Trip Report
2015_07 Desert Southwest Roadtrip - Family Style (3 of 5 sections complete)

by NutAgain!
Saturday July 18, 2015 5:35pm
OK, this one is going to be huge. There should be a way to save drafts before publishing here. I'll update the thread title with completion status so you can see when it's worth a peak to check back.

This is how I see it coming together:
* The Bivies ...(DONE)
* The Car Incidents ...(DONE)
* The Beautiful Places ...(DONE)
* The People and Adventure Vignettes
* The Great Debate: Faith vs. Reason

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NutAgain! 		About the Author
NutAgain! is a trad climber from South Pasadena, CA.

Comments
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 20, 2015 - 12:25am PT
The Bivies

Day 1: Outside Zion




Day 2: Outside of Bryce, near Tropical Reservoir




Day 3: Escalante, Hole in the Rock Road, near Peekabo and Spooky Canyons


Days 4-6: Hangin' in Moab, full pressure-cooker civilization with Jaybro



Day 7: Out at the very tip of Island in the Sky, Canyonlands




Day 8: BLM land northwest of Kemerrer, WY (fossil country!), needed protection from the man-eating skeeters



Days 9-10: City of Rocks ST Gathering




Day 11: Great Basin, 2 miles high





Day 12: Somewhere on Hwy 120 west of Benton
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 20, 2015 - 12:16am PT
The Car Incidents


Sand Trap on Hole in the Rock Road
OK, picture it. 1am. Kids sleeping in the back after 30-45 minutes of bumping along on washboard and broken rocks and occasional mild sand. It's been a long day- waking up near Tropic Reservoir west of Bryce... trying and failing the back way in via old USFS roads... braving the floating vegetation and swimming in Tropic Reservoir... driving to Escalante, a few hours of swimming in Wide Hollow Reservoir... hiking both loops of the Petrified Forest trails... cooking dinner on the shore of the reservoir after dark (and mind you these are the longest days of the year, so we're talking 9:30 to 10pm for total darkness)... starting the drive out Hole in the Rock Road only to realize I've got all the details I need except the mileage point to turn off for Spooky and Peekaboo Canyons, and there is no cell reception, so back to town to get reception and figure it out, and then back out on the road, for 30-45 minutes of driving and BOOM! The 17 miles of primitive but easily passable road had lulled me into a reverie from which I was rudely shaken when the road turned to mini sand dunes. I blew it and kept the wheels in the old troughs (can't call them tracks) which was pretty stupid considering the foot and a half of sand in the middle with my 6" prius clearance. I made it about 40 feet before grinding to a halt and hopeless spinning buried axles and all parts of the car belly rubbing the sand.

Oops.

After trying a few things, getting the kids out to lighten the load, I bust out the folding army shovel and resign myself to digging. It's only another 50 feet ahead? or 75 or something? First step is dig out the car, and while I'm engaged in that with kids chillin' on a tarp on the side, along comes a jeep! It's a couple of young climber bucks on break from working at Lake Powell out to do Coyote Canyon. The pile-up of memories an fog of distance has obscured their names. Aaron and someone? Anyways, they were recently graduated from school in Connecticut or New Hampshire or something like that, and they were very very cool. They didn't have gear to help but I had extra long cimbing slings and they were game to get us out (especially since we were blocking the path forward).

So we rig up biners to the back anchor points of the frame under the bumper (never knew I had these before), and they yank me backwards to freedom. They even offered to let me try again, and after flooring it I made it about the same distance before getting stuck. This time they could pass me, and after some himming and hawwing, I committed to the path forward and they towed me forward through the rest of the sand trap and another shorter one right after. It was smooth sailing from there! Tomorrow would be another day, and we'd figure out how to get the heck out of there after having the main adventure we came for.


The rest of the story... now it's much later, and I'm 26.5 miles out on Hole in the Rock Road. There's a sign High Clearance 4WD Only. We've long since parted ways with the Jeep. If I park here, it's an extra half mile or more to the mouth of the canyon, and I'm not sure how much I can cajole out of the kids for the slot canyon adventure, desert hiking in 104 temps... So I decide to go for it figuring I can back out if it gets ugly. After all, I've been on some pretty hard core roads with the Prius, as long as they are not the nemesis of deep sand or deeply rutted parallel track. Long story short, with careful straddling of gullies, high angling, and occasional getting out to pre-inspect and work out the sequence of where I have to steer and when I need to gun it to ascend rock steps diagonally while dodging gullies and little boulders, we make it to a point that I say is good enough. That's where we slept.

The next morning, while we're eating breakfast, I am envious of a few families that look all clean cut in their tall SUVs or big pickup trucks that just casually straight-on bounce over what was a monumental feat for me in the wee hours of the morning. Prius inferiority complex. But lo! An old funky sedan with two guys makes it past my stopping point. That's all the goading I need. By daylight, with the psychological pro of fellow travelers, we make it to the end of the road and commence a wonderful adventure in Spooky and Peekaboo Canyons.

As part of this, we befriend another family, a mom and daughter driving across the whole USA to meet the dad in Vegas. This mom is core! She is out there with her Prius too! How in the HELL did they make it past the sand trap in the morning without getting stuck? She said she just floored it and hoped for the best. My best hypothesis is that my car acted as a dredge with the jeep towing it, to clear out a shallower channel in the sand. But they stopped before the 4WD part and did the extra walk ;)

The point is, I had hope of not getting stuck on the drive back. I had studiously noted the mileage and calculated when I would be hitting that spot on the return drive. Coming down the hill toward the sand traps, I gunned it to 40mph and just blasted straight on through with some spinning and fishtails. Yeeeeehaawwwwww!!!! That feeling of triumph on the other side of the sand was priceless.



Bonneville Salt Flats - not as hard as it looks

Now this was really just stupid on my part. At first I didn't trust my feet to the wet salt, thinking it was a crust on top of a shallow lake. Then I saw people walking on it, figured out it was pretty solid for walking. So I gotta take it to the next level. The warning signs are clear, deep tracks and ruts from tires bigger than mine that don't go out more than 50 meters. Signs of past adventures. I decide I'll just hang my front two wheels over the edge of the road to try, figuring I can pull out if necessary. Doh! Front wheel drive, didn't think it through very well. Quickly spinning my wheels in a slippery lubricant of mud and wet salt-slurry:

So I get my son in the driver's seat, and I change my flip-flops to boots, use my shovel to dig out the pile of mud in front of the tires, and get out there lifting and pushing the hood, while coaching my son how to time his presses on the gas pedal to get the car rocking. No dice. I rummage through my gear for friction supplements, and repurpose a cereal box as scraps under the tires. More lifting and pushing. By this time my predicament has attracted the attention of a couple, and within 5-10 seconds of the guy helping me lift and push, we get it out. That's twice I needed to be rescued on the same trip!

It's fricken time to get serious about a high clearance vehicle, may with 4wd, and preferably a pop-top family camping friendly van. I see a cargo van conversion project in my future, and some commitment to learning a bit more about car mechanical systems.

But the Prius has served me well, I don't regret the 140k miles of adventure. My son says, "I like the Prius. After all the places we've survived in it, I feel safe."
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 20, 2015 - 12:30am PT
The Beautiful Places
At least half of Utah deserves to be a national park. We did a ridiculously small and fast sampling in a few days and skipped tons of established destinations, and we could easily spend a few weeks at any one of the many many spots we blew past.


Zion














Bryce

technically this is the state park before Bryce

This is Bryce Canyon NP









Petrified Forest











Escalante - Peekaboo and Spooky Canyons









Utah - Highway 12










Boulder Mountain













Capitol Reef












San Rafael Swell



drive-by dirty window quality photo








Entrajo



Jaybro showed a picture a few days ago where it looks like a regular muddy river close to this section:









Arches



petrified sand dunes. pretty cool!


























Dead Horse Point

On top of the plateau, driving out to Dead Horse Point

worth the drive :)











Canyonlands









sunset @ green river overlook

sunrise at the tip of the island in the sky









The Universe Presided Over By Jesus

As depicted in the visitor's center in Temple Square, Salt Lake City




Castle Rocks SP (Utah) - The Flowers












Bonneville Salt Flats








Great Basin

iphones are not known for their zoom quality


And sometimes can be a challenge to do macro zooms:






Lehman Cave





Note carefully: this is an example of a stalactite that was previously broken off (early souvenir collectors) and has since regrown. This is about 100 years of growth or so.

Crazy unique disk structures. Alien radars?













The unexpected beauty of central Nevada

These are mostly high velocity drive-bys. The thing that really struck me is how many mountains and valleys there are across Nevada. It's like driving through different variations of the Eastern Sierra as you cross the state from east to west (we chose Hwy 6, thinking it might be lonelier than Hwy 50 loneliest highway in America):




And the amount of climbing formations- well heck, just about everywhere there is tons of good looking rock. To the point that there's no reason to go out exploring everywhere for it. Just pick whatever is closest to you.



A nice sunset:

A crazy deposit of white stuff. I brought some home. Hope it's not radioactive or alien poop.





Benton Crossing

Looks like some climbing right next to 120







I never knew this stuff was out there east of Mono Lake!





Good ol' Mono Lake, back in the home neighborhood (roughly speaking)

And after dropping off the kids in SF Bay, driving home to LA and enjoying a sunset like this from my balcony, on one of the days soon after getting home:
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 22, 2015 - 12:03am PT
The People and Adventure Vignettes
I want to start with a comment on an unexpected aspect of this trip that brought me deep satisfaction: seeing and connecting with people who openly embrace the natural world, and the uncertainties and risks that are part of living life more fully and seeking out the beauty all around us. On this trip, we ran into a variety of families out there having great adventures in the boonies like it's just normal. I find it refreshing, filling my spirit with hope that I'm not just a crazy isolated case for wanting to share this kind of stuff with my kids. Supertopo has been encouraging on that front as well. Thanks gang!


placeholder
* BLM vs. private property - beware
* Angel's Landing
* tubing the Virgin River
* USFS land connects to National Park via backroads... sort of?
* Tropical Reservoir
* Wide Hollow reservoir
* Petrified Forest

Spooky Canyon and Peekaboo Canyon mud-swimming




resting in the shade

this approach turns out to be too sketchy with the puddle in front, because wet muddy shoes on slippery clay slab just don't work! so we did the other canyon first. But my daughter got about 2 body lengths above this point before I rescued her and we made the decision to re-route.


sweet sandy bottoms!





turns out the big backpack with 2 gallons of water as a bad idea fro this one... I got a good work-out carrying that thing at arms length while I did the sideways squeeze chimney with sharp little ball bearings to abuse my nipples.

But how rad is this?

The answer is, "pretty rad."


Down won't work...

Sp up it is!

Whew! Made it through and finishing Spooky here:


Now, we pass a big group of teens (maybe a senior boy scout troop?) that look like they are returning from a war they lost. THe amount of mud on their bodies is hilarious. They warn us to stick with the mom and daughter that caught up to us, because we'll need all the help we can get!


Gettin' into Peekaboo from the top.

Whew! This mud doesn't seem like that big of a deal!


Not too bad so far...













Deep down inside I'm just a filthy pig and I love it.


Just another cool side-canyon to hang out in for lunch












* Entrajo canyon with Jaybro, kids' first rappels!
* Arches - Fiery Furnace self-guided
(the family that sketchy-solos together stays together)
* Canyonlands busy afternoon, evening, night, morning
* The Mormon Tour
* Breaking rocks and finding 50 million year old fish in Wyoming
* The welcoming ST gang at City of Rocks
* Let it flow! The search for a stream
* Backroads from Idaho to Utah to Nevada
* Lehman Caves
* The intellectual underground of Tonopah, NV
* Cool spots near Mono Lake
* Traditions: Lembert Dome and a Tenaya Lake dip
Jaybro

Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
  Jul 18, 2015 - 05:40pm PT
Been waiting anxiously for this, you are one cool Dad!
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 18, 2015 - 06:00pm PT
The Great Debate: Faith vs. Reason
Creationism or Geology and Evolution? Or both? Or neither?
Fritz

Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
  Jul 18, 2015 - 06:01pm PT
Nutagain!
Wonderful to meet you & your great teens at City of Rocks. I am looking forward to the rest of the report! Hopefully, next time we can talk some more---------& even "shudder-gasp" go climbing.
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
  Jul 18, 2015 - 07:07pm PT

And even Jaybro's in it!

You know they call them cars 'pious'' in Boulder!!!!
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
  Jul 19, 2015 - 03:43am PT
Looking good dad!

You guys hit a lot of great terrain!
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
  Jul 19, 2015 - 08:26am PT
Beautiful pics! It's great that you're sharing such amazing places with your family.
Grippa

Trad climber
Salt Lake City, UT
  Jul 19, 2015 - 12:58pm PT
Yea buddy! Taking in the Tour de Utah!
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  Jul 19, 2015 - 05:09pm PT
Looks like a great family trip,
Lucky kidos right there!!!
SC seagoat

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, Bozeman, the ocean, or ?
  Jul 19, 2015 - 05:34pm PT
Man. That is what I call a trip!!!
So dang much fun!


Susan
le_bruce

climber
Oakland, CA
  Jul 19, 2015 - 06:04pm PT
Scott, you lug, you guys went right through Boulder! Give me a heads up next time and I'll hook you up with some good people, places, things, even if I'm not out there at the time.

How 'bout that Utah, huh? Makes a California person ponder the possibilities...
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
Author's Reply  Jul 20, 2015 - 01:06am PT
3 of 5 complete...

Jaybro, I'm chipping away at it bit by bit! I wish there was a pause button on life that I could spend more time hangin out there with you!

Ferretlegger and SCseagoat, your place is wonderful! I wish our schedules aligned better.

Fritz, thanks for being a gracious host for us in COR ID! It was nice to share some campfires with a great group of folks.

Yeah le_bruce, I was thinking of you often whilst driving through the wonderland that is Utah, wondering where is your patch of shangrila.

I'm doubly impressed that you made it all work with a Prius
Those days are drawing to a close. Kids are getting bigger, demands for adventure are getting larger, and just last week I had 2 surfboards and the car rack and all the mounting hardware come flying off in one chunk on the freeway, en route to a family reunion at Carpinteria Beach. That was exciting, playing real-life Frogger (for folks from the Atari era), or Crossy Roads for you iphone kids. Then had the CHP guy hurrying me along while I used my hatchet/hammer to pound a metal bracket back into shape so I could reattach it. Just a mile down the road at the same time they were dealing with a fatality of a guy on the side of the road clipped by a truck. Yikes. There but for the grace of (god)|(random luck) go I?
Gary Carpenter

climber
SF Bay Area
  Jul 20, 2015 - 07:08am PT
Hi Scott,
Great trip report!. Peggy and I did a southern Utah trip several years ago. It was too short and we've been meaning to go back ever since. Your report brings back great memories. Maybe this Fall.
Great pics of your kids.
Gary
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