other areas of the park.

On the way we stopped at Eye of the Whale Arch...we looked at this for a few minutes before we actually saw the arch. Can you spot it just above the sign?








From the parking area, the hike is about a mile round trip to hit both Tower and Parallel Arch which are really close to each other.


Tower Arch:



@mountainmonkey’s keen ear heard this little guy warning us not to get too close as we headed over to Parallel Arch:

Parallel Arch:



Headed out on Tower Road there are some spots where it’s technical enough to keep the masses in the main part of the park.


By this time it was getting late and we headed back to the dunes just before sunset. We decided to scramble up the rocks for a better view:




Next up: 2 days on White Rim...

 

Part 3 of Rimrocker to
Moab / Rock Therapy

White Rim Trail - Island in the Sky - Canyonlands National Park, Utah

As of this writing, White Rim is hands down my favorite off-roading experience since I got into wheeling. 100 miles of dirt and 2 days of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I can’t say thank you enough to
@mountainmonkey for planning such an awesome trip and letting me tag along.

Day 1

We got an early start just before sunrise in order to make it the 66 miles to our campsite (pink route on the map). We were told we’d be lucky to average 10 mph, and had a few short hikes planned for the day.


We watched the sun come up as we drove along the first few miles at the top of White Rim.







After coming around the top of the rim, we started our decent down the famous Shafer switchbacks.




Our first hike was a short 1/2 mile or so stroll out to a viewpoint over looking the Colorado River.


My memory isn’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure that at one the the next two stops the next lookout we were actually able to drive up to the edge.






Next was the biggest arch I have ever seen. Musselman Arch. We followed the rules and didn’t walk on it. Truly a thing of beauty.




And this is just another spot that called us to take some pictures.




This formation is called Airport Tower.

Once we got around Airport Tower we came into view of Washerwoman Arch. It was hard to get a good photo because of angles and distance, but here she is doing the laundry the old fashioned way.




That gets us to just about lunch time. To be continued...

 

Fack! I miss it out there so bad!

 

Glad you could come on the trip, @Littles you were some great company.

 

Likewise! Did you post anything up from the trip? I would love to see some of those night shots you took.

You are missed my friend! We need to get talking dates for the PNW trip! I think you were talking August and that’s looking like a shit month for me to take off right now with the way things are at my new job.

 

Beginning 8/17 likely

 

Ok I can work with that. As long as it’s after my 8/15 deadlines I should be able to make it work. The last week in August would be even better for me, or even first week in September too.

 

I think I posted a few pics in the CO trip reports thread. I don’t have a build thread so nowhere to really compile my personal stuff. Here’s my favorite night shot from that trip.

 

I can’t like this post enough... epic pic.

 

So bummed we missed each other when we were out there. Looks like you were running that trail the same time I was running the Kokopelli. That definitely looks like another amazing route in, loving the pics and stories so far dude!

 

What homer said...epic pic.

You’ll just have to come out again. No big deal. I wish I could have stayed and wheeled in Moab a little more for actual rock therapy. I had to boogie the day after we finished White Rim.

 

Getting my hair cut today. I let Adam flip through the pics on this page.


Still trying to get him to dump the caddy for a taco.

 

Part 4 of Rimrocker to
Moab / Rock Therapy

White Rim Trail - Island in the Sky -Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Day 1 on White Rim (continued)

I think we stopped for lunch somewhere between 11:30 and 12:30 at one of these spots...

One of the things that I found interesting about the geology was the variable thickness of the harder top layer rock that makes up White Rim. In some places it was only a few feet thick, in others, it was 20 or 30 feet thick or more.






Somewhere around 2 in the afternoon we had our first section of trail that actually required 4wd, and it was straight to low range for me. The climb was steep and loose up to a plateau known as Hogback, where there is a campground that would has to have epic views of the sunrise and sunset.

At the top of Hogback we ran into a group of about 10 mountain bikers who were taking a rest after the climb and giving their support vehicle a chance to cool down. They were a colorful group to say the least. We learned that not only did they had even further to go than we did to get to their campsite, but also several of them were apparently tripping on LSD on their epic bike ride.







More gorgeous views continued after descending from Hogback. I don’t recall any of the named formations we passed, so I’ll just continue the photo dump of gorgeous views...






This one was called Candlestick Tower:

After Candlestick, we continued to descend down to the Green River and followed it for a few miles as we drew closer to our camp site at Potato Bottom. We pulled into camp before sunset...but not by much.




66 miles took us about 10.5 hours total, 8 hours moving and 2.5 hours of stops, including our short side hike in the morning. We started at 5900 ft, ending the day down at the river at 3800 ft. Average moving speed of 8.5 mph. It was really an incredible day of breathtaking views one after another and unlike any experience. Except for a few dozen mountain bikers we had to pull over for on occasion, we had the trail to ourselves mostly.

To be continued...yet again...

 

Here’s a shot with a bit more light from our campsite that night

 

Your camera did a much better job than my I phone! Considering it was one of the last available, we definitely scored on that spot.