Porcupine Rim / Porcupine Jeep 4x4 Route

As per usual, my Moab plans came together last second—literally two days before heading further west. I was walking Theo on Tuesday afternoon, and wheeling in Moab was stuck in my mind. When I got home, I grabbed my phone and texted a good buddy who recently picked up a tastefully built 5th-gen 4Runner TRD Off-Road Premium. His truck has 33" Goodyear Wrangler Ultraterrain ATs on TRD wheels, a small leveling kit, and sliders—the perfect build to explore the West reliably. When he responded, he mentioned that he was just about to text me to see if I'd consider wheeling that weekend. Obviously, he was in. We made a plan to head out from Denver after work Thursday afternoon and grab a hotel in town that night so we could work Friday.

After a "long" day at work Friday, we loaded up the trucks and headed out to get a short hike in before the sun set. We hiked the Corona Arch trail—a beautiful and easy ~2.5-mile hike about 15 minutes outside of town. We caught some great views of the stunning Moab canyons, an epic view of Corona Arch, and a classic American West portrait of a train chugging through the canyon. Aaron even got the conductor to blow the horn—classic. A quick note to fellow dog owners: there’s a very steep climb/descent and a ladder section that’s tough to navigate solo with a pup.

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After the hike, we swung by the gas station to fill up and then hit up the local DABS to snag some warm beers (worst part about Moab, lol) before rolling into camp. Upon arrival, we set up camp and started a fire. Aaron had made a delicious Guinness beef stew the day before, so we fired up the stove, warmed up an incredible dinner, and enjoyed a warm cup of soup around the fire. We also enjoyed a couple—at this point—cold beers and some good convo before heading to bed.

We woke up to a freezing (~18°F) desert morning. I gave Theo a quick stroll around camp, then we loaded up and stopped in town at Moab Coffee Roasters—one of my favorite and most frequent stops—for coffee and breakfast burritos. After breakfast, we headed toward the trailhead of Porcupine Rim, aired down the tires, and started the trail.

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Porcupine Rim is a beautiful, high-elevation trail in the Sand Flats Recreation Area. It’s quite long and can take up to eight hours, according to trail reports and videos I watched. The trail starts off mild, with a few small obstacles and some narrow sections that have steep drops into the canyon. As we ascended, we started hitting sporadic sections of icy snow. None of these sections were on steep inclines or declines, so we proceeded. Around two miles in, we reached the first major obstacle, which was covered in a good amount of snow. I hopped out, and Theo and I walked the trail for a few hundred yards. Unfortunately, the snow only got worse, so Aaron and I made the call to turn around.

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On our way back to the trailhead, we came to a fork where we had the option to take an alternate route back to Sand Flats Road—the "Porcupine Jeep 4x4 Route." Based on my research and the trail map at the entrance, we assumed this would be a fun and quick ride back to Sand Flats Road, allowing us to move on to another trail for the second half of the day. Well, turns out our understanding of this "shortcut" was way off, haha. This portion of the trail is actually about 5–7 miles long and can even connect to Fins & Things, which is pretty cool.

We ended up running the trail all the way back to Sand Flats Road and had a blast doing it. Heading from Porcupine Rim toward Sand Flats, you descend most of the obstacles, all of which had multiple lines ranging from mild to wild in difficulty. In this direction, the trail was totally doable for a rig with 33" tires, some mild armor (sliders and an engine skid), and ideally a rear locker—though I’m not sure it’s totally necessary, it definitely helps with a few obstacles. Running it in the opposite direction, where you’d be climbing, I’d say a truck with 33s, armor, and a rear locker (front would help in some cases, I’m sure) could handle it, though you’d likely use your armor a decent amount. I’d love to run it that way sometime in the future. Overall, we had an incredible time, and Aaron had a great first outing with his rig in Moab. The only trail damage was a minor pinching of Aaron’s exhaust after dropping off a ledge on one of the first obstacles—definitely a win!

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That evening, we stopped in town and grabbed a big ole pizza before heading back to camp for a fire, some reminiscing about the day, and a couple of cold ones. We headed out early the next morning to beat the I-70 ski traffic. Yet another terrific weekend in the Utah desert.