amesff01

[IMG][/IMG]Hey all, just wanted to post and tell everyone about my first time drive and offrod adventure in Moab, UT. I went with Texan1983, who has been there before in other rigs, but this time, we took our dodges... They were awsome! We started from Iowa and made a ten hour drive to Denver and visited some of my wife's family. The Old men red Dodge had a my wife and I and my 6, 4 and 1 year old in it... the truck was our hotel! Texan1983 followed with his wife. (honeymoon suite) We spent the night at a hotel with a pool for the kids, then left early the next day to Moab. We reserved a camp site just to the north of town and set up for two nights before we hit White Rim in Canyonlands Nat. Park. The next day we took our trucks up Klondike bluffs trail and got to see some awesome dinosaur tracks and see what a stock truck could do... Past the entrance there was a spur that someone cut that was way over the top as far as difficult... both our trucks made it until we found out it was the wrong way! Thanks for skid plates!(I have a snowplow package) After finding our way, we made it to the end and hiked into Arches Nat. Park. The pictures do not do it Justice! Back to our campground that night and looked over some light trail damage... pinstripes and a bent skid plate was it! The next day we took off for White Rim....

STate

Sounds awesome! Post some pics!

Texan1983

Alright i suppose i got a few...

STate

Awesome! Love the Utah desert!

Texan1983

few from klondike...

amesff01

Yeah, new to the picture thing... will work on that... Thx Texan 1983.

amesff01

Ok, here are some pics... I forgot some backround too... Texan1983 had said he wanted to start building an Expo rig, and got me looking at all sorts of awesome sites and parts, I guess I didn't want to be left behind, and liked the idea of showing my kids the off the beaten path world. After some research and many nights in the garage, we decided to get a trip together. At first we were talking the Black Hills, but the chance for severe weather turned us away(tornados in Colorado yesterday!) Then Big Bend Texas came up, but 110 degree days and 22 plus hours of travel time didn't sound that great. So, Moab, a place Texan1983 had been before, and not so severe weather extremes this time of yea,r won out for a first trip. Not sure if I can post the companies that helped us put everything together, but most had awesome customer service, and were willing to deal a little. I started by finding a used ARE topper and had it painted to match, and had Yakima rails attatched for a future custom roof rack. Then came a wood platform in the bed with drawers underneath. A 2" king size matress pad on top(might change to 3 or 4 inch!), and BFG KM2 tires in 255/80 R17. We ordered the Fusion winch bumpers together and painted them a satin black and figured they would be easy to touch up! Next an ENGO 12000# winch got mounted behind that. For this trip we used Cobra Ultra III CBs, with magnetic antennas until we figure out a better system. We were off to the races...

johnh

nice shots of my home state/area

STate

Tell us about tire selection,and what tire press. while wheelin!

Lockers?

Those look like nice bumpers! What do they weigh?

Great thread guys. I would love to do something similar!

amesff01

The bumpers are Fusion, and the winch weighs around 85 pounds. I think the bumper was around 110 pounds. I went with the 255s cause its a taller tire than stock, but still narrow, in the hopes of keeping better mpgs and winter street performance. Texan has 35s. We both aired down to around 22-26psi, and didn't want to go any lower, we were carring lots of camping supplies, food, water, spare parts, etc... On White Rim, it was more for comfort than a traction advantage. Niether of us had lockers, and there were very few times that low range was ever used. My truck has stock running gear all around, and it did just fine.

amesff01

So the next morning after another breakfast at the Moab Diner, we filled up and took off for Canyonlands Nat. Park. We reserved two sites off of White Rim for our 3 day 2 night drive. You could do this a lot of different ways, some people do it in a day, others 2 days, we just chose a slower pace with the kids along and enjoyed the time there. We stopped at Musselman Arch, and took a few pics, then continued to our camp site at Gooseberry. This site was awesome! It was about 100 yards from a canyon and had a huge rock base. The kids could run around with out getting into trouble, and there were no bugs. Texan did have an adventure with a mouse in the truck in the middle of the night, but I will let him add that! All in all, I think it was around 28 miles to this site from the beginning of the drive. It was mostly gravel/rock and wasnt very technically challenging. I did have to go slow over a few obsticles to protect the little necks I had along. This leg also had a huge set of switchbacks at the beginning where we met 5-8 opposing vehicles, which made my wife uneasy as we had to move closer to the edge of a dropoff!

STate

Fantastic! Love it!

slacker 24/7

i've taken my land cruiser and jeep around the white rim and saw the trucks shuttling the mt. bikers, and thought about just taking my truck instead of towing a rig out there, did ya have any issues at all? my truck is stock except the 285's it would be a heck of alot easier and cheaper to just take my truck, we have a possible trip out there planned in April to run support on the white rim with friends on mt bikes... thanks for posting