Moab 2017 - Bucket List Trip - Cross Country Rock Therapy Adventure

So I loved some of the trip reports on here and getting to relive some people's adventures through their photos and storytelling skills. It's been the inspiration for my most recent adventure and helped me with the planning of this particular trip. I'm no writer or photographer though, but I was fortunate enough to borrow @V5ioV's camera for the trip so I have some pretty pictures to go with the story as well.

A little backstory, I got my truck almost 5 years ago mostly to haul motorcycles. According to Facebook, my first ever wheeling trip was 4 years ago yesterday and I've been hooked ever since. I'm from NJ, where the legal trails to wheel are non-existent but we have some local offroad parks that can be pretty challenging. Over the year's I have been building my rig to be more of a harder core wheeler, not so much built over the "overland" style everyone is building these days. I would be leaving NJ with a slew of spare parts, a drive shaft, cv's u-joints, inner and outer tie rods, every belt, all fluids, jack stands, tools, air tools, grinders, etc, knowing that I did not come 2000+ miles one way to wheel my truck like a bitch.

Meet J0hnny 5, my trusty beast:

Moab1012_001 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I've been planning this trip for at least over a year now and it's always been a goal of mine ever since I got into wheeling to wheel Moab. Unfortunately for me, only one other person was coming from the East Coast to Rock Therapy this year, and our schedules just wouldn't mesh well enough to plan to ride out together. So the intention was to make the cross country trek solo, camp whenever I can to save money, and book it out to CO as fast as possible. In CO I will have a place to stay for the night to collect myself, get some rest and then meet with the other first gen's to run the Kokopelli into Moab.

So I left NJ at 10 PM Thursday night with the goal of being at @jubei's place at a decent hour Saturday night. I drove through the night with almost no issues, hit some traffic and needed a quick cat nap. At around 1:30 PM I arrived at my first destination, Shawnee State Forest in Illinois. After 14 hours of driving and no sleep I was shot. I immediately setup camp, gathered wood for a fire and then set out to explore the forest a bit. The area was nothing special, a pretty big spot for climbers because of it's terrain but not much else there.

It was however an awesome spot because of the people I met. I met a couple from Alaska who have a house in Alaska but travel the country traveling in their van. They were also headed to Utah as they were avid climbers. I met a group of college guys from Louisville who just wanted to go camping for the weekend. I also met another group of people who just haven't seen their friends in a long time, and planned to camp there as it was a central location for them to catch up around a camp fire.

I turned in early (8:00 PM) since I knew I had to be on the road by 6:30 AM if I wanted to make it to Jason's by a decent time. I woke up, packed up as quietly as possible and hit the road for another 14 hours behind the wheel.

Most of the day went smoothly until I hit Kansas. Oh fucking Kansas. I could deal with some boring scenery, that doesn't bother me. But the elevation slowly increases in Kansas on I-70. And I was dealing with terrible terrible winds, and the two destroyed my gas mileage, as well as my range. Up until this point I was getting 14 or so MPG fully loaded which isn't bad. When hit a 1/4 tank I would start looking for a gas station just in case. Then I hit Kansas and I started getting 10 MPG. Now this isn't a huge issue until I realized that I was getting close to 1/4 tank and haven't seen a gas station for quite some time already. I keep going until the light comes on on the truck. I quickly look up on my phone to see when the next gas station is. It says there is one in 25 miles, so I should be okay. NOPE. I ran out of gas 1/4 mile from the gas station and needed to use my jerry can to get me the rest of the way there. Needless to say, not exactly the way I wanted to use my spare gas for the first time.

The only good thing to come out of Kansas was this gorgeous photo I took in front of one of the hundred+ windmills I saw:

Moab1015_003 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After that whole ordeal I press on and finally cross the border into CO just before dark:

Moab1015_002 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I keep driving and finally get to Jason's place around 9:30 or so. I was exhausted as hell from 28+ hours of driving in a 48 hour time frame. Jason and I introduced ourselves to each other over a glass of some very delicious whiskey and made a game plan for the next day.

After a good night's sleep Jason finished packing, we installed his diff skid and then set out to meet @Tacofire98 in Idaho Springs.

IMG_0026 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

It was funny to be driving with Jake and Jason since Jason and my trucks are basically twins with 35" maxx's and addicted front bumpers, and Jake has the addicted front as well.

IMG_0028 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

From there we pushed on towards Rabbit Valley where we would be meeting @Squeaky Penguin. Now I have never been to Colorado or Utah for that matter so driving through the mountains that we were was blowing my fucking mind. I've seen the Grand Canyon before but this just felt bigger and grander and cooler.

IMG_7930 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_7941 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_7943 by Michael Halat, on Flickr




We pulled off on the Rabbit Valley exit and explored a little since Brett had a half hour to go.

I took the chance to take some photos:

IMG_0034 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0036 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0040 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0041 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

At this point Brett showed up and we were losing light FAST. We set off to find a place to camp for the night. After some searching, we found a pretty little spot on a hill top. We setup camp, started cooking and enjoying beers around the fire getting to know each other a little better. At around 12 AM we start hearing the BRRAAAAAAAPPPPPP of a 4 banger in the distance. @Reh5108, our final member of the best gen crew for the Kokopelli has arrived.

To be continued...

So this is my first try at all this, if it's too wordy, definitely let me know. I promise moar pictures will be coming for subsequent days.

 

Booo too much first gen









I do look forward to the rest of this

 

great job Mike! can already tell this will be a good one.

 

Nice work, Mike!

Good times!

 

Damn! 10mpg. I was getting 14-15 through kansass. My truck must be considerably louder outside lol. My exhaust from the just after the cat disconnected a week after I got home. That was loud! It sounded surprisingly similar to my wrx though.

 

sounds like ya all had a nice trip...........Moab is purty kool....just too many people

I like my less traveled parts of Utah........that's why I live here..........

long fuggin' drive from Jersey......2300 miles ?

 

So far so good!

 

Sub'd for the Best Gen pics.

 

x2! Lets see this party of 1st gens!

 

Good write up, perfect word to picture ratio.

 

Thanks everyone! I'm glad it isn't overly wordy, just basically vomiting out everything in my brain.

The Start of the Kokopelli - Day 1

When we woke up we saw how nice the spot we picked really was. It had a great view of some of the surrounding canyons and the wind wasn't bad at all.

IMG_7961 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

We all ate our breakfasts, packed up and hit the trail.

IMG_0057 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

At this point I am still being amazed by every detail I see. The views are incredible and I loved the differences in colors when you see the vegetation around the Colorado river vs the surrounding areas.

IMG_0062 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I took every opportunity I had to capture the group since I thought a group of first gen's doing a big trip together was sweet as fuck. We don't have many people with built first gen's on the East Coast because of all the rust issues so getting to wheel with a group of all first gen's had me stoked.

IMG_0059 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0060 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

As we continued down the trail we could see where our trail split off from the actual bike trail and I gotta say they get to ride on some cool shit. I loved this section in particular where they got to ride on the edges of the canyon.

IMG_7969 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_7970 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0067 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Most of these sections were moderately paced with some slower and some really nicer faster sections even for my Eibachs and 5100's. We ate lunch at some boat launch near the river.

IMG_0080 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

At this point I remember something @Blackdawg described from when they did the Kokopelli, following the La Sal mountains and getting closer and closer to them through out the trip.

IMG_0084 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0085 by Michael Halat, on Flickr


Shortly after lunch we crossed the Cisco Wash. It was very dry and non of us had any issues with it thankfully. Brett however noticed that someone recently did have issues there. He noticed winch line marks on the ground and all of us were very confused since it's been dry for a couple days and they were very fresh marks. We found out later at Rock Therapy that there were 2 second gens with trailers who did the Kokopelli a day or two before us and needed winches to safely cross.

IMG_7977 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After Cisco the next most memorable area was crossing through the section of the trail that goes to Dome Plateau down to Dewey Bridge. This is where I really started to get to see some awesome rock formations and the trail got a little more difficult. Some off camber sections and some minor ledges were priming me for the rest of my Moab experience and I was getting very excited.

IMG_0088 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0090 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0091 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0094 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0097 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0101 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0105 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_7985 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_7986 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After this section we start coming down a fun little off camber section with a gorgeous view of the Dewey Bridge as well as the river. I thought it looked amazing.



We came down to the old Dewey bridge and checked it all out, talking about it's history and of course messing around on the giant metal hangers. It was great messing around and stretching a bit after being in the trucks all day. Everyone was relaxed and in great spirits, and why wouldn't they be? We just spent a great day in the dirt, and were getting closer to something I have been looking forward to for a very long time, Top of the World.

IMG_0107 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0109 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0110 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0112 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0117 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

We decided it would be best to start looking for camp so we could actually find a decent camp with daylight. We came across a solid sized site, and after much deliberation we decided we were going to pick that spot. It was awesome getting to setup and cook with daylight compared to the previous night.I was having some issues with figuring out what temps I needed to set the ARB fridge I borrowed at because I had realized the deli turkey I brought was spoiled at lunch time. So since I had red meat that needed to be cooked, I cooked what I liked to call "questionable taco's" for anyone who dared to risk eating the meat. Turns out the meat was fine and delicious to boot.

IMG_0120 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0122 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0123 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0127 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0125 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Jake and his girlfriend supplied the amazing dessert of massive s'mores and our choice of cookies and/or graham crackers. While we were enjoying the fire I wanted to try to mess with the camera's long exposure options. With the help of Brett while he was drinking his Pumpkin Spice Latte beer that I was ripping on him for, we got some amazing long exposure shots of the camp and my truck. It was a really fun way to end the night, and I very much looked forward to hitting the trail the next day for Top of the World.

IMG_7998 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0134 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
R by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0130 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

 

Looks like you guys need some DC representation! I'm loving the story so far. In this photo, what caused this line above your roof? An airplane maybe?

 

all 21 planets were aligned at once

 

Possibly, didn't think of that one! We were thinking satellite maybe.

Also made a quick edit as well. Will be doing this for each day for whatever I have video wise as well. This was always my preferred media, the whole taking photos and telling a story is new to me.

https://youtu.be/UA_nUxcd0WA

 

Looks like an awesome time! Hope to make it one of these years. I've heard Kansas sucks I get 8-12mpg DDing I'd hate to see what it does out there. Plus my plans is to modify a utility trailer into a camping/utility trailer We'll see.

 

Love that edit, Mike!

I can’t wait to see what you have for the rest for the trip!

 

Stop playing with those silly dirt bikes and make the trip!

 

Epic trip, Awesome edits, Mike... glad the old ass slr got some action during your trip

 

Dual sport I should make a trip out there and take it with that way I have a way home if I break. Haha

 

Great writeup mike, was a fun read.
Thank god someone cleaned or replaced those damn headlights lol

and I had the biggest grin on my face looking at those pics in colorado, I can't even fathom how amazing that place is.