To The Uintas By Dirt | Part 1

Hey Backroad Explorers! I'm just about to pull out of the driveway and head out on another little adventure. The next 24 hours are going to be really unique. It's actually going to be just me and Molly. I don't have the boys. They're out visiting some family in Boise and Mike's not going to be joining me until tomorrow night. So for the next 24 hours we're just going to be out exploring. Before we hit the trail, I just want to thank everyone who's been watching our videos. Thank you so much. I really started this channel just kind of document where I was going. I swear half of the views are me and the boys re-watching trips. And as the channel started to grow, we've gotten some more subscribers. We have some regulars who watch every video. I really appreciate you guys watching the videos, liking them. If you haven't already subscribed, please do. And also like, comment, share, interact with us. One of the things that I feel like we've been missing with the channel is we don't really show a lot of us. You haven't really gotten to know us at all. And I don't want to turn the channel into a vlog by any means, but I am hoping as we're doing some of these adventures to kind of get our perspective on how it's going as we're going, rather than just doing voiceover afterwards. There'll still be voiceover and things like that, but I want you guys to be able to get to know us a little bit better. And I think the best way to do that is to just show some more footage of the things that we're doing and what we're into when we're out camping and things like that. So without further ado, let's hit the trail. Man, no matter how many times I come up this canyon and how crazy busy it gets on the weekend, I still love it. And it's nice that it's Thursday so I won't be too busy. Finally made it to some dirt and it's almost dark. So we're gonna get there, get camp set up, call it good. All right, so it's Friday morning. We got in here pretty late last night, um, just as it was getting dark and I just set up camp and pretty much went to bed. But I'm going to cook up some breakfast and then start getting ready to head towards Squaw Peak Road. This area is really, really pretty. You're up on top of a huge mountain and there's beautiful views everywhere. Unfortunately, some of them are a little bit covered with smoke. Unfortunately, pretty much everywhere in the western United States is on fire right now. But it's just a really beautiful area and I'm really excited to hit out on the trail today and meet up with Mike and his crew this evening. Get a little breakfast going. Molly's upset that she can't just eat it all. He'll get some. Pretty nice little camp spot. Trail's right there. Just beautiful out. All right, so just packed everything up and, uh, back on the trail. And so the objective today is to meet Mike this evening near Strawberry Reservoir. My plan is to take as many dirt roads as I can to get there. So rather than just jumping on the pavement and getting there in about 35-40 minutes, I'm going to take about 60 miles worth of dirt roads and get there this afternoon. I'm going to go over Squaw Peak Road and up Hobble Creek Canyon and then do some exploring once I get up on top near Strawberry Reservoir, find a place to camp, and then meet Mike around five. Check out the awesome pop top on this Tacoma. Reminds me of Inversa Minor. I really want one of those things. It is so beautiful out here and it is so sad these fires we're having. You can see how hazy it is. It's actually better this week than when I was up here a few weeks ago. But man, it is just... the air quality is so bad. So much of the west is on fire. Once back on the pavement, I enjoyed the 17-mile trip down the canyon headed towards Squaw Peak Road. This drive is windy and beautiful and is a must drive in the fall when the leaves start to change. So I just made it to the overlook at Squaw Peak and I cannot believe how much smoke is in the air. You can like... it's almost like you can taste it. That's supposed to be a valley down there which you cannot see. Now back on the dirt and we're gonna be on dirt for pretty much the next like 100 or so miles. A little stab of pavement for a few minutes. So I'm gonna air down and I'm curious what you guys are using to air down with. So I know there's a bunch of different products. I'm actually just using one of these little guys right here. Unscrews one that goes on each wheel and they're really cool because it's like nine bucks. Works as a keychain. I just keep it in the console in the jeep. I know there's some really fancy ones that you can like set the air at and things like that but I don't know. Maybe they're worth it but when I was looking at the cost it just didn't make sense. And I've actually used the stem pullers and I don't find them to be that useful. They are really fast but I don't really don't think these are that slow. So uh anyways just curious what you guys are using. They go on super easy. I just make my way around the rig and honestly by the time I get around the rig um it's they're pretty much done. Earlier in the year Mike and I did a trip through American Fork Canyon down Provo Canyon and across Squaw Peak Road where we show a ton of really cool footage from the trail. It's definitely worth checking out. Whenever we do a trip like this I try to take on as much dirt travel as possible. Only jumping on the pavement when there's really no other option. So rather than just heading up to Heber and chilling at Strawberry Reservoir until Mike came, I decided to take my time and really enjoy Squaw Peak Road again. So I've just hit the pavement and left Hobble Creek Canyon. I'm headed down it right now to where it meets up with Wright Hobble Creek and I'm going to head up it towards Strawberry Reservoir. Squaw Peak Road is so cool. It's really beautiful. You have an incredible view for a huge portion of it over the right hand side looking out over the valley and you know it's a really fun trail. It's not real aggressive or anything but it's also a little bit more than just like a standardized like fire road. There's a few places you have to pick your lines and if it was wet or muddy it could definitely get a little bit more sketchy but overall it's a really fun trip. Something that you could do in like an afternoon if you wanted. Look at that big mama jama. Some steak dinner. Taking on this first day solo was really fun however when it comes to filming the trip it is really nice to have Mike with me as we usually do a little leapfrogging back and forth to get shots. Not to mention Wyatt is turning into a pretty good little cameraman. Setting up shots took me a little longer than I anticipated which put me behind schedule. This would make a killer campsite but I got like 30 more miles to go so just hopping for lunch get back out on the trail. It's been a really long time since I went up Wright Hobble Creek and while I think that left Hobble Creek is a little bit prettier and a little more fun of off-roading, Wright Hobble Creek can hold its own and I love making my way up the trail. The reality is when it comes to dirt roads I'm pretty easy to please. I love seeing where each one goes and I just can't complain about views like this. The further I made it up the mountain the more beautiful things became especially as the trail started to weave its way through massive aspen groves. You know you only see a few sketchy things when you're on the trail. Check this out. This big old dead tree fell. Bam! Locked in with that huge dead tree. That's crazy. I want to see them both fall. I am running at least an hour and a half to two hours behind schedule and I'm kind of at a little bit of a crossroads. If I stick right to my maps something terrible goes wrong and break down or something Mike's going to know exactly where I'm at because I've shared my route with him. If I go a little bit different way I'll get there much faster which means he's less likely to start looking for me. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to go the faster way because I think if I go that way I can beat him. Probably a bad idea. So far I'm really liking this other route. This trail has been so stinking cool. Really tight. Tons and tons of trees. Fairly aggressive. I've been in four low for the last little while. There's several real steep rocky sections and it has just been so much fun. All right so I'm finally on East Canyon Road and I don't know how much time I saved. If I saved any certainly seemed like it would have been a lot faster with the shortcut I took but it's hard to know you know if the other road was like what I was driving on before there's no way it would have been it would have been way longer to go the other way. If it was more groomed like this then it might end up being faster who knows but anyways Mike's crew should be getting there in a few minutes and I should be getting there within a little bit of time. I was able to shoot him a text and let him know where I'm at so will be fun to meet up with them. Today has been so amazing. I've been on the road for over a hundred and something miles and I'm going to cruise over to Daniel's Summit. There's a gas station there. I'm going to top off on fuel and then meet up with Mike and Kate and head with them to find a place to camp for the night. So I was just pulling into Daniel's Summit and Mike was about to pull out so he's right behind me. I'm going to stop and try to get some gas here real quick and check out the high-tech sweet pumps they've got rolling with. If you like this video please subscribe to catch part two as we make our way up into the Uintas.