The Excuse: A 4400 Mile, 12 State Adventure

Understand that! I love Chattanooga. It's an incredible town with lots of rock climbing, rafting, kayaking, caving, hiking.. You get the idea. But my wife and I both started looking for jobs in Utah and Colorado during our trip. Not that we are ready to move right now, but man it's beautiful!

 

Man that was awesome. I loved the way you told the story of the journey along with the pics. Super jealous!

 

Thanks man! There is more to come soon.

 

Your journey is truly inspiring!

 

Thanks man! I've been following guys like @Blackdawg and @inv3ctiv3 for a while and figured it was time to start taking our own big journey.

 

Great trip so far.

Man you should have kept going on Alstrom. You missed the wide open view!

 

I totally agree. We talked to another vehicle that was coming out and they said there were a few people at the point. With the wife's stomach not feeling good and hearing that the point maybe a little crowded we ended up stopping early. That's a mistake I won't make next time!

 

yeah there are about 4 sights with views on the edge. The two great ones are usually filled. We got lucky this year and got one. Had neighbors though. Was interesting, one of the guys had a super fancy offroad trailer that looked brand new. Plus every other accessory gadget you could imagine. Guy spend the whole late afternoon and evening running around like a busy ant just setting shit up and taking it down haha

 

Good to know. Next time we'll run out to the point.

Huh, any chance he was driving a silver 4runner?

 

no was a sequoia.

 

Gotcha. A guy I watch on youtube has a fancy trailer he pulls behind his 4runner. I saw he was out there this summer.

We may end up going back out there next October. I've got a few friends that want to come out with us next year and see some of the places we went, maybe spend a little time in Moab. But we'll see how it all works out.

 

Beautiful pics!

 

Amazing trip man, very cool.

 

The Excuse: A 4400 Mile, 12 State Adventure
Part 5: Stuck...

Day 4 was without a doubt the worst day of the trip. That's hard to imagine because the campsite the night before was the best of the trip.





We woke up to sunrise coming over lake Powell. It was breathtaking. We just laid in our tent watching the sun come up over the rocks. Definitely the best start of any day yet.

We made a quick breakfast and got to packing. We saw that there was a storm approaching behind us so we decided to get going before the roads got any worse.

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We made it about 5 miles from camp when this happened...






With the sky quickly darkening behind us I hopped out in the clay for what I figured would be a quick use of traction mats and we'd be on our way. Boy was I wrong. I've never seen anything like this clay / mud mixture. It was as sticky as super glue and felt as heavy as lead! The tires just couldn't clean enough out of the treads to get a grip on the mats. The mats quickly became loaded with 40+ pounds of slick clay. There was nothing to winch to in front, nothing behind and we couldn't get anyone on CB or HAM radio.

So I got to digging. I used rocks, the last of our firewood and the mats to slowly work our way out backwards. Sarah watched the Radar as the storm got closer. To our relief most of the storm split around us. After 2.5 hours I was finally able to get us out.



The mats were so buried and heavy I ended up using the winch to pull them out.



Whenever possible I do my best to avoid going off trail. Going off the trail has often led to places being shutdown. Well, I'll be damned if I'm going back through that stuff... So with middle finger salutes we made our way around the mud pit from hell.



The rest of the day wasn't the best. We were on edge from the morning's fun and the trail was very rocky, narrow, washed out, and often slippery. We had storms at our backs and were way behind where we wanted to be. Sarah drove while I got out to spot her. Often I'd have to jump out to roll large rocks our of the middle of the trail from where they had fallen.







The drive was beautiful. We were rushing to stay in front of the storm so we didn't take as much time as we should have to enjoy it.




The day was long and we were looking forward to getting to camp. We had found what sounded like a great campsite on iOverlander. We got there just as the sun was going down. Well, we got to where the campsites were supposed to be and we couldn't find anything. So we decided to continue off the mountain as the sun dropped behind the mountains. As soon as we started going down there were signs posted for rockfall areas. Sure enough there were tons of large boulders everywhere. We were driving between steep canyons, down a muddy streambed, with storms at our back. What a day...




Sadly I didn't get any pictures of our campsite. We finally stopped at the Devils Garden camping area. I was happy to see that about 3/4 of a mile from our camp was a bit toilet! We setup in the dark and I decided to make my way over to the bathroom. Of course to top off the day it's out of TP and I left mine back at camp.

With the rain starting to drizzle we settled in for the night.

The best part of the day was how well my wife handled the situations. Both being stuck and the rough terrain the rest of the day. She didn't get stressed and emotional. Just was worried, but didn't let it take over. I was really proud of her!

The next morning was rainy and nasty, but with a great audiobook on we began our trek down the burr trail and climbed towards the highest pass of the trip; Bull Creek Pass. Too bad we never made it.

Part 1: RoadTrippin'
Part 2: Utah Bound
Part 3: Sand Dune Fun
Part 4: A Closed Road

Stay Tuned for more

 

Damn man, I knew bentonite clay gets sticky, but I've never gotten to "have to winch my traction boards out" levels of stuck. How long was that mud pit? Looks like only a few truck lengths from the photos?

For what it's worth (and this is day after armchairing at its finest) you could have dug a T slit, wrapped the winch cable around 2 stacked maxtrax and used that as a deadman anchor.

 

Ya it definitely wasn’t a huge pit, but crazy sticky and deep.

Actually that’s why the winch line was out to begin with. I had the same thought. We even tried a little but the dried clay was so crumbly that it wasn’t working well.

Also... I accidentally left my shovel at home. So I was digging with mats and by hand, so it wasn’t very efficient.

 

Yeah...you weren't gonna get very far that way

 

For sure. A mistake I won’t make again...

 

The Excuse: A 4400 Mile, 12 State Adventure
Part 6: Top of the world...

We woke up to a light drizzle on the roof of the tent. It made getting out of bed a little harder! Once we finally got up and around we made another quick breakfast and got the tent packed away. At this point it was becoming routine for us. Sarah wasn't feeling too good so I drove most of the day.

We were only a few miles from the nearest road and our gas stop in Escalante Utah. We aired up before hopping on the main road. My previous research told me that the start of the Burr Trail would be mostly paved.



We took a few minutes to spray off the worst of the mud before continuing towards the Burr Trail.



The views from the Burr Trail were gorgeous! I wish I had taken more pictures, but with Sarah not feeling well and me driving there just wasn't great opportunities for photography.









The pavement did eventually end and we took a moment to air back down. This seemed to be a theme in our trip, air up, air down, air up, air down... Even tho our cheap little air compressor did great, I think I need a better and faster solution before our next big trip.





The rain was pretty constant throughout the day. The mud was a bit slippery but we never got in a situation like we had the previous day. After we had split off of the Burr trail we briefly hit some pavement before jumping back into dirt. Once on the dirt we began to climb at a decently quick pace. The mud became more and more sloppy and Sarah was starting to get a little nervous.



Luckily we weren't too far from our camp for the night. At 9500 feet or so we stopped at the McMillan Spring Campground. The pit toilets were well stocked and clean, and the place was completely empty. We found the most level spot we could and called it a day. I was able to text my father from our Garmin InReach and he told us the rain would be ending that evening. Sure enough, right after we got camp setup and we were settled in the rain began to ease. We sat in the tepui and enjoyed a couple good books. Not a bad way to end the evening!





We fell asleep early but we awoke to a pack of Coyotes hunting nearby. For the next hour we heard them both up the mountain and below us calling back and forth. Around 2am when Sarah decided to make a quick dash to the restroom I heard her pause outside and call back to me. She was seeing 20+ pairs of eyes staring back at her. Luckily they were just Elk, but it can be a little a nerving after listening to the Coyotes for the last hour.

The next morning was a beautiful clear day, but we had some unexpected challenges soon after we left camp...

Part 1: RoadTrippin'
Part 2: Utah Bound
Part 3: Sand Dune Fun
Part 4: A Closed Road

Stay Tuned for more
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The Excuse: A 4400 Mile, 12 State Adventure

Part 7: The Snow Incident..

After the elk incident I was able to fall back asleep. Once again the wife hopped up before I was out of bed only to call my name again. When I asked what was wrong I heard no response. Just "You need to see this". I quickly tossed my clothes and jacket on to go see what was wrong. Once I walked out of the annex I saw Sarah up on top of the hill overlooking the camp. I climbed up to join her and was greeted with this...








With the snow above us and the clouds below us it was a gorgeous way to start the day!


While packing up the we saw multiple side by sides and an old CJ5 pass through the campground. Most appeared to be coming down the mountain so we assumed the trail must be ok ahead of us.







It wasn't long before we broke into the snow. Of course we had to stop and take pictures!




The trail seemed clear enough and the tracks were fresh so we continued on. According to the top we would cross the pass around 11k feet.



The next part I don't have any pictures of. Less than 2 miles from where this pictures was taken the elevation started climbing rapidly while the snow got deeper. We rounded a sharp bend in around a foot of snow only for the tracks to suddenly end. We started breaking trail as the snow approached 1.5 feet. While going around the next sharp bend we started sliding sideways instead of climbing. With a sheer drop on our left and steep cliffs on the right we started looking at the maps. We found a detour that would keep us under 10k feet which was just about the snow line. It cut a section of our planned route out, and we'd have backtrack to the nearest town for fuel, but it was the safer option. Sarah did her best to guide me backwards down the narrow trail trying to stay in the tracks we had made. Once we made it to a wider spot I turned around and we followed recent tracks down a beautiful trail with less snow. As we drove Sarah put waypoints on the map so we'd know where turn at each trail intersection.






Once hitting the blacktop again and grabbing some fuel we had some decisions to make. We were 80 miles as the crow flies from the Utah / Colorado boarder. We could continue the trails for another day and be in Colorado on Thursday, or cut the trip a little short to make it home by weekend. We looked at the topo maps and found most of the trails we had left crossed over 10k feet again. With the snow incidents still fresh in our mind we decided to follow hwy 268 into Blanding Utah, then cut north for Moab. The drive through the canyons was not disappointing!





Van pulling some mico-van?










By the time we cut north in North we were only 20 miles from the Colorado boarder. I'd call that a pretty successful Utah traverse!




As the sun was setting we rolled into Moab Utah. Definitely a bucket list place for me.



After stopping to ogle a few vehicles and grab a quick bite to eat at Wendy's we continued north to some BLM land not far from I-70. It was pretty crowded but we were able to find a place to setup and quickly crawled into bed.



It was well after dark when we finally got setup. The next morning we woke up in a super dense cloud. We packed up the tent and decided we pickup breakfast and fuel down the road.

After 39 hours and 757 recorded miles we finally ended the GPS tracks at our final campsite. There are a few areas we'd like to go back and explore, and a few tracks we'd like to complete so we'll be back! Tho the Utah Traverse was over, we still had to make it back home! and I've got to say, Interstate 70 through Colorado sure doesn't disappoint!


Part 1: RoadTrippin'

Part 2: Utah Bound

Part 3: Sand Dune Fun

Part 4: A Closed Road



Stay Tuned for more
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