Moab recommendations

[doubleud]

I can post pics to hardline again!

 

[creepycrawly]

Ok so my plan was to get off work at noon on Monday, pick up the rental trailer, and get on the road. There was a loose plan to meet up with Dave in Albuquerque after the first day of driving and then then finish the second day in the light to enjoy the scenery. For those of you who haven't done it, driving across Texas kinda blows.

True to form, I got on the road late because "No, Uhaul, I will not take this P.O.S. on a road trip to the west coast." They got me a decent trailer but it took 2 hours and a trip across town.

 

[creepycrawly]

Day 1 of the drive saw 14 hours of straight and flat. I managed to hit San Antonio for 5 o'clock traffic. Pushed as far as I could and the stopped at a rest stop for a quick nap. Tuesday morning I woke up and met up with Dave & co. on the far side of Albuquerque. The views started to get decent coming into Albuquerque and improved from there. Gas prices increased with the quality of the views.

 

[creepycrawly]

Day 2 of the drive took us into Moab proper. Before we got there, we stopped in Cortez, Colorado at the Walmart's for last minute supplies because it is the last one between there and Moab. 115 miles with no Walmarts? That's crazy.

We were dodging a series of storms all the way up. Not sure who gets rained on in the desert, but we sure did.

Also of note, if you need 93 octane and you've made it this far, you're too late. 91 octane is the best those communists have to offer. Regular drops all the way down to 85 octane. No good for horsepressures.

 

[creepycrawly]

Totally forgot, premium is out, but they've definitely got gas. The dispensaries make me laugh.

 

[creepycrawly]

We worked our way into Moab. The views are awesome and I highly recommend planning your trip so that it's daylight when you get there. We stayed at the Moab Gateway Inn. It is on the main drag on the north end of town. It was clean and the staff was polite. The rooms are a little small and the parking lot can get tight at times, but I'd stay there again. The views were awesome from the parking lot and it was convenient to any of the trails on the north side of town. I had no idea that Moab was as popular for bicyclists and motorcyclists as it is. Definitely lots of people there to get out and enjoy the same trails we run.

We got unloaded and decided to go look at the entrance to Hell's Revenge. Unfortunately, I just glanced at the GPS and took us to the closest point to the road. Turns out, that was an overlook so we would up about 600 feet below the trail in a parking lot below the overlook. More on the navigation piece later. Here are the views from the parking lot.

 

[creepycrawly]

Day 1, trail 1, we went straight for the classics. Hell's Revenge. Slap that in google maps and it will take you straight to the parking lot area. It's on the south end of town and super easy to get in and out of the Mavericks gas station at the bottom of the hill. This is part of the sand flats recreation area and is a fee area. $5 per day per vehicle or $10 for a week pass. There is ample parking for tow pigs and trailers during a slow day, but I could see it getting overwhelmed on a big ride weekend. Also, the tow rig and trailer mean extra charges.

The access road to hell's revenge takes your right past lions back. Super cool to see and I had no idea it was right off the pavement. I hate it's closed though.

The start of hell's revenge is like a (very) mini lions back but it's somewhat narrow and definitely let's you know that you're in for some breathtaking views. I'll start this by saying that pictures and videos absolutely DO NOT do this place justice. We were absolutely amazed at the traction out there and the insane lines that you can crawl. It's wild.

 

[creepycrawly]

A few pics from the first obstacle that let us know we needed to recalibrate our scale.

 

[creepycrawly]

Moar

 

[creepycrawly]

Man, was I surprised to see the hmmwv's running some of the lines they were with a boatload of people. I bet it's insane from those stadium seats making some of these climbs for people who aren't familiar with off-roading. Probably definitely worth the $70 they are charging.

This is the viewpoint for the overlook at the half way point for hell's revenge. The tours don't run hell's gate, but we did. Another side note here...the first time, it was super sketchy to get into and then out of. We went back at the end of the trip and ran it again and it seemed much more reasonable. Our perspective really did change.

 

[creepycrawly]

Hell's gate pics.

 

[creepycrawly]

Dave doing work with the reds. His buggy made short work of this hill.

 

[creepycrawly]

Devils hot tub was next. It is absolutely no joke and the videos don't do it justice. It was mostly dry and there was no crawling it even with reds. I had no idea it was that deep. Dave gave it the ole college try. I didn't put tires on it.

The smaller one was a cake walk for us both.

 

[creepycrawly]

Up next, we hit escalator. I walked it the first time, but only got an inside video view. I'll try posting it later. Dave walked it and then I decided I wanted to run it again to get some outside pictures. It was at this point that I spilled my crackers. And by that I mean I dumped a backpack into the nasty ass water that is puddled there. No major damage and due to the lack of humidity, the bag was dry by the time we got back to the hotel. After several attempts on the second round, I gave up.

 

[creepycrawly]

That was it for day 1. Starting day 2 I topped off the gas tank and it was a bad sign.

 

[creepycrawly]

Some good views from the trip. The signage is pretty good but I still recommend some sort of gps. I guess now is as good a time as any to address this. Google maps has all the trails marked on the iPhone app. This would be awesome if there was cell service everywhere. There isn't.

I have a garmin 62s for work that I downloaded the trails on from the website for the book mentioned earlier in this thread. That book was absolutely awesome and was what I would call a necessity. Spend the $30 on it. Download the maps for the trails to some sort of device. I didn't try cartotracks or any of the other methods because the garmin worked well once I realized that it did list a start and end for each trail.

The trails are pretty well marked, but there are definitely some confusing intersections. The obstacles are marked and the book gives good descriptions of each one. Their "difficult" was our moderate. The only trail that was extreme was Pritchett canyon. I'll cover it later.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is a gps is a must and the book is totally worth it as well. I wouldn't consider going back without both.

 

[creepycrawly]

Dave smoked a rear u joint toward the end of poison spider which ended day 2 a little early and caused us to run it backward. Day 3 lead us to an attempt at Pritchett Canyon.

We had some fun at the brickyard on the middle line. Then got a little off camber at double down.

We both got denied on chewy because neither of us wanted to torture the rigs and break something this far from home with a couple of days of wheeling left. We tucked tail and turned around. Decided to visit arches national park with the remainder of the afternoon. Arches was cool, but be forewarned. It gets busy and it's $30 a carload to get in.

There's also a crossing fee of $5 to get into Pritchett canyon. It's cash only and honor system. My recommendation for Moab in general is take small bills every day to cover incidentals.

 

[creepycrawly]

We hit potato salad hill at the end of the day 3. It was not at all what I expected. It was steeper and narrower than it looks in pictures and videos. It's also kinda greasy. The good news is you can drive a Honda Civic to it.

 

[creepycrawly]

The last day we cleaned up what we missed at the end of golden spike. Gold bar rim, rusty nail, no left turn. Random pictures.

 

[creepycrawly]

More. Golden crack was fun. Glad we went. We ran no left turn backward. It was the limit it all our comfort zones. Not terribly difficult but the cost for a mess up would pretty much be death.