Just got back from a 8 day long 3400 mile trip with some friends.
Started from home and drove to Albuquerque had a late lunch at Frontier restaurant (one of my favorite burritos!) and camped about an hour outside of the city on some BLM land.
Next morning we drove up to Monument Valley and briefly spent some time there. The wind picked up quite a bit so we didn't spend much time there. We then back tracked a little and headed to Page AZ refueled and stopped at Horseshoe Bend before headed out to the Vermillion Cliffs and camped up at White Pocket. It's pretty sandy up there so it was a fun drive racing the sunset to get pics. Our friends truck had a power issue on the way but luckily it was just a loose negative cable.
That Night was super windy as a unexpected cold front moved it. 40 mph gusts and the temp dropped into the 30's. We both had heated blankets running off our battery stations so it wasn't to bad. The next morning we headed down to the slot canyons at Buckskin gulch which was perfect for a cold windy day.
After our hiking we headed towards Page again for a quick fuel up before doing a 70ish mile off-road section and we had an issue that could have become much worse. Our friends called on the radio they had to pull off immediately. Turns out his solar panel mounted on the roof of hos truck lost all the hardware and was just barely being held on. We headed into Page to get some new hardware (and Loctite) to fix the issue. We were a little off schedule but we headed out into Grand Staircase Escalante/ Glen Canyon Recreational area and up to Alstrom Point overlooking Lake Powell. Wind was still in the 30's so we took in the incredible views for a little bit and headed towards Croton road where we would be camping.
I was a little worried since i hadn't been on this road before and there weren't that many spots to camp but we were the only ones out there. We found a nice spot that was sheltered from the wind. It was very peaceful being the only people for probably 40-50 miles.
Next Day we took Croton road until it met up with Smokey Mountain Road which took us into the town of Escalante. Had a Nice lunch and a shower before heading out to the Burr trail and found another great campsite up on a cliffside.
From there we headed north on Notom road and headed into Capitol Reef to hike Cassidy Arch then headed to Swing Arm City where they film all sorts of car commercials. It's a blast just ripping the cars out there even if they are super top heavy with our roof top tents. We planned to camp that night but our friends rattled quite a few things loose on their truck and we lost a nut on our tent so we made our way to Moab for a hotel and some parking lot repairs.
The next morning we headed out to do the White Rim Trail over the next two day. Not a very hard drive but one to knock off the list. We stayed in Moab again afterwards before getting up at 4am the next morning for a sunrise hike to Delicate arch. We got there and there were only two other people there so it was a very peaceful experience before everyone else got there.
Lastly we headed to Denver to stay with friends and even got some snow in the mountains. Overall it was a very successful and fun trip! I am glad to be back in civilization again though.