Central/South Utah and North AZ suggestions/route ideas...

[rho]

Hey folks,

@Pi_Baker and I are doing a weekish (maybe longer) trip out to Moab and central UT in April, and we currently have some gaps in our route/plans. We have some permits for the White Rim trail already, and some mellow hiking/outdoor plans in Zion, but outside of some set idea of what we want to do in Zion and Moab there are a ton of unknowns about routes/stops/trails/etc between Moab, the Grand Staircase, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, North AZ.
We might do the Mojave Road on our way back through CA because its right there and its a fun desert tour (and a personal favorite!!) but thats still sort of an unknown if we'll do it or not. We're planning on getting like 3-4 nights of camping in on our way back, but we really don't have anything planned, route, stops or otherwise in that time frame.

Rough schedule:
4/8: Road burn from CA to Zion, ZIon night 1 - We're going to crash in a hotel for two nights and do some hiking in the area.
4/9: Zion night 2
4/10: Drive from Zion to Moab, day 1 of White Rim Trail (we have a site already!)
4/11: Finish White Rim, hotel or camping near Moab (Alix needs some WiFi for work, so hotel is an option here still)
4/12: Head south, Maybe towards Grand Staircase?
4/13: South Utah? North AZ towards CA? who knows!
4/14: Head to somewhere in socal to camp in the desert?
4/15: Back to the Bay?
4/16: Back to the Bay? Mabye we're heading north through Wyoming now! One of my partners friends curates a museum up new Shearidan, WY, so we might swing by there and some stuff across there for a new days!

So, I'm really asking if anyone has any cool routes, or trails between Moab and CA and that whole central part of Utah and North AZ... and any other places we should try to hit up along the way. The goal is to do more overlandy type trails and less hardcore stuff as we'll have a 2wd prerunner and my jeep. So no rock crawling, lol. Wyoming. lol. I have more trails to research now!

 

[Dorian]

Sounds like a really great trip. You have a lot of great choices depending on which way you want to go. Here are a few thoughts:

- I70 N of Moab to I15 is a beautiful stretch on interstate with fantastic vistas and views
- If you want to head N towards WY in UT the area around Flaming Gorge and Vernal is also great.
- for a longer off-road trip (+/- 160 miles) out of Moab towards CO you can do the Rimrocker Trail. Goes W to Montrose. Then you can go up into WY through CO.
- If you skip WY I agree with you about Mojave Road and you can follow the N rim of the Grand Canyon to I 95 or go through Lake Powell and Page AZ. Take the Bradshaw Trail from Blyth to the Slaton Sea.

depends on how much you like to drive.

Enjoy the trip.

 

[rho]

Sounds like a really great trip. You have a lot of great choices depending on which way you want to go. Here are a few thoughts:

- I70 N of Moab to I15 is a beautiful stretch on interstate with fantastic vistas and views
- If you want to head N towards WY in UT the area around Flaming Gorge and Vernal is also great.
- for a longer off-road trip (+/- 160 miles) out of Moab towards CO you can do the Rimrocker Trail. Goes W to Montrose. Then you can go up into WY through CO.
- If you skip WY I agree with you about Mojave Road and you can follow the N rim of the Grand Canyon to I 95 or go through Lake Powell and Page AZ. Take the Bradshaw Trail from Blyth to the Slaton Sea.

depends on how much you like to drive.

Enjoy the trip.

Thanks for the ideas! We'd been playing with the idea of doing part of the Rimrocker trail already, depending on what passes and stuff are open on it. snow and openness are still some big unknowns and I suspect we'll have a few things we're going to need to keep flexible for that reason. I'm not familiar with the Flaming Gorge area, so I'll take a look around those parts...

We're pretty familiar with SoCal desert trails and exploring out that way so thats still an option for the return trip. There are some parts of the Wyoming/Idaho portion that might be growing so we might split that off into a bigger/longer trip that my partner has some more input into planning, but we're not sure of much of anything yet.
Thanks again!