Trip report: Southern Utah
I am posting this link in the Public Lands forum because so many of our activities on this trip were on BLM land and in the national forests. But truthfully, we stayed most of the time at Kodachrome ...
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Niner, Valley of Fire is definitely on our list for next time -- but not on a weekend. And Toobold, Cottonwood Canyon was not bad at all in our little Toyota Tacoma --maybe the F350 was too high off the ground, causing too much movement for the passengers? There were ruts and potholes and rocks, but we took it easy.
The only tricky part was one creek crossing -- the water was only about a foot deep, but it was under a thick sheet of ice! We were apparently the first people to cross the water that morning -- it had gotten down into the single digits the night before. But I plowed across at about 5 miles an hour, cracking through the crust, and there was good traction on the creekbed (mostly small rocks and some sand).
Having said all of that, there is no way in the world we could have driven that road in wet weather -- much of the surface is red bentonite clay, which turns into greasy slop in the rain. I have pretty aggressive tires, but there are things my truck can't do. The road skirts along the edge of a cliff at times -- not a good place to slide off into the bushes.
The only tricky part was one creek crossing -- the water was only about a foot deep, but it was under a thick sheet of ice! We were apparently the first people to cross the water that morning -- it had gotten down into the single digits the night before. But I plowed across at about 5 miles an hour, cracking through the crust, and there was good traction on the creekbed (mostly small rocks and some sand).
Having said all of that, there is no way in the world we could have driven that road in wet weather -- much of the surface is red bentonite clay, which turns into greasy slop in the rain. I have pretty aggressive tires, but there are things my truck can't do. The road skirts along the edge of a cliff at times -- not a good place to slide off into the bushes.
