60th Annual Easter Jeep Safari - Moab, Utah

 As we sit here in an RV Park in Bluff, Utah surrounded by beautiful red rock formations making our way home we reflect on our experiences from the last 10 days in Utah's ever inspiring area of beauty and adventure and we would like to share our experiences with our family and friends.

We have attended the Easter Jeep Safari (EJS) in Moab, Utah for 14 years where we have experienced over 35 different trails and have met a lot of friendly fun Jeepers on those trails and this year was no exception. 

As the 40ft motorhome can be a bear to drive long distances we tend to break up our travel to Moab from Scottsdale in a 2-day journey where we usually stop at Cottonwood RV Park in Bluff, UT. It is a nice quiet park where we can stare at the nearby red rock cliffs or take one of the many Jeep roads in close proximity to this small town. Plus they have a couple of pretty good restaurants. 

Cottonwood RV Park
Bluff, UT

After we settled into our site we loaded up the Jeep with snacks and out we went exploring and caching in the nearby areas.  We found Forest Service Road 088 that took us to overlooks where we viewed the rock formations, mountains and valleys as far as our eyes could see.  These types of areas reminds us this is why we love to take the roads less travelled. These great views made this day drive a very enjoyable adventure in the mountains, but now on to the red rock county.

A road less traveled but FUN for us !

A fine example of the great scenery from this back county road. 

The 'Causeway' cliff view on one side of the road

Fun fact:  What is a Causeway? Jack had heard of a Causeway but I had not. So a Causeway, in this case, is a bridge or cross over built on the rocky and narrow divide over a deep gorge on each side.

Arrival in Moab

Welcome to Moab

View of La Sal Mountains from our Moab RV site.

We participated in two event runs this year - Seven Mile Rim and Moab Rim Trails.

Both trails afforded us amazing Moab views, red rock formations and many trail challenges.

Seven Mile Rim Trail:  The cliff rim portions of the trail were scenic but a little rough.  Stops along the trail included the spectacular Uranium Arch and Tusher Tunnel.  Both leaving us in awe of the formation and scenery.  Then there were the exciting sidehill slickrock driving areas where I (Deb), as the driver, had to put my big girl pants on and brave it while the Jeep was leaning so much I thought it could tip over but Jack assured me it wasn't even close to tipping.  His word against mine. LOL

Claret Cup Cactus

Uranium Arch

View of the eye catching geological formations of the Merrimac and the Monitor Buttes.
Named after two Civil War ironclads, the USS Merrimac and USS Monitor.

Monitor Butte in background

Our Jeep stands strong in front of the mighty Merrimac Butte. 

Slickrock sidehill

Determination Towers and our trail group

Tusher Tunnel entry - A feature formed as water coming down through the crack was forced laterally on encountering an underlying impermeable layer, so that lateral flow eroded the basal part of the crack into a flared cross-section. 

After walking over 100 feet through it, you come out the other end of Tusher Tunnel 

Views from Tusher Tunnel - La Sal Mountains

Moab Rim Trail:  Another day another trail. This trail has a lot going for it.  It is known for its technical 4x4 route that climbs a sheer sandstone cliff from the banks of the Colorado River.  Along the way we experienced many rocky off camber ledges, slickrock, 85 percent grade and stunning overlooks of the Colorado River gorge, the town of Moab and the La Sal Mountains.  There are areas of the trail that have names like 'Devils Crack, the 'Waterfall' and 'Z Turn' and did I mention the many tilted off camber slopes...  This was a fun trail and it made the Jeep work to get through all the technical obstacles and a few white knuckle death grips at the tilted side hills that I'm sure were worst than the ones on Seven Mile Rim trail (as Jack said since he was driving !).

 

Making our way on the trail from the parking lot up the side of the cliff with the Colorado river in the background. 

We had a great view across the river of Little Arch from Moab Rim Trail

Climbing and flexing across the Devil's crack.

Climbing up the waterfall obstacle.

Lunch with a view

Amazing views of Moab and the La Sal Mountains. Cliff side seating was the best.

Found it! I wandered off and found a cache while the
group took a pit stop. Shhhh, don't tell.

We stopped and checked out some petroglyphs from the native Americans over 800 to1200 years ago.

Exploration on our own:  On days that we don't have scheduled EJS trails we usually go out to find other roads less traveled.  In all the years we have been coming to Moab we have never taken the Onion Creek Canyon road.  It is approximately a 10 mile easy 4WD scenic route that winds through a narrow vibrant red rock canyon and finally opens up into Fisher Valley which is a cattle ranch with very green grass pastures and is neat to see with the red cliff walls in the background.   As we drove this road up the canyon, we counted 35 shallow creek crossings winding through the colorful canyon.  The spring or creek is called "Stinking Spring" because it has a mild sulfur odor and so named "Onion Creek".  We ended our tour at Fisher Valley Ranch and returned the way we drove in back through the canyon.  We noticed that other more rugged 4WD roads begin from the Ranch area but it was late in the day so we opted to return to town for dinner.

One of many water crossings

Celebrations!:  This year was big for celebration events throughout the week.  We attended a few lunch and dinner celebrations, vintage Jeep car show events, vendor shows and other promotions.  While EJS was celebrating it's 60th year in existence, the Jeep brand was also celebrating 85 years of off-road adventure along with 250 years America celebration.  Jeep put together an awesome drone air extravaganza to celebrate all three of the monumental occasions.  It was a great highlight to the week of having fun in our Jeep.

Thanks for coming along and celebrating the 60th Annual Easter Jeep Safari adventure with us. We hope you come back soon as we will start our Alaska adventure this summer.  Stay tuned. 

Happy Trails,

Jack and Deb

The Red Hills of Utah - Kanab Utah

After all the EJS festivities ended at Moab, Utah we joined up with some of our friends with the Montrose Colorado based Western Slope 4 Wheelers club in Kanab, Utah.  We enjoy meeting up with this good fun group of friends that like to four wheel and have fun doing it just like us. 

We arrived at our RV site in the Grand Plateau RV Resort. Shortly after setting up 'camp' we promptly went to the Kanab local family owned, Escobar's Mexican Restaurant, for dinner. We are happy to say they have always served delicious food and kind service and still do!   With our bellies full, we returned to the RV and prepped for the next day's adventure.

Site M43 - Home Sweet Home

The next couple of days were packed with fun dirt road adventures which also included arches, a cemetery, slot canyons, four wheeling and short hikes. We drove the Cottonwood Canyon Scenic Backway, Johnson Canyon Road and House Rock Road.  Kanab has so much to offer when it comes to beautiful scenery. These adventures are only a small part of that surrounding area.

Cottonwood Canyon Scenic Backway: The destination for the day was Grosvenor Arch, however, the easy Cottonwood Canyon road was the straight line route but this wasn't the way a group of four wheelers were settling for.  The leaders took the more scenic route through Coyote Wash and up and over the switchbacks to some great elevated views of Coyote Wash and extending into Cottonwood Canyon with its spring green cottonwoods and colored clay foothill scenery. The good four wheeling  and colorful scenery were definitely a bonus.

Grosvenor Arch is actually two sandstone arches (double arch) towering about 150ft
above the ground. It is located in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

Great views as we descend into the canyon

We were lucky enough to spot a herd of desert bighorn sheep.

Look at those horns!

After a day of exploring Cottonwood Canyon some of the group also stopped at the Toadstool Hoodoos Trail on the way back into Kanab. The round trip hike was about 1.6 miles with the trail being mostly sandy soils. These formations are name Toadstools because they have spire like features with a boulder perched atop a pedestal rock like a mushroom / toadstool. The top rock is made of a harder material that doesn't erode as quickly as the rock material underneath it, thus the lower rock erodes faster than the upper making these toadstool looking 'Hoodoos'.

Johnson Canyon Road: This road starts out as a paved road but when you reach Skutumpah Road it turns to dirt. One of the area attractions is the old Gunsmoke film set which is located about 5 miles from Highway 89. The set, however, is on private land and we could not access the property for a more closer look but it was interesting to see some of the remnants from afar. Most of the buildings were dilapidated due to the weather but we could still envision Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty walking down the dusty main street of 'Dodge City'.

Old Gunsmoke Film Set through our eyes

2018 photo from Visit Kanab FB page.

Continuing down the road we arrived at Lick Wash Trailhead.  This was our lunch stop and where we also enjoyed a short hike through the slot canyon.

Lick Wash canyon walls

Lick Wash slot canyon

Narrow part of Lick Wash Trail

Amazing root system squeezing through the rock wall.

Always fun to share the experience with friends.

Lunch time camaraderie (photo by Lynn)

Lunch time camaraderie (photo by Lynn)

We did end the day by taking the road less traveled or otherwise known as the Great Western Trail.  The Great Western Trail is  a dirt / four wheeling road system from Canada down to Mexico and covers 4,455 miles through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah and Arizona.  It's always fun to drive a part of this historic route whenever we have a chance. We have driven some of the route in Arizona and now Utah. 

As we all met for dinner at Iron Horse Restaurant we found there was a poker game going on with some of the locals.  It looked pretty intense as the anti was high so we moved on to our table to enjoy a nice dinner and conversation and left them to their game. 

Locals playing poker

White Pocket, Arizona: Our last group trip we four-wheeled to a beautiful remote place known as White Pocket.  This has been on our places to visit list for some time so we were excited to be a part of this adventure. The most challenging part about White Pocket was getting to it.  It is located about 1 1/2 hour drive down a bumpy, dusty and some-what deep sandy roads into Arizona. The drive is worth it!  Briefly, the White Pocket area is made up of colorful swirls and patterns of Jurassic age white and red Navajo sandstone, which were sculpted over millions of years ago by wind and water erosion.  This was an awe-inspiring trip. One that we are glad we didn't miss.

Paria Ghost Town: Once we returned to HWY 89, we aired up our tires from the long bumpy ride to White Pocket and then decided to make one detour to an old ghost town.  Paria or Pahreah was inhabited in about 1870 to late 1920s. The settlement experienced many hardships including lack of consistent irrigation for crops and river floods, which washed away structures and crops.  In later years the film industry became interested in using the picturesque ghost town as a location for making Western movies.  The area is surrounded by colorful Chinle Formation mountains with straited cliffs of bands of red, orange, purple and grey.

Paria town cemetery. In our readings we found out it is a replica, more of a memorial,
as the tombstones and markets are replacements as the originals eroded over time
and prone to vandals. There were many Smith's and Smithson's buried here in the late 1800s.

Other than the Memorial cemetery, there wasn't much left to even let you know there was a town in this area and even the large scale film sets had been removed and some burned by vandals. Just a nice scenic drive into the Paria canyon. 

As the saying goes - all good things must come to an end but we have enjoyed our adventures around Southern Utah and hope to continue more in the future.

Thanks for reading.  Wishing you many great adventures of your own.

Jack and Deb 

We'll close with some lyrics from an ole' Marty Robbins song entitled 'The Red Hills of Utah'.

How green are the valleys

How tall are the trees

How cool are the rivers

How soft is the breeze

If it's just like my dreams

Then I must go and see

For the red hills of Utah are callin' me