Overlanding Remote Southeastern Utah

So a little overlanding with family hack, when your kids are driving you crazy, in the car, you make them get out and run the trail in front of you. Now in their defense, we've been in the car for a long time, I thought we'd have found a spot to camp a lot sooner than now, but make them run up the trail, use a little bit of energy. Right now we're just getting ready to set up camp, and I kind of have a totally new set up for the GX. I picked up some bigger Plano boxes, now if you've watched my channel long you know I've had these Plano boxes for a long time, I really liked them, but I needed a little bit more space and I have the 60 liter ones, and rather than running three 60 liters, I picked up two 100 liters so that I have 200 liters versus 108, and then I only have to tie down two things. So far I've really liked it, we've been able to fit everything inside the GX with the entire family. You will notice that we don't have Molly on this trip, she's having some health issues where she can't handle being in really hot temperatures, so it just didn't make sense to bring her down here. We're going to spend tonight camping outside of Moab, we're a ways outside of Moab at this point, but we have a really beautiful campsite, I'm going to get everything set up for camp and kind of give you a little bit of a look at what that's going to look like. So here is the back of the GX, we've got the fridge, we've got a big sleeping bag on top of it that I can take out quickly if I need to, to still access stuff in the fridge, dry goods bin, cooking bin, bin holding some of the sleeping bags, and there's the rest up on the roof rack. When we first pulled in and started making camp it was so ridiculously windy, man, tents with wind, such a pain. We've got it anchored down to the GX, the wind has definitely died down which is good and it's not supposed to be nearly as bad tonight, so I'm hoping that will make it better, but I didn't even dare set up the stove on our table because I was worried it might blow over so we've got it just on one of the bins. Not optimal for cooking but we're making up some gnocchi and sausage and then have some delicious vegetables to go with it, and then once the sun kind of drops behind a couple of these rocks, it's going to just make this be so beautiful, hoping I can showcase that and let you just see how incredible of a campsite this is, just a little bit, the trail you can see is just right over there, but you can tell just hardly anyone ever comes down here, really beautiful. We just wrapped up dinner and we're just watching the sun set behind this big canyon over here, it's been highlighting the rocks all around us, just really brightening up the red. We have all this rock all around us and we're kind of in this little bit of a dip where there's sand that's just blown in over time to fill in I'm sure just over maybe six inches of sand and then you're back in the rock again. But there's so much beautiful vegetation, Utah's had a record winter this year and so everything is in bloom, there's tons of these beautiful cactus that are in bloom, flowers, even just the shrubs and stuff are looking really green and really lush, really beautiful. Going to start wrapping up for the night but we've got a ton of adventure coming tomorrow morning and throughout the rest of the week, just want to show you a couple of beautiful things here around camp. Well, it's Saturday morning, we've been doing just a little bit of hiking, scrambling, making our way down towards kind of this little ledge and then it goes down to another plateau and then another before it drops off into the canyon. Such a beautiful sight, you can just see for so many miles out in that direction. I think on the other side of this canyon is technically Canyonlands, so kind of looking off to that into the distance. I do also believe there's a trail that goes down through that canyon, not one that we're going to be hitting on this trip but would be really cool to check out. The plan for today, we've already started taking down camp, we have a lot of miles we've got to cover, we're going to backtrack out of here after we eat breakfast and then we're going to start making our way towards Montezuma Creek Road, which is a really cool road that cuts through Montezuma Canyon, there's some incredible Native American artifacts and dwellings in there that we're going to stop and see and then we're going to continue to make our way towards Bluff. That's kind of the plan for today, should be tons of adventure, let's go get some breakfast going. Some breakfast, some French toast, sausage under here, you hungry Charlotte? Yeah. You ready for breakfast? Yeah. Have you had fun adventuring? Yeah. Yeah? Alright. Alright everybody come get their water bottles. I have them here. We got the rocks and now we're headed back out towards the pavement where we're going to jump on the highway and head towards Monticello, Utah. So right now we're just backtracking on trails that we did yesterday and then once we hit the pavement we're just going to try to get there quick to Monticello, we'll make a quick stop, fill up fuel, and then from there we'll be dropping into Montezuma Creek and back off into Durango. Making a quick stop at Wilson Arch in between Moab and Monticello. You can see it back there, it's literally right off of the highway, they just have a little pull off area that you can pull at. But really pretty, can't believe that you're literally just driving right next to this off of the road. This is actually an area I've spent a lot of time, my mom grew up in Colorado just outside of Monticello, Utah. So she has a lot of family in that area, we come down here and visit them. So we've stopped here many times but I think this is a first for the kids that at least they can remember. So pretty cool, nice little hike up, nothing tough, just a little bit steep. Crazy to have this huge vineyard down here. For a while I think it was ran kind of like a commune, I don't know if that's still the case now but it's beautiful. This canyon is so beautiful, you know there's nothing technical at all about this road, you could come down it in any vehicle, very well graded dirt road but it is so beautiful. Now all of the sides and stuff are all private property so you're not going to be camping or anything right here but definitely a beautiful scenic way to drive from the Monticello area over to Blanding versus just on the highway. Not a bad place to live, beautiful view and the canyon, that house built right back into those rock caverns. So cool you can see like these, they're dynamited out from my understanding and then fill it full of hay, storage, probably that's the tail end of it, probably moving cows up on top of the mountain now. Man that was so fun, I've had family who ranches down here for nearly a hundred years, the ranch has been in the family for over that but it was really fun, we stopped by the ranch house and they weren't there and I saw a bunch of trucks and I was a little disappointed because I thought oh they have to be here, ended up going a few more miles down the road and they were down there branding cows so it was fun to be able to stop and say hi. Just you know introduce the kids to them, tell them we love them, talk for a few minutes and then keep on the trail. They're busy working, you know branding cows and cutting hay and things like that but man I just can't imagine what it would be like coming down and working in a place this beautiful day in and day out. Not a bad gig, it's super hard work but they love it, it's beautiful, it was so fun to just run into them. Now we're going to keep making our way down, there's some cool Native American stops down here that I want to check out. Based on the size of these ones back here my guess is that they're actually like granaries which were used to store food and things like that. They don't look like they were quite deep enough to be dwellings but they're up there in the rocks, that's supposed to kind of keep, the purpose behind granaries was to put food high and out of the way of animals and other scavengers and things like that but you can see still definitely some ruins right into the rocks up here. Check this out. So you can see a bunch broken down there, up top there's more right there and a bunch more right here and then last but not least over there. That's incredible. I'll bet this is only one in like 10 years that this has enough water flowing in it that it needs to be checked but it's got enough water flowing in it, it doesn't look deep at all to me but I want to walk it and make sure that it's nice and hard, nothing stuck in the middle, not deeper in some place than we're expecting. Check it out. Three Kiva is a stabilized Pueblo located in Montezuma Canyon along County Road B146, about 7 miles up canyon from the Perkins Roadway. It features a reconstructed Kiva with a roof and ladder access, accessed by a short footpath. The remainder of the Pueblo is visible as stabilized wall bases, with the upper parts having collapsed prehistorically. About a thousand years ago, the Three Kiva ruin was part of a large and thriving community that took advantage of the resources that the canyon had to offer. Extensive excavations made by a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University revealed 14 rooms and three Kivas, a Ramada working area, a trash mound, and a possible turkey run. Large portions of this complex have been stabilized but only one of the Kivas is completely reconstructed and it's well worth the visit. It's currently maintained by the BLM. We've met up with some type of a county road, it's super well graded gravel road and we're just cruising along and you know, it's still really pretty in all directions and I just can't help but think like, got the entire family in here, all just you know, listening to some music, cruising down this road, I literally wouldn't choose anywhere else I would rather be. It's like near perfect weather, it's nice and warm but it's not crazy hot, exploring all new areas that I've never been to, this is a road I've never been on and I'm excited to see where it puts us out at. We've made it to Mexican Hat, Utah where we have a hotel and you may ask, why are you staying at a hotel? Well, when your wife is like five months pregnant and you want to go on a multi-day adventure and she says she's only willing to camp twice, you put a hotel in the middle. We also want to go to church tomorrow so we'll be able to get cleaned up, showered and stuff before we do that. So we're going to be here in Mexican Hat today, probably take the kids to the pool, hit the pool and then kind of just hang around, see what's around here in town before we head to Monument Valley tomorrow. A few more things to see today. How do you like that fry bread? Good. Charlotte, have you been having fun? What's been your favorite part of our trip? Swimming. The swimming pool? Of course. Okay. What about you, Jackson? The camp. Yeah? That was such a beautiful camp, huh? Yeah. What about you, Wyatt? Favorite part of the trip so far? I don't know. You can't choose? I've loved the whole thing so far, actually. And Lauren's turn. Oh, it's being with everyone. Being with everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe and make sure to tune in next time as we explore Monument Valley, Mokie Dugway, and Valley of the Gods. Thanks for watching.