Trip Report Oliver’s maiden voyage

[Tonkaman]

I took the girls out for a long overdue adventure over the holiday weekend. The goal of the trip was two fold: hit some old nostalgic places, and head so deep into the unknown that we would still be alone even on a Memorial Day weekend. We made a 950 mike loop with over 600 miles of that in the dirt.



It was our maiden voyage in the new rig and it proved to be worth the upgrade! The 40” tires made the entire trip smooth as glass. I didn’t have the time to get the truck properly outfitted with our usual amenities, but the trip still was a success.





Day 1:

-Reds canyon loop with stops at the mining sites
-Temple mountain road
-highway 24
-Notom road
-Burr trail switchbacks
-Upper Muley Twist to the strike valley overlook
-Wolverine loop



Day 2:
-Burr trail
-highway 12
-Hole in the Rock road
-Left hand collet
-croton road
-Grand bench road to washout
-Smokey Mountain road
-Alstrom Point
-Rec road 231 to Warm Creek Bay



Day 3
-Smokey Mountain road
-Big Water
-Glen canyon Dam visitors center
-Cottonwood Canyon road
-Grosvenor Arch
-Highway 12
-Bryce National park
-Panguitch to highway 20
-I15 all the way home

 

[Tonkaman]

 

[Tonkaman]

 

[Tonkaman]

One washout on Grand bench road proved to be the only obstacle too too risky for our solo trip. Even though I’m confident we could make it through, it just wasn’t smart considering it was the trucks first trip out, we were hours away from humanity, and all alone.

The photos are hard to get perspective. The road is on a steep decline, cliff wall on the right, drop off on the left, and the washout in the road is about 3’ deep.

 

[Tonkaman]

Leimomi found the biggest petrified log I’ve ever seen. The whole are is covered with them

 

[jeeper]

Wow, Great photos. What an awesome trip!

 

[lhracing]

Great photos, how was Left hand collet?

 

[Tonkaman]

Great photos, how was Left hand collet?

It was beautiful! I’m glad I believed all the hype and planned it into the route. There were small amounts of standing water throuout the entire canyon which made for lots of bright green vegetation. The road was not difficult or in poor condition at all. It seemed like the road gets used often.

Croton road was a completely different beast. Apparently nobody really uses this one, because I was the only tracks down it. On a few occasions in hairpin turns the road was blocked by dirt slides that I had to carefully cross over without sliding off the edge. Super cool road, but EXTREMELY remote.

 

[Rot Box]

So cool! Thanks for sharing 😎

 

[Stephen]

Sounds like an awesome trip! Too bad you only got boring landscape pictures. You need to focus more on what's important next time and get more vehicle shots.

 

[glockman]

Dude!

 

[Thursty]

Epic trip!! 😎