We had a great trip to the Bullfrog area of Lake Powell last week. I Thought I would post some pics and a trip description.
We left from the SF Bay Area on Friday and spent the night in South Lake Tahoe. We had about 1,000 miles to drive to get to Bullfrog, AZ, so we wanted to shave off the first couple of hundred miles so we wouldn't have 2 500-mile days.
The next morning we had a nice walk in the forest. This was our dog Sammy's favorite part of the trip because he loves chasing squirrels in the woods.
We spent the day driving Highway 50 through Nevada "The Loneliest Road in America".
We saw this along the road. Crazy and a bit creepy.
The half-way point for the 800-miles from South Lake Tahoe to Bullfrog, UT was close to Great Basin National Park. We didn't want to go all the way into the park to camp because the CG's up there are higher altitude and it's COLD this time of year. There was quite a bit of snow up on Wheeler Peak already. I had picked out a boondocking area in the BLM lands off White Pine County road at 6,800 ft. We only saw one vehicle drive by during the 14-hours we were there.
This is the view toward Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park from just above our spot.
It was REALLY dark there at night. This was my first try at some star pics with the Panasonic Lumix LX5. The camera was sitting on the top of the car.
The Touareg performed flawlessly on the whole trip of 2,125 miles, but in the morning I did get a low tire pressure warning in the left-front tire so I had to get some air at the gas station on the NV/UT border.
Once we got near Lake Powell, the landscape changed. This is between Hanksville and Bullfrog.
Once at the lake, we had been planning to camp at the Stanton Creek primitive camping area. This is essentially a dirt road complex with some bathrooms and nothing else. The lake level was 108 ft below full pool, so we had a long drive out to the water. The GPS was showing us out in the lake, and the "good" part of the road was way far away from the water, which required us to do some off-road trailer work.
Here we are finally situated next to the lake, where we would spend the next 4 nights. There were a couple of Class C's about 200 ft to the left of us, and a truck camper way past them, but there was plenty of privacy. There seemed to be more people camping on the other road across the water from us.
We have 200-watts of solar and a backup generator that we never used. The 50 gallons of fresh was adequate since we were "showering" in the lake, which was a chilly 71-degrees.
Sammy always enjoys breakfast ๐
Our friends from Santa Barbara showed up later that night and we went and picked up the boat we rented so we were able to get out on the lake later that day.
Dinners were outside after the sun set.
Campfires and incredible stars after dark.
We rented a faster boat this time so we could do some skiing.
Here's a nice shot of one of the larger bays on Lake Powell.
One of the things we like to do at Powell is to find a nice spot to hang out and swim for a few hours. It's paradise.
We often took hikes in the morning. That's my wife photo-bombing my shot.
This was our compound with our friend's rigs. They are more into the off-road stuff and plan to take that Land Cruiser with the trailer on various overlanding trips to Africa, South America, Iceland, and Australia. This picture was taken on Thursday after most people had left, so we were all alone. The day before the rangers came by and told us to leave by 4PM the next day due to the government shutdown.
This guy was living in the rocks nearby. We are happy to be staying in the trailer off the ground! We have used tents at Powell before and the scorpions love hanging out under the tents.
This was a great time of year to go to the lake. The highest temperature was 86F, and it got down into the low 50's at night so it was very comfortable. We never felt like we needed A/C or heat.
As I said, we had to leave due to the government shutdown. We had been planning to stay one more night, but it was no big deal because we had to return the boat anyway, so we just left after returning the boat. We went to Goosenecks State Park near Mexican Hat, UT. We were actually completely ignorant of the route we were taking since I hadn't planned on this stop. I just entered the destination into the GPS and followed it. We ended up driving down the "Moki Dugway", which was .. uh .. VERY interesting!
Goosenecks State Park is basically a flat area at the top of a cliff above the river where you can camp. There were several RV's there of various types -- probably more than usual due to the fact that all the Federal CG's nearby were closed. There are no defined spots, so we picked one farther away. That night a cold-front came by and I thought we were going to be blown off the cliff. The winds were easily 40-50MPH. It was 39F the next morning. Everyone did their cooking in our Trailer that night.
The next day we started back. Our last destination was Monument Valley.
That day we drove 554 miles to Barstow and stayed in an RV Park (Shady Lane -- not bad). I don't like to drive that much in one day with the trailer, but we wanted to make it back in 2 days.
This was the longest trip we have taken with the trailer and we were very pleased with the way everything worked out. We seem to make it back to Powell every 3-years or so. Can't wait for the next time!
We left from the SF Bay Area on Friday and spent the night in South Lake Tahoe. We had about 1,000 miles to drive to get to Bullfrog, AZ, so we wanted to shave off the first couple of hundred miles so we wouldn't have 2 500-mile days.
The next morning we had a nice walk in the forest. This was our dog Sammy's favorite part of the trip because he loves chasing squirrels in the woods.
We spent the day driving Highway 50 through Nevada "The Loneliest Road in America".
We saw this along the road. Crazy and a bit creepy.
The half-way point for the 800-miles from South Lake Tahoe to Bullfrog, UT was close to Great Basin National Park. We didn't want to go all the way into the park to camp because the CG's up there are higher altitude and it's COLD this time of year. There was quite a bit of snow up on Wheeler Peak already. I had picked out a boondocking area in the BLM lands off White Pine County road at 6,800 ft. We only saw one vehicle drive by during the 14-hours we were there.
This is the view toward Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park from just above our spot.
It was REALLY dark there at night. This was my first try at some star pics with the Panasonic Lumix LX5. The camera was sitting on the top of the car.
The Touareg performed flawlessly on the whole trip of 2,125 miles, but in the morning I did get a low tire pressure warning in the left-front tire so I had to get some air at the gas station on the NV/UT border.
Once we got near Lake Powell, the landscape changed. This is between Hanksville and Bullfrog.
Once at the lake, we had been planning to camp at the Stanton Creek primitive camping area. This is essentially a dirt road complex with some bathrooms and nothing else. The lake level was 108 ft below full pool, so we had a long drive out to the water. The GPS was showing us out in the lake, and the "good" part of the road was way far away from the water, which required us to do some off-road trailer work.
Here we are finally situated next to the lake, where we would spend the next 4 nights. There were a couple of Class C's about 200 ft to the left of us, and a truck camper way past them, but there was plenty of privacy. There seemed to be more people camping on the other road across the water from us.
We have 200-watts of solar and a backup generator that we never used. The 50 gallons of fresh was adequate since we were "showering" in the lake, which was a chilly 71-degrees.
Sammy always enjoys breakfast ๐
Our friends from Santa Barbara showed up later that night and we went and picked up the boat we rented so we were able to get out on the lake later that day.
Dinners were outside after the sun set.
Campfires and incredible stars after dark.
We rented a faster boat this time so we could do some skiing.
Here's a nice shot of one of the larger bays on Lake Powell.
One of the things we like to do at Powell is to find a nice spot to hang out and swim for a few hours. It's paradise.
We often took hikes in the morning. That's my wife photo-bombing my shot.
This was our compound with our friend's rigs. They are more into the off-road stuff and plan to take that Land Cruiser with the trailer on various overlanding trips to Africa, South America, Iceland, and Australia. This picture was taken on Thursday after most people had left, so we were all alone. The day before the rangers came by and told us to leave by 4PM the next day due to the government shutdown.
This guy was living in the rocks nearby. We are happy to be staying in the trailer off the ground! We have used tents at Powell before and the scorpions love hanging out under the tents.
This was a great time of year to go to the lake. The highest temperature was 86F, and it got down into the low 50's at night so it was very comfortable. We never felt like we needed A/C or heat.
As I said, we had to leave due to the government shutdown. We had been planning to stay one more night, but it was no big deal because we had to return the boat anyway, so we just left after returning the boat. We went to Goosenecks State Park near Mexican Hat, UT. We were actually completely ignorant of the route we were taking since I hadn't planned on this stop. I just entered the destination into the GPS and followed it. We ended up driving down the "Moki Dugway", which was .. uh .. VERY interesting!
Goosenecks State Park is basically a flat area at the top of a cliff above the river where you can camp. There were several RV's there of various types -- probably more than usual due to the fact that all the Federal CG's nearby were closed. There are no defined spots, so we picked one farther away. That night a cold-front came by and I thought we were going to be blown off the cliff. The winds were easily 40-50MPH. It was 39F the next morning. Everyone did their cooking in our Trailer that night.
The next day we started back. Our last destination was Monument Valley.
That day we drove 554 miles to Barstow and stayed in an RV Park (Shady Lane -- not bad). I don't like to drive that much in one day with the trailer, but we wanted to make it back in 2 days.
This was the longest trip we have taken with the trailer and we were very pleased with the way everything worked out. We seem to make it back to Powell every 3-years or so. Can't wait for the next time!
