Pics & Notes From Our Summer Road Trip

[Dusty]

@Dusty Thank you for sharing your trip photos and experience. Little jelly seeing parts of this country that I'll likely never see with my own eyes. Your photos were excellent. What camera/lens do you use?

Thanks! I use a mirrorless Nikon Z7ii with several different lenses. I mostly shoot with the Nikkor 24-70, but I also have the Nikkor 14-30 for landscapes, and a Tamron 70-300 for wildlife shots. Changing glass is a PITA but sometimes it's worth it. I'm not super-pleased with the Tamron, I've been thinking of inve$sting in some Nikkor long glass for the Z7. I have a Nikon 400mm for my old crop-frame Nikon DSLR and it's great, but I rarely carry that camera any more.

Edited to add: a few of the photos were shot on my or my wife's iPhones (the selfies, etc.). Min is a 15 Pro Max, I think hers is a 13.

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[Dusty]

Looks like an outstanding trip. Thanks for sharing.

I have to say as a hobbyist photographer that your photos are top notch. I have some photos of some of the same things in my travel photos 'catalog'. Wall Street, Canyonlands overlooking Shafers, Newspaper Rock to name a few.

This is one of the best trip threads I've seen.

Thank you so much! I'm not a professional photographer, but "taking pictures" is one of the things I get paid to do as a professional in the automotive aftermarket marketing field. Over the years I've learned more about seeing a good shot. But I still burn a LOT of card space shooting dogshit, then sifting through it later to find the few gems

 

[userdude]

Beautiful, just beautiful. Y'all do it right.

 

[BigFootie]

No, don't reassess. it's a VERY easy road, and not very narrow. It's only puckery because of the sheer drop-offs. But if you keep your eye on the road while you're in motion, and let your passengers do the sightseeing you'll be fine. But for the driver I do recommend stopping several times so you can get out and take in the views without it distracting your driving.

That said, there was a guy in an SUV headed down, they passed us one time when we were out of the vehicle taking pictures. I saw him turning around on one of the switchbacks below and head back up. As he passed I asked him if everything was OK. He just said that one of his passengers was getting the heebie-jeebies and didn't want to continue on. But I've been up and down it a couple of times myself and it's no problem at all...just keep your eyes on the road LOL.

By the way it was a low bar to qualify as most puckery for this trip, as we really didn't do much off-roading.

As Dusty says, it’s only puckers if you are afraid of heights. My wife didn’t care for it but she doesn’t care for high bridges either.

 

[SeptuagenerianSasquatch]

A few more...

Looks like Moab, right?

 

[Dusty]

Looks like Moab, right?

Some of the pics are from the Moab area.

 

[mpeugeot]

What a great trip write up. It's exactly the kind of trip I would love to do. Also, if I ever blow out that rear window, I am pretty sure that I will just replace it with a solid panel in the future and add a rear view mirror based camera.

 

[jrollo7]

What a trip! Steffie and I got home last Sunday from our annual Summer Road Trip, and of course we had a blast. Here are a bunch of pics and some notes from our trip.

• Total Days: 13
• Total Miles Travelled: 3,685
• States Visited: 8 (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada)
• National Parks Visited: 4 (Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, Canyonlands NP)
• Nights Tent Camping: 5
• Nights in Hotel/Motel: 7 (Includes first 3 nights in a motel in Capitan, NM, while Stephanie and her brother were working on matters related to their mother’s estate, who had recently passed away. Motel/Hotel nights during the actual touring portion of this trip were only 4 (versus 5 nights camping)
• Touring Total Miles Travelled*: 3,006
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Traveled: 2,821
• Touring Connecting Freeway Miles: 185
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 94%
• Total Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 77%

*Touring mileage excludes freeway miles during both our initial getaway (Southern California to Phoenix AZ where we first left the Interstate, and the freeway portion of the final return leg (Hurricane UT to home). Everything in between I’m calling the “Touring” portion of our road trip.​

Some Highlights & Lowlights:

• Best Camping Meal: Steffie’s Chicken & Capers
• Best Restaurant Meal: Oso Grill in Capitan NM (I had the Hatch Chile Enchilada Casserole)
• Most Exciting Activity: Whitewater rafting on the Snake River in Jackson, WY
• Most Puckery Road: Shafer Switchbacks, Canyonlands NP
• Most Beautiful Scenery: The aspen forests between Crested Butte and Carbondale, CO
• Highest Elevation: Kebler Pass, CO 9,998 ft.
• Most Pleasant Surprises: 1. The beautiful mountains of northeastern Utah; 2. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison; 3. The enormous Bear Lake.
• Biggest Disappointment: the lack of viewable wildlife in Grand Teton NP and zero viewable elk in the vast National Elk Refuge.
• Live Wildlife Viewed: Antelope somewhere in New Mexico and in northern Colorado; several nice muley bucks near Meeker CO and a big one near Kebler Pass; a herd of Bighorn Sheep ewes at Blue Mesa Reservoir, CO; Bald Eagles on the Snake River, WY; a partially domesticated Bull Elk near the Signal Mountain store in Grand Teton NP, Turkey Buzzards, Canadian geese, Pelicans and Sandpipers at Bear Lake ID; various ground squirrels, chipmunks and other small mammals throughout the trip.
• Best Roads: Utah
• Worst Roads: Arizona
• Worst (only) Vehicular Equipment Failure: Shattered the rear hatch window on the Bronco
• Favorite Camping Gear: Steffie—Jet Boil and French Press; Dusty: Starlink Mini

Great report-even better trip!

 

[indio22]

Overall how did the 5.13 diff gears and 37s work out for the trip?

 

[Dusty]

Overall how did the 5.13 diff gears and 37s work out for the trip?

Everything worked great. I think 5.13's with 37's is the perfect highway gear, and with the manual transmission, plenty low enough to crawl too.

 

[drmdwebb]

Awesome! Where did you see the petroglyphs? Looks like Parowan Gap but maybe not?

Also, best roads in Utah? Not in my neck of the woods!

 

[Jason519]

What a trip! Steffie and I got home last Sunday from our annual Summer Road Trip, and of course we had a blast. Here are a bunch of pics and some notes from our trip.

• Total Days: 13
• Total Miles Travelled: 3,685
• States Visited: 8 (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada)
• National Parks Visited: 4 (Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, Canyonlands NP)
• Nights Tent Camping: 5
• Nights in Hotel/Motel: 7 (Includes first 3 nights in a motel in Capitan, NM, while Stephanie and her brother were working on matters related to their mother’s estate, who had recently passed away. Motel/Hotel nights during the actual touring portion of this trip were only 4 (versus 5 nights camping)
• Touring Total Miles Travelled*: 3,006
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Traveled: 2,821
• Touring Connecting Freeway Miles: 185
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 94%
• Total Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 77%

*Touring mileage excludes freeway miles during both our initial getaway (Southern California to Phoenix AZ where we first left the Interstate, and the freeway portion of the final return leg (Hurricane UT to home). Everything in between I’m calling the “Touring” portion of our road trip.​

Some Highlights & Lowlights:

• Best Camping Meal: Steffie’s Chicken & Capers
• Best Restaurant Meal: Oso Grill in Capitan NM (I had the Hatch Chile Enchilada Casserole)
• Most Exciting Activity: Whitewater rafting on the Snake River in Jackson, WY
• Most Puckery Road: Shafer Switchbacks, Canyonlands NP
• Most Beautiful Scenery: The aspen forests between Crested Butte and Carbondale, CO
• Highest Elevation: Kebler Pass, CO 9,998 ft.
• Most Pleasant Surprises: 1. The beautiful mountains of northeastern Utah; 2. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison; 3. The enormous Bear Lake.
• Biggest Disappointment: the lack of viewable wildlife in Grand Teton NP and zero viewable elk in the vast National Elk Refuge.
• Live Wildlife Viewed: Antelope somewhere in New Mexico and in northern Colorado; several nice muley bucks near Meeker CO and a big one near Kebler Pass; a herd of Bighorn Sheep ewes at Blue Mesa Reservoir, CO; Bald Eagles on the Snake River, WY; a partially domesticated Bull Elk near the Signal Mountain store in Grand Teton NP, Turkey Buzzards, Canadian geese, Pelicans and Sandpipers at Bear Lake ID; various ground squirrels, chipmunks and other small mammals throughout the trip.
• Best Roads: Utah
• Worst Roads: Arizona
• Worst (only) Vehicular Equipment Failure: Shattered the rear hatch window on the Bronco
• Favorite Camping Gear: Steffie—Jet Boil and French Press; Dusty: Starlink Mini

Did a similar trip last year from north Alabama little over 5000 miles and I’m ready to do something similar again awesome can’t wait to see some videos

 

[Los]

What a trip! Steffie and I got home last Sunday from our annual Summer Road Trip, and of course we had a blast. Here are a bunch of pics and some notes from our trip.

• Total Days: 13
• Total Miles Travelled: 3,685
• States Visited: 8 (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada)
• National Parks Visited: 4 (Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, Canyonlands NP)
• Nights Tent Camping: 5
• Nights in Hotel/Motel: 7 (Includes first 3 nights in a motel in Capitan, NM, while Stephanie and her brother were working on matters related to their mother’s estate, who had recently passed away. Motel/Hotel nights during the actual touring portion of this trip were only 4 (versus 5 nights camping)
• Touring Total Miles Travelled*: 3,006
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Traveled: 2,821
• Touring Connecting Freeway Miles: 185
• Touring Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 94%
• Total Non-Freeway Miles Percentage: 77%

*Touring mileage excludes freeway miles during both our initial getaway (Southern California to Phoenix AZ where we first left the Interstate, and the freeway portion of the final return leg (Hurricane UT to home). Everything in between I’m calling the “Touring” portion of our road trip.​

Some Highlights & Lowlights:

• Best Camping Meal: Steffie’s Chicken & Capers
• Best Restaurant Meal: Oso Grill in Capitan NM (I had the Hatch Chile Enchilada Casserole)
• Most Exciting Activity: Whitewater rafting on the Snake River in Jackson, WY
• Most Puckery Road: Shafer Switchbacks, Canyonlands NP
• Most Beautiful Scenery: The aspen forests between Crested Butte and Carbondale, CO
• Highest Elevation: Kebler Pass, CO 9,998 ft.
• Most Pleasant Surprises: 1. The beautiful mountains of northeastern Utah; 2. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison; 3. The enormous Bear Lake.
• Biggest Disappointment: the lack of viewable wildlife in Grand Teton NP and zero viewable elk in the vast National Elk Refuge.
• Live Wildlife Viewed: Antelope somewhere in New Mexico and in northern Colorado; several nice muley bucks near Meeker CO and a big one near Kebler Pass; a herd of Bighorn Sheep ewes at Blue Mesa Reservoir, CO; Bald Eagles on the Snake River, WY; a partially domesticated Bull Elk near the Signal Mountain store in Grand Teton NP, Turkey Buzzards, Canadian geese, Pelicans and Sandpipers at Bear Lake ID; various ground squirrels, chipmunks and other small mammals throughout the trip.
• Best Roads: Utah
• Worst Roads: Arizona
• Worst (only) Vehicular Equipment Failure: Shattered the rear hatch window on the Bronco
• Favorite Camping Gear: Steffie—Jet Boil and French Press; Dusty: Starlink Mini

Dusty, those are amazing shots man! sounds like an awesome one of kind trip as they are never the same... truly loving it.
myself just travel from West to East and I was pressed to be there on time, but going home I definitely will take the of the beaten path road.... need to start planning which way to go...Going back to SoCal.

 

[grannas211]

Thanks for posting. That is an adventure fit for the Bronco! Looks like you guys had a blast.

 

[Dusty]

Awesome! Where did you see the petroglyphs? Looks like Parowan Gap but maybe not?

Also, best roads in Utah? Not in my neck of the woods!

Those are on Potash Road along the Colorado River just west of Moab. They're my favorite kind of petroglyphs: the kind you don't have to hike to

I've found that whenever I enter Utah from any of its surrounding states, the roads instantly improve. I've entered Utah from Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming, and in every instance that has been the case. Those Mormons ain't much for bars and nightlife, but they're some road-building m/f-ers!

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