The start of the day in Winnipeg was VERY interesting… I’d stayed the night at a Comfort Inn near the airport thinking that would be an easy way to relax, use the internet, and be right where I needed to be in the morning. When morning came around though, there was quite the commotion in the parking lot where I’d left the FJ… turns out tons of vehicles back there had their tires slashed! For some reason that I will never fully comprehend, nearly all the cars at the hotel had been vandalized except mine. I’d have thought that expensive-looking tires, huge canvas box on the roof, and gas cans would make me a vandalism gold mine, but thankfully not that night.

Car next to mine…

I spent the first part of the day bringing to Canada a great hobby we have here in the US – burning gasoline by driving huge trucks through cities for no reason. Call it ‘urban exploration.’ I found this very stately government building downtown with a nice park across the street from it.

There were some really nice residential areas here and there as well. In one particular spot, it seemed as if each block had it’s own small lake in the center for the residents to enjoy…

Highway, highway, highway… boooooring… Not much else to say. There was a ’scenic’ view sign off the highway pictured below. Maybe I’m just jaded after all that Utah/Yellowstone/etc. stuff…

I stopped at the Cabelas in Grand Forks to pick up some rain gear for the fishing trip, the Continental Divide trip, and just to have for the future…. luckily there was a mad sale on!

Trying to get to the store, however, I was attacked and mauled by the most random and bizarre arrangement of wildlife on the streets of Grand Forks. I had to fight my way out with my hick-knife!

Unfortunately my pre-expedition adventure has come to an end. Leaving Yellowstone, I hopped on the interstate, set the cruise at 60 (mileage = yummy) and cruised towards Winnipeg.

Along the way I made one last attempt at a cool blurry-water picture, but it also didn’t turn out too well. Seems like you need to do it in fairly low light to have the exposure work with the slow shudder speed.

There is very little to report from the interstate. I was in the musical mood and sang along with Wicked, Rent, Phantom of the Opera, and The Last Five Years… but otherwise a pretty uninteresting day.

I didn’t really have a plan for the night, so when I saw KOA signs I figured I’d give it a go. I do love having a shower and internet! The lady at the front desk was very nice and we talked about the Continental Divide expedition for a while before she gave me 25% off and a free ice cream sandwhich. The roof top tent was again a big hit with the old women in RV’s and I had many converstaions about it, most of them starting with “oh my God what is that?!?!” or “Wow, I’ve never seen that before BYAH!”

In the middle of fiddling on the web, water began to fall from the sky unexpectedly. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of that, but I hadn’t. I scrambled to restore the rain fly I’d ripped off in the hurricane winds of Utah and settled down for my first (and hopefully dry) night in the roof top tent in the rain….

I woke at the KOA, delightfully late, to the sounds of thousands of children drowning in the nearby pool. Upon inspection, it turned out to be only two who weren’t drowning, but they fooled me all the same. A shower was great, and the facilities very nice. I was expecting the showers to be one of those “get naked with strange old men” rooms, but they had nice little stall things with changing rooms. Out of Mantua (which had some incredible ranch homes), is a forest road which leads to Inspiration Point – a 360 panorama from a summit. From the topo, it looked like there should be some dramatic views. The land in the area was beautiful, with fields of wildflowers and snow-capped peaks in the distance.

As I gained elevation, I started to see large patches of snow which was cool… what wasn’t cool was when the snow killed my chances of passage! The worst of it *could* have been passed, but not alone and not with 57,000lbs of gear in my truck.

So, after a brief hike up the road to a point I head back down… I could have hiked to Inspiration Point, but it was a few miles up the road and quite a bit higher than where I was. Laziness! Back on the interstate I blazed up, into and through Idaho to the West Yellowstone area. I was just about to find a spot at a forest service campground when the most incredible thunderstorm in the history of man broke out. The rain drops were so large I thought the windsheild was going to break for sure. I got back on the road and continued on, hoping either to get out of the storm or wimp out and get a room for the night. The weather broke and I was rewarded with giganitc rainbows… yummy.

The Yellowstone area is amazing and the storm provided some interesting lighting for picture taking.

Each mountain peak I saw made me wonder with a smile, ‘are Lance and I going to be up there later?’

The theme for the morning was bugs. BUGS… And after that there were some bugs, followed by BUGS. I broke down camp in a mad, ear- and mouth-full scramble and ran away without eating breakfast. That could wait… I’d never tried to use Delorme Topo for route finding, so I took a few minutes to plug in some stuff for Reds Canyon to see if I could navigate from the compy alone. That turned out to be a waste of time since there was the greatest and most complete signage I’ve ever seen throughout the whole area. Reds Canyon was rated a scenic of “10” in the Backcountry Adventures: Utah book. I don’t think a single trail in Arizona made that, only 9’s. So was Reds Canyon worth the hype? Yes.

Aside from the general brilliance of the place, the first point of interest was an amazingly in-tact mining ruin.

I climbed up to the top of the thing, the view from up there was incredible.

There was a loop off the main road on the topo map which followed a river, but unfortunately after about a quarter of it I came to some ‘closed to vehicles’ or similar signs. The brief section I was able to do was nice, though.

There were car ruins here and there, but this one incredible… engine still there with the starter motor and wiring attached, cab still had gauges in the dash and paint on the body. I should have tried to start it up!

A ways into a canyon off the main road there was a trail leading to yet more mine ruins. It was very difficult sand (aired up tires, heavy payload, deep sand… ouch) and a couple times I thought I was going to be stuck. Throwing the locker on helped and I was able to pass. Spot the FJ!

Some of the ruins. Oh, and you should just assume that there is a hidden FJ in ALL my pictures… or is there? Bwahaha

I was starting to feel a little funny and was getting quite the upset stomach. I’d been eating well and drinking TONS of water, so I thought either I’d sniffed something at the mines or there was a pool of battery acid in the rear of my truck (my aux battery isn’t exactly sealed as I found out the hard way bringing it home). Since it’s easy enough to get to, I thought I’d check it out. Plus, this lets me show off my “Don Box” battery setup in the back. Closed up, ready to go:

The guts… The controller (solenoid) itself is mounted between the fridge and the driver’s wall of the FJ.

I’d planned to go a bit north of Salt Lake City to camp and run a trail, but along the way near Provo I was taken off course by this crazy alpine mountain area. How many different environments I’ve been in only in the last couple days is mind boggling.

I started to play with my camera settings (I’ve only had a camera where anything but ‘auto’ is possible for a few days now), namely the shudder speed, to do those cool blurred-water images you see all the time. While mine didn’t turn out very well, the lighting was horrid, and the subject not very interesting… I at least proved to myself that it works!

I was still feeling a little poopy (bought some Pepto, that’s all you need to know about that) and wanted to get on some internet and happen to stumble upon a KOA in Brigham. Perfect! Deploying my roof top tent was quite the hit among all the old women in RVs…

Unsure of what time it was, but assuming it to be about 5am, I awoke with the sunrise. The change in lighting offered a much better chance to take pictures of my campsite and I played with the camera a bit.

The plan was this: complete Smokey Mountain Road into Escalante and take normal roads into central Utah to run trails there. Quite the opposite of the beginning of the trail, the rest of the way was very green and sandy. There were some fantastic campsites along washes, protected by high walls and complete with big fire rings and nearby wood. With the exception of a brief rough stretch, the driving was fast and easy.

Escalante was a very cool town. The main road had a few interesting local shops and eateries, including cafes for hikers. Many of the ranches had extremely nice homes as well. I plugged Hanksville (the next town) into Delorme Topo and started down a scenic paved road. To my surprise and delight, the route Delorme had me taking was not paved at all… and in fact was a bunch of remote forest service roads that took me through the mountains and up to 10,000 feet. I snatched a screenshot when I broke through to 5 digits elevation.

Beside the road there was a lake which reminded me very much of the one that homedad showed me near Crown King.

Periodically there were areas of water, some with herds of sheep or cattle around.

It started to rain a little which was OK as it didn’t seem like it would lead to anything particularly dangerous. The road was smooth, flat, and endless…

All of the sudden I ran into a ton of sheep…

…and shortly thereafter into their shepherd. As I crested a hill, there was a man on a horse with three dogs. I got out and introduced myself to him and learned he was from Peru and had a name I’d never heard before and can’t remotely remember. He was on top of the hill using its panorama to track his sheep. Wise move, as you could see likely miles in every direction.

At that elevation it was only about 55F and in our conversation, the shepherd showed me a spot where there still was snow on the ground. Not something I’d expected visiting Utah in June! It seems like every place in the West has a ‘Chimney Rock,’ so it was inevitable before I stumbled upon one. Though this was larger, better looking, and more shaped like a chimney, the Chimney Rock in Tucson is still the best.

The last bit before Hanksville was paved but spectacular. There were countless signs for scenic-this and lookout-that. One was particularly worthwhile, a canyon rim called Goosenecks Point. It featured a ledge you could walk out onto with a fence… again about to poop myself, I walked out. It wasn’t so bad (fence helps, duh), and the views were completely stupid! I’d call this spot more dramatic than the portion of the Grand Canyon I’d visited the day before (though I did a lousy job getting a good pic of this).

Ach! Don’t fall!! Those green things are not small bushes…

Just up the road there were some petroglyphs. Something about a bunch of guys wearing kilts chasing after sheep.

In Hanksville I stopped at a gas station that was a cave. The store was carved into a huge rock face, with rock hallways and everything inside. Whether or not it was ‘real’ or some elaborate ruse I could not figure out. In either case, very cool. North of Hanksville I set out on the trail. The plan was to do the Reds Canyon Trail, which is only accessible by other trails. To get there I would take Temple Mountain Trail including the Temple Wash and Mining Camp Trail optional segment. The first segment of the mining camp offshoot was a very narrow box canyon. The walls were overwhelming and the feeling you had inside the canyon was unique.

The plan turned out to be an excellent one as the mining camp area had structures, old cars, and very interesting mining ruins. A super-easy place to camp was nice, too. A pretty shifty looking building. Nyuk, nyuk.

I don’t know what this is, but it’s seen better days…

This structure was pictured in the Backcountry Adventures: Utah book. It’s always fun to see book-worthy sites for real.

Another car still even had the engine in it! That would have lasted about ten minutes in the places I’m used to in AZ…

There was a gigantic mine I could easily have walked into if not for the huge gate.

Perhaps it was for the best, though. The sign read “Radioactive Area – Radon Gas Area.” Party poopers.

This other mine must have been uber-dangerous! They skipped the gate and went straight for the cement wall of doom.

Spot the FJ, win a cookie!

I woke up at the Gillette ruins after a very good night’s sleep in the roof top tent. The temperatures at night were mild and the wind absent. Also camping were Lance (and Martin) and Tim who drove all the way up from Marana to take part in the previous night’s campfire.

Since I was already in the middle of nowhere on I-17, I followed it north into Flagstaff figuring I’d save the fun driving for when I was out of known territory. From Flagg it was north to Page along 89. The terrain changed quite a bit and at one point the highway followed a cliff-side across some bizarre, almost Martian scenery.

I’d cut the Grand Canyon out of my plans since it is close enough to home to visit anytime, but I hadn’t realized that 89 is at one point less than a mile from the rim! I spotted a sign for “Horseshoe Bend” and set out for a brief hike. The view was so incredible I was literally cursing to no one the entire time I was there, although that could have had something to do with the whole ‘standing a foot from the edge of the earth’ thing which somehow I willed myself to do.

Of course I knew what the Grand Canyon looks like in general from pictures (i.e. a huge crack in the ground), but I wasn’t expecting the river area to be so lush. The vibrant green of the river contrasted strongly with the rock walls. Oh yea, it was really big, too.

Just up the street was a large dam and bridge over the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately I was not able to quickly spot a place to stop and get a picture of the ‘low’ side of the dam, but the other side was also pretty neat and gives you an idea of how large this thing is.

From there it was lookouts galore. There were more places to park and take in a view than I was able to visit. The ones I did stop at did not disappoint!

This was not far from the Utah border and once past that it was only minutes to the trail I wanted to take, Smokey Mountain Road. The first section of the road was the most barren and lifeless place I have ever been. It stood in dramatic contrast to the Grand Canyon scene, and even elsewhere in the open desert.

To be fair, I shouldn’t call that section lifeless… there were dried up things here and there. But THIS was lifeless for sure.

The road turned to a very cool shelf featuring an extremely steep fall off the edge.

There was no shortage of epic scenery on that evening…

I found a short turnabout which would have made for an amazing campsite with a fire ring and the truck parked on the edge of the cliff, but it was too close to the main road (not that I really expect to see anyone out here). A bit down the road there was a similar site, not as close to the edge but much farther from the road. It will do just fine!

Setting up the roof tent was interested in the extremely strong gusty winds that were up there. The rainfly had to go to cut down on the wind noise and ruffling, and removing that turned out to be a battle with the wind. And, as luck would have it, after the rainfly was off to accommodate the wind, it started raining on the horizon and the wind stopped. Hopefully the wind and clouds don’t conspire to bring the rain my way.