O brother where art we?

EPIC!

EricM wrote: coolio. I spent this summer driving my RV and my Jeep to the Arctic circle.

Start a thread! I love reading this stuff! Please?

Oh hai, from my own recent colorado adventure:

^^^ Stood at that very spot with a bunch of my dirt bike buds in mid August, it was sleeting and 38 degrees. I need to scan that pic and post it.

Good stuff Matt--I'll contribute as soon as I figure out how....

If someone is really interested in the Coprolite I'm thinking about switching over to a 1st gen 4-Runner or FJ40

Thanks for your comments everybody!! Don't worry about hijacks, the more pictures the merrier.

Day 3, 9-8-2010: Cinnamon Pass, Animas Forks, Silverton, Ophir Pass, Moab. When we got underway in Lake City it was raining lightly. This turned out to be pretty cool since the low clouds really added to the scenery.

The road to Cinnamon Pass was beautiful and the rain kept the dust down. This is one advantage we had over the motorcycle folks, rain was a non-factor. The road was pretty decent but still had some steep drop-offs.

Taking the high road.

I’m pretty sure these sticks are used to guide the snow plows in the winter. It must get pretty deep. It’s hard to take a bad picture up there. The summit of Cinnamon Pass, 12,640 ft, I think this is the highest altitude we achieved. This is the second “Shelf Road” we encountered. The name is very appropriate in both cases. Animas Forks, an old mining town that was abandoned in the 1930s.

GRM project? Encountered this cool vehicle and its’ happy tour group on the way down from Animas Forks. We came in to Silverton around midday and stopped at a nice café that was actually called “The Café” IRRC. The famous Durango-Silverton narrow gauge train was just leaving town the same time we were, the whistle was a cool addition to the atmosphere. Ophir Pass combined with the rainy weather was other-worldly.

The town of Ophir apparently has a sense of humor. Gratuitous staged water crossing, I think it was somebody’s driveway. The livestock had a pretty casual attitude toward the fencing that was supposed to contain them.

We were running out of day and we wanted to get to Moab before nightfall so we jumped on the highway in Dolores CO and headed for Utah. We were going to do the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park and had reservations at a couple of the campgrounds on the trail. The scenery started to change.

We got in to Moab and set up camp at the local KOA. We had been nursing a transfer case leak and needed to change from the high altitude jets to low altitude since we were below 5000 feet for the first time in the trip. Unfortunately, we were told that vehicle work was strictly forbidden in the KOA. We found an O’Reilly’s auto parts store up the road and they let us use their parking lot. The jet change was much trickier than expected and caused more than its’ share of anxiety but we got it done. I was starting to feel sick, a bad sore throat, congestion, and that light-headed, feverish feeling. I loaded up on OTC meds at the local grocery store and hoped that a good night’s sleep would help things out. A good night’s sleep was not to be had. The wind really picked up overnight and the tent flapped loudly until it collapsed at about 2am and started whacking me in the head. On top of that, between the meds and my attempts to stay hydrated I was getting up to pee about every 3 hours. I don't doubt that I was snoring at an obnoxious level when I did sleep so I kept the pistol on my side of the tent. I’m sure Eric was still contemplating smothering me with my pillow.

Thank you much, I am really enjoying this.

Day 4, 9/9/2010 Morning came and I started to feel better when we had been up and moving for a while. We went and filled up the truck’s 25 gallon (we thought) gas tank and put 3 gallons in the jerry can on the roof (any more than that and it leaked through the cap).
The road in was spectacular.

This balancing rock is popular with people doing the trail.

This is where Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff at the end of that movie. We had to check in at the visitor’s center and to get there we had to climb the infamous Schafer switchbacks. Not really too bad after what we had already done. The White Rim Trail is normally a loop route. Eric had reserved camp sites at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way around the loop. However, on 8/20/2010, the Mineral Bottom switchback was washed out in a flash flood. This turned the loop route into an “out and back” route. Eric had been trying to change our camp site reservations for a while but everything was booked solid. The plan was now to drive in to our first campsite (Gooseberry) on the first day, drive to the second campsite (Potato Bottom) on the second day and then drive all the way out on the third day. The total round trip was about 140 miles and we were told that the trip from Potato Bottom to pavement was about 10 hours. The only services on the trail were the nicest outhouses I have ever used every 10 miles. White Rim Trail I finally got the link to work. This park is incredible.
This is me on Muscleman Arch. It’s not really obvious but I’m almost 300ft above the canyon floor.
This was the only gap in the cliffs for miles, the wind was howling through here. We took a side trip down Lathrop Canyon to the Colorado river. It was a really cool trail, steep and challenging.
Did I mention that this place was spectacular? We made it to our first campsite and tied the tent to the truck to prevent another “blow down” incident.

We had bats circling our campsite. I couldn’t get a picture but they were about 3 inches long. We made a sacrifice of osmotic raisins and Jamison’s (whiskey) to the wind gods in hopes of mercy.

Day 5, 9/10/2010: I drove today. Normally I leave this to Eric but he suggested that I drive just for something different. The trail was mostly rolling and sandy but I got to drive over Murphy Hogback which was very challenging but the truck made it easy. A few words about the Coprolite; what an incredible machine!!! Very forgiving, terrific gearing, and the 2f has tons of low-end grunt. Put this truck into 4-low and it will climb trees. This ability to creep over just about anything really reduced the stress level when going over steep, rocky terrain.

Tomfoolery On the recommendation of one of the rangers at the visitor’s center, we took a hike into a slot canyon. We had to climb back up this. And this It was one of those adjectives (beautiful, spectacular, breath taking), take your pick. The climb out was not easy. There were a couple of places we had to use a rope and we were both pretty beat up by the time we got out. At one point something in my knee popped and I’ve been limping ever since. When we finally got back to the truck I was feeling very old, fat and clumsy. We made it to Potato Bottom, set up camp and took a picture for Eric’s local Landcruiser club.

This campsite was close to the Green river so we had some insect (flies) problems. We also had more bats. This ended up being our last night of primitive camping. There were several reasons for this. The tent was not holding up. We had broken two poles and had to rig it to keep it upright. I had not invested in good sleep gear. The motorcycle folks really emphasize the importance of good sleeping equipment but I was in a money pinch so I cheaped out and borrowed some stuff from Eric. If I was 10 years younger it probably would have been fine but I should have bought a Big Agnes extra long, extra wide sleeping bag and pad. Then I should have slept in it every night for a week before I left. Lesson learned. More to come!

This is E P I C !!!

Absolutely Awesome. I love that Land Cruiser too. That is what I would like to have someday for a modern SUV alternative.

Stunning pics for an epic trip!

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us!

Awesome...I was jealous when you and I talked in Deland and you mentioned your plans for the trip...even more jealous seeing the pictures!

Day 6, 9/11/2010: We had to get up at the crack of dawn this morning since we had to drive all the way out today. We had several issues to contend with today. 1) We were low on gas. The low altitude jets had increased fuel consumption. The fuel gauge was rather vague so we weren’t sure if we had a real problem or not. We had already emptied the can into the tank to reduce weight on the roof. 2) We were low on water. This was my fault. I was emptying two 70oz camelbaks a day to try to keep the mucus moving. We were down to 1.5 gallons. Not much if we ran into problems. 3) We were low on time. We had to be out of the park by nightfall or we would get fined. This was really the least of our worries but it was sort of a challenge. 10 hours? We can beat that!
We didn’t take many pictures but we did get video of us going back over Murphy Hogback. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCEFxrV69o Eric is driving and I am making a pathetic attempt to hold the camera steady. Sorry about the lack of sound, the camera we used didn’t have that capability. It may seem that we were traveling rather quickly up that path and we were for three reasons. First, we were afraid of meeting someone coming down; second, we were trying to make time; third, there was a bathroom at the top of the hill. We did stop for some articulation shots. Eric did a great job of balancing speed and not banging against the rear suspension bump stops. We came to the conclusion early on that the Coprolite need more rear spring in the current, loaded down configuration. We made it to pavement in just a little over 5 hours. That included stopping to chat with some folks at the top of Murphy Hogback. We were cruising down the road, basking in our manly triumph when the truck started to sputter. We finally ran out of gas on the side of U.S. 191 within sight of the bridge going into Moab. We were four miles away from the nearest gas station according to the Garmin. We were right outside the gate of a Department of Energy cleanup sight (uranium mine tailings) and we could see their gas tanks but they wouldn’t let us have any. We had to swallow our manly pride and call AAA. It was about an hour delay but we were very lucky that we had made as far as we did. It turns out that the Coprolite has a 23 gallon tank, not 25. We ended up getting about 5 mpg on the trail.

We made it into Moab, got something to eat, and started looking for someplace to stay. The rooms were expensive and we really started to get a negative vibe from the town itself. Many people on the motorcycle board (ADVrider.com) have complained that Moab had lost its’ charm and I have to agree. I don’t know what it was like before but it struck me as the Gatlinburg of the west. Gatlinburg has sort of accepted itself though but Moab has not. The people in Moab (with the exception of the nice guys at O’Reilly’s) seemed to have a thinly veiled contempt for their visitors. We decided to head up the road to Green River, the room was much cheaper and there was no hidden hostility. Day 7, 9/12/2010: We re-evaluated our goals and decided to abandon the all-dirt route I had planned. We looked at our maps and decided on some nice secondary roads to help speed up our trip to the coast. Since we were also abandoning primitive camping, we had to consider speeding up the trip to minimize hotel costs. Improved campgrounds are nice (ones with showers ect.) but for another 10-15 dollars you can get a decent room with a bed. It just wasn’t worth it to mess with the tent. Fortunately, many of the secondary roads in Utah are dirt/ gravel so we were still in the spirit. Goblin Valley, really cool and I loved the name. Coolest gas station ever! This road ran down the back (east) side of Capitol Reef National Park. Our new route ended up taking us through Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument, in particular it took us through Long Canyon. This was the surprise gem of the trip. We took a little side trip into this slot canyon. You don’t see many of these signs in Florida. We made it to Bryce Canyon late in the afternoon and were going to sort of “scout it out” and then hit it for real the next day. It was crowded with stressed out vacationers. We decided to give it the Griswald Grand Canyon treatment (could only find it in German, you get the idea). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQJH5tZLGis It’s a beautiful place though. We headed up the road and found a mom and pop hotel on U.S. 89.

You are a road-trip hero! Thanks for the pics and write-up; I hope you have more to share with us.

BTW, several of your canyon pics have been added to the hard drive. It'll be great to see them as a screen saver image in the cold of winter.

Day 8, 9/13/2010: We jumped on the highway and headed for Zion National Park. We wanted to get there pretty early so we had time to hike the Narrows. The park is essentially a canyon formed by the Virgin river and it gets progressively narrower as you travel north. The “Narrows” are the part of the canyon that consists basically of the river, the canyon walls and not much else. To hike in this area you have to walk mostly in the river. The entire hike is 8 miles one way but you can turn around any time you wish. This was my first impression of Zion. We were already contemplating our escape plan if we couldn’t find parking. The famous Zion tunnel, this sucker was much longer than I expected. There really wasn’t any way to capture the scale of this park in a picture.
We found parking easily at the visitor’s center and figured out that the traffic was mostly due to construction. We had to take a shuttle bus up to the Narrows. There were some places that didn’t involve walking in the river but most of the way looked like this. Overall this is one of the coolest places I have ever been. Notice that I am the only person without a walking stick. I felt deprived. Eric had a cool collapsible one with a carbide tip. We spent two hours saying “let’s see what’s around the next bend” until we finally started heading back. We were about 3 miles in. This was a little side stream near our turn-around point. At some points this canyon is 30 feet wide and 1200 feet high. It is impossible to get the scope of it in a single picture. There were people trying though, we saw several folks who had to be carrying 50lbs of camera gear. I don’t blame them but I think it is futile. We finally made it out of the Narrows and on to a shuttle bus by about mid-afternoon. I don’t know about Eric but I was whupped and my knee was quite annoyed. It was totally worth it. The park is kind enough to provide spring water taps at their restrooms for the purpose of filling up water bottles and the like. It was quite good as far as water goes. We jumped on the highway and then to the (hangs head in shame) interstate. We got into Nevada and started seeing signs for $25 rooms. We eventually stopped at the Casablanca Resort, Spa and Casino in Mesquite, Nevada. The room was cheap but clean and comfortable. We ate at a restaurant in the hotel. The portions were huge and we both ate, with an appetizer, for under $20. I love gambling subsidized accommodations. There was also a Starbucks in the building about 100 feet from our room. More to come later.

oldsaw wrote: You are a road-trip hero! Thanks for the pics and write-up; I hope you have more to share with us. BTW, several of your canyon pics have been added to the hard drive. It'll be great to see them as a screen saver image in the cold of winter.

Were you able to retrieve full resolution images? If not, let me know and I'll try to get them to you.

I've officially given up on trying to keep up with your posts and just posted a link on our Landcruiser forum and my Facebook page.

Next step is to submit your work to the "Toyota Trails" magazine and claim it as my own

you guys should post this over on expeditionportal.com as well!

Coprolite wrote: I've officially given up on trying to keep up with your posts and just posted a link on our Landcruiser forum and my Facebook page. Next step is to submit your work to the "Toyota Trails" magazine and claim it as my own

I'm sure you have real work to do during the day.

Day 9, 9/14/2010: Eric had spent a good deal of money trying to get the A\C in the Coprolite working before we left. Unfortunately he had been let down by a crappy parts supplier. The compressor had made ugly noises since it had been installed and the last attempt we had made to use the system was quickly aborted out of fear of catastrophic failure. This all led up to us waking up very early in Mesquite and getting on the road to get as far as we could before it got hot. A picture of the Garmin; we used this compass feature a lot because of the elevation readout and the time of day (I didn’t bring a watch). Viva Las Vegas! It was not on the agenda this trip. We hopped off the interstate in Victorville CA and had lunch at a Del Taco, I didn’t really notice a difference from Taco Bell. While passing through Palmdale I saw the SCA (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft) doing “touch and go’s” at the airport. This was a little ironic for me since I have helped remove the Shuttle orbiter from this aircraft many times during my career at Kennedy Space Center. I couldn’t get a decent picture. We finally moved into the more rural areas. The lifestyle here seemed a little bleak. We started moving in to some higher elevations and the scenery started to get more interesting. The road we were on seemed to be following a ridge line. We then descended into an agricultural valley area. Carrots seemed to be the crop of choice. We hit the coast at Santa Maria and headed south to Vandenberg AFB. Eric is active duty Air Force so we were able to procure a nice suite in the temporary living facility (TLF) with a kitchen for $40. We met up with some friends of Eric’s and went out to the beach. We had to hurry because it was getting dark. It was surprisingly cold. Mmmmm kelp! We went back to the room, had some drinks and called it a night.

Day 10, 9/15/2010: We took some time to tour Vandenberg today. I’ve been to quite a few Air Force bases in my time but I think this is the prettiest. We drove up into the hills to some of the tracking stations that were up there. Then we went back down to the water. We checked out some of the launch sites. Notice how high the wires are over the road. This section was supposed to be used to move Space Shuttle orbiters to and from their launch site back in the days (pre-Challenger) when the Air Force was planning to launch shuttles from Vandenberg. We left Vandenberg and headed to Pismo Beach for lunch. Eric had promised me a crab feast. He delivered. We headed up the Pacific Coast Highway stopping occasionally to climb on rocks and look at gross things in tidal pools. There weren’t many public restrooms along the way so sometimes I had to use some slightly precarious places to stay out of view. Eric, getting ready to go down and use the same spot I did around the back and at the bottom of the rock he’s standing on. The scenery lived up to its’ reputation. We pulled into Monterrey and tried to find a cheap room. We tried this place but they only had rooms with a single queen bed. We’re not into that. Monterey ended up being too expensive so we headed inland to Salinas and found something cheap. Eric was getting very good at haggling for cheaper hotel prices.

Del Taco may not be much different than Taco Bell to some, but Taco Bell does not have pot roast breakfast burritos. Awesome trip. I thought I felt good doing 1700 miles this last weekend going from Indiana to Baltimore to North Jersey and back. Appalachia just doesn't have scenery like this though.