UT/CO in an XJ!

[Kage]

No long trip in the Ranger this year (Booo! I know!), but I thought you folks might like looking at these pretty pictures from our recent trip out west. Copy and paste from another forum I lurk on…..

We’re making the trek out west again this year. Going as far west as Moab, then back through CO on the way back home. You folks seemed to enjoy the past posts on our trips (and I like reading about other peoples trips) so follow along if you’d like!

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask) we didn’t take the Ranger this year due to the issues it gave us last year. To be honest, I haven’t really haven’t had the time to go through and finish all the nagging bits before this trips date came up. So instead, we picked up this ’98 XJ to take out west (one month to the day that we were supposed to leave, talk about cutting it close!). Since you’re reading this, I can safely say that it managed to get us out to Moab in one piece, with less drama than what the Ranger did last year.

Nothing special, 2 door XJ with a 4” lift and fresh 30x9.50’s.

You can find all my photos Here (LINK) and I’ll be adding to them as the trip progresses. Once my wife gets her photos done (probably a few months after this trip) I’ll add that link to this post as well.

Enough background info, on with the Trip Stuff!

Friday/Saturday (May 18-19)

We headed out of the St. Louis area early Friday afternoon and drove (nearly) straight through to Moab UT arriving just before lunch in Moab on Saturday:

As I said, we traveled nearly straight through, this is the first year I didn’t drive the whole trip myself due to unforeseen circumstances. As we left our house, we got all of eight miles before the XJ lost it’s A/C Charge (I’ve been fighting an evap leak, looks like it got much worse). So that mean all of our trip was done window’s down until it finally got cool enough (about 2 am) to roll them up.

While that doesn’t sound like a big deal, there was an added complication to that. You see, from Kansas City Mo to Colby KS, there was a severe cross wind warning coming from the south (37 mph sustained, 45 mph gusts if the radio can be believed). From Colby to Denver, the wind switched directions, and blew from the north with the same force.

The results of those winds was several hundred miles of me fighting a back heavy, lifted, non-sway bar equipped XJ across the middle section of this country all while dealing with a raging migrane. And friends let me tell ya, that wiped me out bad enough that I had to crash for a while on the side of the road to rest up a bit (with every other semi on the road too it appeared). I learned that an XJ is a poor place to sleep when its filled with your wife’s crap ;-) Guess I should have bought something full sized after all!

Photos of Kansas City Mo:

Photos of Topeka Ks:

Once daylight broke, we found ourselves on the west side of Denver Co and heading up!

One side of the Eisenhower was wet:

The other side Snowy!

We took a pit stop at Silverthorne for some breakfast and a few photos of the Lake Dillon area:

Back on the road again…:

It started snowing on us again as we went across Vail Pass (hard snow too!):

At some point we switched drivers and I took another power nap as my dear wife made up for lost time. Once I awoke, we traded places again, and kept making our way onward to Moab:

We took the back road in hoping to see what remains were left of the Cisco Ghost Town, however, there wasn’t anything left to take a photo of. So we continued down 128 into Moab:

And of course the must have shot of Downtown Moab:

And here’s the reason we made the whole trip! (well maybe not the whole reason, but I was having some serious cravings for a Milts Burger and Peanut butter Shake!

After that feast (seriously, stop by and eat there if you’re in the area, and sit inside to watch the man cook!) we checked in a crashed for a bit. Later in the evening, we headed out to Arches National Park to see a few sights we missed last time as well as to watch the sunset.

Travel Through the Park:

Park Avenue Hike – This is a cool little dry bed that has lots of interesting features from where the water has been carving out the sandstone:

Window’s Area Hike:

Other than looking at all the sweet rigs that run around town (I miss the ranger ) Otherwise, we took it easy for the rest of the day.

 

[Kage]

Sunday

Dumped another 200 photos in that top link…
I forget how awesome the weather is here. This mornings Temp was 46°F and I was comfortable in shorts and a T shirt. This afternoon was in the upper 80’s and again, completely comfortable. I could get used to this! Looking out from our hotel room, we see this:

We managed to cover 100 miles today going through some of the more easy ‘sight seeing’ trails:

Prior to getting off road with the Jeep, we started our day off with a good brisk height Corona Arch before things warmed up too much. We stopped to look at the Indian Paintings/Carvings on the way:

And I caught these guys in action jumping off the cliff:

Kept on cruising:

And starting hiking up to the Arch:

After that, we continued on highway 279 to Potash road, then turned onto White Rim Trail for a bit:

We stopped at Mussel Man Arch for Lunch:

Then Turned around and headed back down White Rim and headed up Schaffer Switchbacks:

Once we were at the top, we continued on to Canyon Lands Nat’l Park and stopped to hike down to False Kiva. This turned out to be a bit of an adventure as we started down the wrong trail. That trail dumped us directly above where we needed to be (by a couple hindered feet on top of a cliff). Top trail was the wrong one, the bottom trail turned out to be the right one:

That trail definitely took some oomph out of these flatlanders! Once we were back to the top, we headed back to town via Long canyon:

Once back in town, we grabbed a bite to eat at Fiesta Mexicana Restaurant, which wasn’t too bad either!


Tomorrow, I know Fins and Things is on the agenda, we’ll see where else we wind up at.

 

[Kage]

Monday

Another hot day out here, which found us putting another 154 miles on the ole XJ today. So far the silly thing is ticking happily along, but the lack of A/C in the thing makes for some warm times while riding around (I swear that we’ve managed to melt our shoes a little bit from the heat coming off the floor!). I’ve put over another 200 photos in that top link from today’s adventures.

Daily Travel:

My wife decided at 4:30 this morning, that today would be a good day to get up and go see the sunrise at Arches. I love my wife, be we don’t always agree on some things when sleep is involved. Needless to say, I went to Arches this morning before sunrise :

In a true photographer’s frenzy, I played chauffer as I hauled my wife throughout the park trying to find the ‘best’ shots:

After that funny stuff was over, we hiked to Pine Tree Ach, ,and Tunnel Arch:

Then we moved on to Sand Dune Arch:

After that fun we cruised back through Moab to Sand Flats OHV area to run Fins and Things. This is the area that has some of the notable ‘Moab’ Trails like Hells Revenge, and plenty of slick rock to play on.

Slick rock is retarded fun to goof around on compared to the stuff we play on around the Midwest. There is just so much traction its unreal, which allows for even stock-ish rigs to go places they’d never make it in a similar situation out west (well, not without beating on them a lot).

While Fins and Things is considered to be a pretty mild trail, I must have done something right as I nearly managed to take out the back glass climbing up on one fin, and tried to let my rockers get ate on several others. All in all, it was a blast!

Lots of steep climbs:

On one of the loops, I turned my wife loose. She made me proud (Click for vid):

That fun was followed by a late lunch at Milts and a nap! This heat takes quite a bit out of ya if you’re not used to it (pro tip – Drink way more water than you normally would when you’re out here!).

We hiked Negro Bill Canyon after dinner:

After our quick hike, we headed out to Mineral Point for some sunset photos. It’s an easy trip through the desert, and those sandy roads made me understand why people like to do the high speed stuff on the sandy roads The trip back through the desert at night was awesome as well:

Our next stop is Capitol Reef, which means the end of our ability to have the internet. So it’ll be a few days before the next update comes though.

 

[Kage]

Tuesday

I’ll start this post with the preface of ‘This is one of those days that pictures don’t do it justice’. We stumbled through quite a few ‘pretty’ things while putting another 256 miles on the XJ on our way up to the Capitol Reef area

Travel:

We left Moab this morning and passed this:

Yup, $1.75 a scoop for your Chinese food. Awesome.

We kept on rolling north:

And stopped to see the dinosaur tracks at Copper Ridge:

Moving along, we made our way to Goblin Valley State Park:

These are wild, they’re just rocks stacked on top of mud from when the water receded many years ago:

After we left the Goblins, we went to Little Wild Horse Canyon. This turned out to be my favorite stop on the trip so far, and the photos REALLY don’t show things well enough. The canyon goes on for a long while, we only hiked about 1.35 miles into it, and there was still plenty more to go:

After we left Little Wild Horse, we had the choice of turning left (going back the way we came on the paved road) or following the GPS’s recommend route of the unpaved road off to the right. Since we try to stay off paved roads as much as possible, we gave it a go. It turns out I think damn Garmin was trying to kill us!

It started out well enough following the ‘road’ which was a dry creek bed:

Then worked our way up on top of the ridge:

And started to see the pure “Desert Wasteland”. For these flatlanders, it was a very alien sight for us:

We got several miles back into this valley and really everything was going quite well. All good things must come to an end though, and as we reached Muddy Creek Recreational area. I didn’t snap a single photo of this area, but there was lots of XJ eating sand that we barely escaped in a few spots. Once we fought our way thought that, we were confronted with a water crossing. The problem with the crossing was that there were plenty of ‘quick sand’ warnings around there, and judging by how easy my foot sank into it, I didn’t feel like trying my luck. Add to that, we couldn’t find the road on the other side of the creek, so even if we made it across, I’m not sure we would have had anywhere to go.

So we were now about 19 miles back into the pure desert, obviously the only people that were around (and had been around for awhile going by the tracks we saw), with half tank of a gas, and a sand trap to run back through.

Needless to say, I was happy that we had all our food/water with us, as we might have been hiking out of there if things went wrong. Thankfully, the little XJ pulled though (barely) and we back tracked to the paved roads again.

After that fun, we were both hot, dirty as heck (did I mention the nice 30 mph breeze we had while in the ‘dust bowl’?), and just ready to get to the cabin. We marched on to the CR area and passed a Dust Tornado:

And a corvette club run:

Finally making it CR:

We checked in, had dinner, and crashed for a bit. After we got up, we headed back out to take a look around the area some more:

We stopped by Fruita, which is an old Mormon settlement. Ole Blacksmith Shoppe:

Original orchards are still producing to this day:

Really just a quaint little park:

With lots of Deer too:

And a cool old barn:

And I made a horse friend:

We headed down the ‘scenic drive’ into capital gorge:

We then raced back up to Panoramic Point for some sunset photos:

That’s all for today!

 

[Kage]

Wednesday

Another 186 windy miles covered today:

Starting with an early morning trip out to catch the sunrise at panorama point:

After which we made our way south to Calf Creek Falls and hiked the 7.2 miles (round trip) to go see the falls. While it was a bit of a hike, it was well worth the walk. Photos from the trip down there as we passed through Dixie National Park:

Woah, what grade???

Calf Creek Falls is interesting in that its one of the very few streams that runs year round in the desert. So there are several micro climates along the way to the falls, from desert, to wetlands:

Hiking back out:

We then headed back to Boulder and had lunch at Burr Trail Grill. That was some fine eats! Once we left there we made the trek back to the Capitol Reef area via the Burr Trail. This started out as a paved road through some pretty areas:

Then turned to a rock road that gave us some better views:

Then we went down the Burr switch back (Imagine driving cattle up this!):

And we then continued down many, many miles of washboard roads:

Through some random construction (It was kind of neat, they just wave you through and tell you not to run into the heavy equipment. There was a few point where they had us go through some ‘mud’ areas that the water truck had just went over nearly creating a bog like quick sand mix. That made it real fun! After that, we kept on rocking on the paved road back to highway 24:

And made a few quick stops at an old Cabin (10 people lived in there), Indian Carvings and the old School house:

After that, we went back into town to grab a bite to eat, then returned back to Fruita for some evening photos:

And went down Grand Wash:

Old Uranium Mine that was claimed in 1904. The products from this mine were used to “Cure Arthritis” by placing the radio active dust either in your food, or by wrapping it up in little pouches and placing them on the joints:

And wrapped up the day by going to Goose Point and Sunset Point:

Fun fact, those mountains that you can somewhat see in the background of this photo are 145 miles away:

Tomorrow we say Goodbye to the Capitol Reef area, and head on back to CO. Hopefully it’ll be a little less windy for us!

 

[Kage]

Thursday

373 more miles on the XJ today as we made our way back to Colorful Colorado:

We started out our day with some yummy food from the Capitol Reef Café:

Then went through the Capitol Reef area one more time:

And kept on rolling:

Back on 70, and jumped off at Grand Junction:

And working our way to the Crystal Mill on the beginning of the devils punch bowl trail which we stopped at the remains of the Crystal City (we stopped early as there was still snow blocking the pass):

Old Mill:

Crystal City:

Found an old bronco hiding in the woods:

Turned the XJ around and headed back down:

On the way to Glenwood Springs:

We’ve stopped or the evening, tomorrow, we’ll head up Independence pass on our trek east tomorrow.

 

[Kage]

Friday

243 more miles covered today as we continue to move back east:

Once we were up and moving, we jumped back on 70:

And stopped at a rest area that has a trail up to the “Hanging Lake”, the trail didn’t look to bad at the beginning:

But once we got to the real trail head, it started getting a bit rougher:

Up:

And Up:

And Up some more:

Still going:

And we’re finally there. 1.2 miles along the trail and 1020 ft gained in elevation for this:

It was pretty, but there was some more still to see. So we continued climbing until we got to the falls:

It was worth the hike, but it wore me out! We jumped back on 70 west:

And started heading towards Independence pass, but we made a few stops on the way:

That was Maroon Bells Lake (and area). After leaving there, we got back on track to head up Independence pass:

The old Independence Townsite:

Back on the rood, heading down the pass:

After leaving there, we headed across Whitman’s Pass since Mosquito pass was still closed on the east side:

The Old Ruby Mine:

Heading back down:

We then made trails to Alma so that we could run up to see Kite Lake:

Yurt under construction:

Paris Mill it was marked off as no trespassing, so there wasn’t any good way to get a good photo of it:

Moving along:

Kite Lake not much to look at, and it was COLD and WINDY at 12k ft:

We then backtracked to run Borealis Pass up to Breckenridge. Old Round House for the trains that used to run through this area:

More train stuff at the summit:

Heading back down:

And that’s all. We’re back in Silverthorne, with hopes of setting out for home tomorrow morning. So this is pretty much the end of our trip : I hope everyone enjoyed the photos, and I’ll update this post again when I have my hands on some of my wife’s photos.

 

[crawlin91]

looks like a fun expedition, great photos

 

[getrdone52]

That is so awesome! I'm going to Moab next week and I'm so excited. It's weird to see pictures of the highway because I know exactly where all of the pictures are. I've ridden my bike along that whole highway (On the bike trail below of course). It was pretty sweet.

 

[Mr. Tarkanian]

Great thread. Thanks for the pictures. The guys over at cherokeeforum.com would like this. A road trip like that is a dream of mine. Maybe one day...

 

[bronco2guy]

Great photos!

 

[AgPete139]

Very nice expedition.

 

[woodyedmiston]

Great to see this. Was planning on a trip into that area in late Oct. this year until my wife mentioned a little problem with a breast cancer lumpectomy bout that same time. Still planning for the spring. Loved it all but all the four letter words. Hike, walk, sand, cold ... Don't have a 4x4 and don't need to go places where it's necessary. You and your wife have a great eye for photgraphy, beauty. Thanks for sharing.