Elephant Hill

Our work on the inverter done, Devin all better, and having spent almost two weeks in Moab and hardly been out exploring, Devin chose us a Jeep trail to increase our level of adventure. He he.

Elephant Hill is rated as the most difficult trail in our book on 4WD Trails: Southeast Utah, which is a book for SUV's and stock 4WD vehicles, so we knew our stock Jeep Wrangler JK could do it, but also knew it would likely be challenging. Oh yeah. It's amazing what our Jeep can do, is all I can say! And, of course, its driver :-)

First we had to drive south of Moab to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park - quite a beautiful drive, which took us past great views of the La Sal Mountains and redrock mesas, Wilson Arch, "Hole-N-the-Rock," ranches in beautiful valleys surrounded by red cliffs, and Newspaper Rock on our way to the National Park.

The trail takes off from a road that starts in a campground and is a 2WD dirt road to the Elephant Hill picnic area. The Jeep trail starts with a clear indication that this is a serious 4WD road! The climb is immediate and extreme over slickrock, some of which has been cemented in the gaps by the NPS. The first switchback is so sharp there is a turnaround for it, as you are climbing straight up the side of the cliff, it seems. Over a few more large and steep and rocky obstacles, and you are at the top of Elephant Hill, rewarded with great views, and an easy drive across the mesa to the other side, which, of course, you have to descend. Gulp.

The downhill part is even steeper (and longer) than going up was, and we have to come back UP this hill! I scouted ahead (which is really my excuse for being too chicken to be inside the Jeep when it feels like it's going to tip over - ha!) I could barely hang onto the "road" in my Chacos, which are pretty sticky on slickrock, generally. Wow. And around each bend it seemed to get even steeper and more crazy! But I had faith in our Jeep and in Devin's driving skill, and we also had, at that time, one of the few other vehicles we would see on this trail, pass us and head down the trail. It was an older Pathfinder driven by some Europeans, I think. French or Italian was my guess - we saw them at Newspaper Rock and I thought they were speaking French, or possibly Italian. Anyway, all three passengers got out to take photos while the driver careened down the hill, bottoming out and scraping at several points, apparently not caring - maybe it was a rental - ha! After that demo, we (and by we I mean Devin) finessed our way down the hill with grace, not scraping a bit. One part of the trail is a steep switchback with no turnaround, and a sign saying to "pull in and back up" - Devin had to back down part of this hill! Fortunately, it was only a short section, to the next "back in and drive forward" sign. Then we were down and the drive was a "normal" 4WD road through sandy washes, slickrock, rocky trails, and incredible scenery, wildflowers, rock formations, caves and crevices.

Devin said something very telling while we were out there playing - "I don't want to do anything to risk our lives or risk damaging the Jeep, but I want to everything right up to that point!" OMG. I laughed pretty hard - I mean, how do you know you've reached "that point"? I've certainly been nervous out on some of these trails, but never felt like we were truly risking our lives, and I do trust Devin - with my life apparently!

Our next challenge was the infamous "Squeezeplay." I had talked to a woman at the RV park in Moab who told me about how they took their H2 on Elephant Hill and had mere millimeters on both sides in the Squeezeplay, with both mirrors pulled in, and the passengers still had to haul big rocks to the road to make the bottom even (since it was such a tight fit, being even slightly off-camber made it a getting stuck situation). I can't believe they got a big Hummer through there! It was really no problem with the Jeep, even though the JK's are a little wider than older Jeeps, they are still narrower than most SUV's.

More beautiful scenery, past backcountry campgrounds (another time!), redrock towers, formations that looked like mushrooms and UFOs, neat caves and windows in the cliffs. The next challenge was the "Silver Stairs" which was again, no problem, but we took them slow and easy. And by "we" again I mean Devin, as I was again out "scouting." Actually, I was helping, since when you are going down a steep hill in the Jeep, you can't see what is below you well enough to pick out the best line always, so we used our two-way radios and I guided Devin down some of the steeper sections. It was nice to be out walking, anyway.

We then came to a junction to a side road that lead to an overlook of the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers. We thought that would be neat, but on the map, it looked like there was a trail at the end of the road, so maybe Devin wouldn't be able to see it, and it looked like a long enough trail that I wouldn't necessarily have time to hike it while Devin waited, either. It would be a 6 mile round trip, on a slow 4WD road, and it was late in the afternoon and we had a 60 mile plus drive home to Moab after we got off of the Elephant Hill trail, so we decided not to take it. Later we talked to some guys in the picnic area who we had seen coming back from the Confluence Overlook at the junction, and they said it was a very short trail to the viewpoint. I looked it up on Google Maps using the satellite view and it looks neat, but it would have meant getting back so much later, we really couldn't do it. Our constant battle is to leave earlier in the day for our adventures, but we both like relaxing mornings too much (especially me, ahem).

The return trip up and over Elephant Hill was exciting - the book we used really warned people to consider that they'd have to come back up before deciding to go down, with good reason! The Jeep gave us a scare on a steep incline near the bottom, and stalled for no apparent reason, just as Devin was getting his foot aligned over the brake, "just in case." Just in case came a little soon, and we slipped back a few feet - really scary with the drop off!! It was probably only a few inches, but it felt much farther! No further problems with that, but it was disconcerting to say the least. Devin thinks we just bumped so much on the rocky trail it stalled, and we had the stereo blasting at the time so we didn't hear when it stalled, making it worse. Needless to say, we turned the stereo off after that! I don't know how the hill could have felt steeper going up, but it did! I "scouted" the whole way, talking Devin up hills where he couldn't see anything but hood and sky.

The last obstacle we faced was the first hill we had climbed, and for some reason, THAT one was steeper going down than up! I scouted and guided Devin down parts where he couldn't see the trail at all because of the steep drops, and again, we made it no problem.

Back through the Canyonlands National Park, with views of neat formations like "Wooden Shoe Arch" and all the beautiful country we had passed through on the way here, which in the late afternoon light, it made for some great "drive by shooting" style photography!

Another fun Jeep adventure!

Inverting Excitement

Inverter

Another "exciting" thing that happened to us in Moab, is our inverter blew. The inverter is what takes the 12 volt DC power from the batteries and makes it into 110 AC power that we can use for charging laptops, phones, running small appliances like the toaster, Bamix mixer, and coffee grinder, watching TV and DVDs, etc, and it does all this when we are NOT plugged in, like out at the north rim, for example. It is also a battery charger, and will charge our batteries when we ARE plugged in, if we aren't getting enough charge from the solar panels (which would only be on occasion, if our site is very shady, or if the weather is very dark and cloudy).

When our inverter, which came with the RV and was probably 8 years old, went out, it took our ability to use "shore power" with it. Shore power is what RVers call plugging in to the 30 or 50 amp power in RV parks (we use 30 amp, but the big monster diesel RVs generally use 50 amp). Devin checked with forum members on RV.net, a source of infinite wisdom, advice, humor, and great stories, and decided it would be okay to bypass our dead inverter and wire the incoming AC wires directly to the outgoing AC wires that normally go through the inverter. When he did this, we could use shore power again, and, hallelujah, turn our air conditioner back on! Fortunately, through all this, we still had 12 volt because of our solar panels, which is all our lights and ceiling fans - which can keep the RV reasonably comfortable - but 95 degree heat and full sun is hard to fight without air conditioning. And for air conditioning, we needed shore power.

So now we at least had 110 and could keep cool, watch Cable TV and movies, use the microwave, air conditioner, charge our laptops, use appliances, etc. But we still had a fried inverter. When it went, there was a thud, and a smell, and when I opened the compartment, smoke came out! No fire, thank goodness, but that unmistakable smell of burnt electrical equipment lingered in the compartment. Devin researched online, and we found a great deal on a new, true sine wave inverter. Our old one was 2500 watts, which is much bigger than we should have needed, and the new one came in 2000 or 3000 watts.

After much research and discussion, we decided on the Xantrex RS-2000 watt inverter/charger model. True sine wave means it is safe for use with fancy electronics - our old one was modified sine wave, and killed the battery charger on Devin's DeWalt cordless drill. (My Makita seemed to do fine with it, though). My laptop is also having power issues, and I think using the modified sine wave inverter probably killed its battery as well. (Or more likely it was leaving it plugged in all the time.) Now I can't use it unless it is plugged in. Anyway...

We found the best deal and ordered the new inverter from DonRowe.com and it got there in two days, with free shipping (thank goodness, since the package weighed over 80 pounds!)

Devin decided to install it himself (a sure sign he is all better), and I helped. We ran RJ11 ("ethernet") cable up through the floor and behind the fridge to wire in the new monitor, figured out how to fit the new, larger inverter in the old one's spot, and got it all hooked up. We spent one afternoon installing it, and upon the moment of truth, discovered that it worked - sort of! We hadn't realized that the huge slow burn fuse ("Class T") had gone out with the old inverter. These types of fuses are used primarily with solar power systems and inverters, and also with car audio for those "hiking boot in a dryer" sound systems we all know and hate. So we again had shore power, but couldn't invert or charge. It was a great learning experience, actually, and now we both know much more and understand more about how our RV's electrical systems work.

The next day, Devin decided that we should have taken out the old charger that was just taking up space in the back of the cabinet where we installed the new inverter. Since our inverter is also a charger, and the old charger was unplugged anyway, we didn't need it, and had never used it. We guess the previous owners used it as a back up, if the inverter went out, they could still charge their batteries. We don't need it for that since we installed solar panels and our batteries get charged from the sun (yay!). And besides, in doing research on the rv.net forum on whether or not it should go, the most common suggestion of what to do with the old converter was "trash it!" So we spent another afternoon unhooking and taking the new inverter back out (remember it weighs about 70 pounds!), unhooking and taking out the charger, and hooking up and re-installing the inverter - this time much farther into the compartment, making it easier to reach the fuses that are on the side of the same shelf. It was, all in all, in spite of the fuse problem, a satisfying job well done!

More on the inverter later, when we got the fuse shipped to us in Ouray, Colorado! To be continued...

Gemini Bridges - Shafer Trail

Gemini Bridges (or "Jiminy Britches" as Devin called them ;-)

This Jeep trail starts north of Moab just south of the turnoff for Canyonlands. It starts out going along a ledge on the side of a cliff, offering nice views of the surrounding countryside. Moab area certainly is beautiful, and quite varied, with different types of sandstone/limestone formations, cliffs, mesas, spires, hoodoos, and the La Sal Mountains towering in the distance, their cool green slopes and snowy caps contrasting with the reds, yellows and creams of the desert below - add to this the Colorado and Green Rivers, with their corridors of shimmering green Cottonwoods meandering through the redrock desert. Again, Utah lives up to its reputation as a "promised land" - in natural beauty, anyway.

The valley on the other side of the "entry cliff" was lovely, and had a cool rock formation called "Goonie Bird Rock" near the end, when we climbed up another mesa and continued along the top. One thing I really like about this type of landscape is the changes between valley, cliff/canyon, and mesa top. It is like three different worlds, all around one mesa. The mesa top gives a feeling of wide open spaces, like the prairie, with long views, while the valleys are more homey, wide, yet enclosed by encircling cliffs, while the canyons and cliffs are wild, with views and close ups of rock formations, sometimes narrow and dark, sometimes with rivers or creeks along the bottom and surprising oases of cottonwoods at hidden springs - secret worlds in which you never know what to expect around the next turn.

On the top of this mesa was a side road that led to a trail we wouldn't be taking today - "Metal Masher"! Lots of Moab Jeep trails which are designed for folks wanting to test the limits of their machines have names like "Cliffhanger," "Widowmaker," "Metal Masher" and the like. We avoided those trails, as we were more interested in getting to scenic spots than trying to see if we could tip the Jeep over. To each his own!

When we got out to the Gemini Bridges turnoff, most people were parking and walking out, so Devin parked and I started walking, carrying a radio. When I realized it would be too far for Devin to walk, and also when I saw the route painted on the slickrock (a white dotted line marked the trail), I radioed him and told him he could make it and drive out. I walked, and helped him scout the route, and it was again no problem for Devin and the Jeep. We could drive right up to the Gemini Bridges viewing area, close enough for Devin to walk right out to the edge!

Apparently, that wasn't close enough for some people, because I found a plaque dedicated to Beau James Daley, who died there. I later Googled him, and he had driven off of one of the bridges trying to drive his Jeep across it. I was nervous enough just walking across! We were at the level of the tops of the bridges, and it was a long way down to the bottom. What an awful thing.

A young family walked out at the same time as we did, and the woman was so terribly acrophobic, she couldn't stand to see her husband and son sitting on one of the bridges, far from the edge, and being quite safe. Poor thing was practically in tears, and her husband and son were so patient with her. It reminded me of my mom and dad - my mom was always cringing and saying "Ge-eene!" when we drove on roads with drop offs and got too close to the edge at viewpoints. Somehow I managed not to pick up the irrational part of that fear, but I am very rationally nervous about getting too close the the edge when the edge is sloped, or gravelly, like it was in places near the Bridges.

While we were there, a group of kids on mountain bikes came riding up - they were all pre-teen boys, and I was SO grateful when one of their chaperones made them get off their bikes and didn't let them ride out onto the bridges!! Of course, they wanted to, boys that age being little daredevils with absolutely no sense of their own mortality. I didn't want to see a horrible accident! This viewpoint was busier than I would have expected, especially for a Thursday, but it is a popular place, and we saw more Jeeps, and highly modified ones, in Moab than anywhere else we've been.

I met a couple out there who we had passed on the road on the way out, who turned out to be a brother and sister from near Park City: Cynthia and Kent Dinsdale. They were great - she was a retired teacher and he was a retired school bus driver, bless their hearts!! After my year of teaching middle school, I bow down before teachers who go the distance - she went over 30 years!! We got into teacher talk and she understood everything I talked about immediately, and had experienced much of it herself. Not that encouraging to think about getting back into the classroom when a 30+ year veteran had the same misgivings about the profession. People really have NO idea how hard teachers work, and how hard their jobs are. People talk about summer vacation, but that is necessary recovery time for a punishing workload the rest of the year. Anyway, boy did we talk! Funny to get into that sort of animated conversation out in the middle of nowhere off 4WD roads at some natural bridges in the Utah desert, but we definitely connected. They were both really nice and I wish I'd gotten more information from them - she said she had a blog, and I thought I'd be able to find it, but I haven't.

It was difficult to get a photo showing the two bridges, since they were so close together, but I tried from a few different angles.

On the way back out, some people took a picture of us in the Jeep as we crawled up the rocks back to the main road - I guess we may be in someone else's blog now - ha.

Shafer Trail

Next we drove out through Canyonlands National Park to the Shafer Trail, which leads down the cliff face in a series of many steep switchbacks to the White Rim Trail. I kept wondering why this road was built, and it turns out it was for a uranium mining haul road. It's hard to imagine that it would be easier to haul ore up to the top than down along the river, but I guess it was. Before it was a haul road, it was a cattle trail - Mr. Shafer wintered his herd in the basin below and drove them to the mesa top for the summer. I suppose the pre-existing cattle trail made it easier to create a road. The top part along the rim and going down the switchbacks was spectacular, and it only got better and better. This is some of the most beautiful country on Earth! I actually asked Devin if he could drive closer to the edge going down the switchbacks, so I could shoot down - that's how steep it was - and how scenic.

When we reached the bottom of the cliff, we were on the level of the White Rim trail, which follows a rim of white sandstone around for miles and miles. We had hoped to do a multi-day trip on the White Rim trail in the Jeep, but it was a bit hot for that, and also you couldn't complete the loop as there was a slide near the end. We had seen the White Rim trail from Grandview Point in Canyonlands the last time we were here, and now we have to come back again to do the whole trail. And again and again and again to explore this incredible area deeper and deeper. There are so many neat "backcountry" campsites maintained by the BLM in the area, it would be wonderful to someday just go out and stay out for longer periods. But today was not that day, and we turned off of the White Rim trail and took the Potash Road back toward Moab instead.

Immediately the road dropped below the white rim and the landscape changed again. Rocks that looked like crops of white capped mushrooms rose up from the valley floor and canyon walls. A Campground was near the junction, with no one in it. We continued down an arroyo until the canyon walls rose higher and we found ourselves overlooking the Colorado River, in a huge gooseneck far below. We saw kayaks far away on an island in the river, and saw a jetboat turning around near there.

At the gooseneck overlook, we met Ray, who was very friendly and very happy to be discovering the desert and life in an RV - he had a 4WD truck camper and was recently retired form Denver. We got the feeling that exploring this country had given him a new lease on life. We told him about Baja California, gave him a whole bunch of useful links and told him about some other desert places to explore and he ate up this information. It's nice to be on the giving end of advice and information when we've learned so much from others to prepare for and plan this trip!

After we left the river, the scenery changed again and widened so much I got the theme from "Big Valley" going through my head! It was just classic western scenery, and I half expected to see circling wagons, attacking Comanches, and John Wayne riding up. I guess this was Butch Cassidy / Hole in the Wall Gang territory. At least back in Capitol Reef, there was a "Cassidy Arch" and more than a few formations out here are named for them.

Some of my favorite formations were a perfect square pyramid with a lone Juniper on top, a mesa that was a curved amphitheater, various pinnacles and spires, and a rock that looked like the Mount Rushmore of funny cartoon old men!

"Thelma and Louise Point" is out there somewhere - pretty near to where we were, but we didn't drive out there. Another reason to go back.

Soon we came to Potash, and the evaporating ponds where potassium salts are dried. "Moab Salt, LLC" is one of the largest employers in Moab, and one of the main sources of potassium in the country. The evaporating ponds were bright blue, perfect reflections of the bright blue sky, and looked unearthly against the backdrop of redrock mesas and the La Sal Mountains.

We hit pavement soon after, and then the Colorado River. Moab Salt maintains a river put-in open to the public on their river access, and we drove the Jeep down to wet its tires - ha. The road followed the river all the way back to Moab, with the afternoon light putting a magical glow on the cliffs, petrogylphs, arches and climbers, this little byway was much more scenic in itself than we had expected and we would recommend anyone drive out that way as a worthy side trip. Of course, for anyone with a 4WD vehicle, we'd recommend the entire Gemini Bridges/Canyonlands/Shafer Trail/Potash Road loop we took today, as it was incredibly scenic and varied!

Another day in Paradise!

Moab

Moab is a neat little town - gateway to two National Parks (Arches and Canyonlands) and a State Park (Deadhorse Point), and lots of open BLM and Forest lands to explore. With the La Sal Mountains to the southeast, rising in green and snowy contrast to the red rock cliffs around the town, and the Colorado River and Kane Creek running around the outskirts with their corridors of Cottonwoods and Willows, it has enough contrast of warm and cool, wet and dry to make it interesting. It's a major recreation town - of course mountain biking is big, Jeepin' (as they say) is very big, rafting, jet boat tours, canoeing and kayaking on the River are all very big in summer, rock climbing, hiking, backpacking, and of course camping. And "canyoneering" in narrow slot canyons (like the guy that had to cut off his own arm to escape). And photography and general sight-seeing, too. It's a regular recreational Mecca! And the town is nice, too - we found a couple of great restaurants - Miguel's Baja Grill was incredible, and we also loved the Moab Diner.

We stayed in an RV Park that was a bit off the highway with a view of the "portal" where the Colorado River goes through the cliffs, hence the name, Portal RV Park. I saw a beaver out in back of the park, where they have ponds and irrigation ditches! Of course, I didn't have my camera, but it just sat there and munched on bark while I watched and listened! We liked Moab. But back to the reason we left Capitol Reef early to come here...

The hospital in Moab is very small, but quite nice. There was a sign outside the Emergency Room entrance that said "Harley Parking Only, all others will be crushed" but a BMW bike was parked there - obviously some staff having some fun with each other. There was no real wait, and the doctor that examined Devin was wearing jeans and hiking boots under his scrub top. They started Devin on a cocktail of two different antibiotics for a shotgun approach, and when the results of the culture came back in two days, we would see which (if any) of them was working on the infection.

After waiting at the hospital that morning, I had a horrible Jones for a breakfast burrito, and we went out on a "quest for fire" (or at least a fiery hot sauce - ha). We found it at the Moab Diner, which advertises "the Best Green Chile in Utah" and it seemd to be pretty true. I got two to go and we went home and enjoyed the spoils of our hunt.Then we settled into RV park life and watched Cable TV, enjoyed the comforts of Air Conditioning ("No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air" - Jason Lee, as the Demon Azrael in Dogma), and the convenience of take-out food in a small city.

I now know how to do everything from driving the RV to dumping the tanks to changing fuses - I already knew how to hook up the Jeep for towing as that is mainly "my" job, but Devin has been our driver and our sanitation maintenance man, as well as main repairman/electrician so far. Another thing I've been learning is cooking - watch for a separate blog post on cooking and recipes that I worked on during this time.

Fortunately, both new antibiotics worked great and Devin was much improved in a couple of days. Hooray for modern medicine!

Kane Creek
When Devin first started feeling up to getting out and around, we drove out Kane Creek Road and toward Hoorah Pass and Chicken Corners, but I was actually not feeling all that great and all the bumping was making it worse, so we turned around after a while, but it was beautiful and there were lots of interesting formations, and wide vistas. It was stormy that day, and when we were driving out, the Colorado River had big waves and whitecaps, going UPriver! Rain was blowing sideways! We drove right through it, enjoying the excitement.

Earlier, some big winds that came through the RV Park ripped three different people's awnings right off their RVs! Ours was out, too, and I got out there and took it down very quickly, but I was afraid we would lose ours, too. In fact, the wind was blowing so hard at first, I couldn't hold the door, so I waited a few seconds before going out. Then I actually crouched inside, waiting for the tornado to take us to Oz... but it died down almost as quickly as it came. In the 95 degree heat here, those winds sure felt great, though!

It calmed down a bit on our way back, and we explored a side trail and found a really cool yellow beetle - I've never seen anything like it, so I took pictures. It made a nice contrast against the red sand.