The longest way around is the shortest way home. Have you ever heard that one? If "home" is four-wheeling fun, it certainly applied to our latest backcountry adventure. We had been talking about linking some of our favorite trails together to get from Point A to Point B, while avoiding pavement. The next thing we knew, it had gotten out of control. We wanted to drive from Big Water, Utah, to Moab, and spend as little time on highways as we could.
You've never heard of Big Water? It's about 20 miles west of Page, Arizona, on the west side of Lake Powell, and was the southern jumping-off point for our little off-pavement jaunt. None of the roads we were seeking out were meant to be an extreme challenge; we just wanted to see how little pavement we could use to get all the way to Moab. Graded dirt, rutted two-track, or all-weather gravel were all fine and dandy, but asphalt was to be avoided.
If you're seeking quality time way off the beaten track, care and wisdom should go into choosing your companions. You'll want people seeking the same brand of back-road solitude to avoid campfire discussions about the need for the next 7-Eleven stop. Your companions should possess the necessary inquisitiveness and wanderlust, or you might disagree over the need to check out that interesting-looking connector road that doesn't appear on any maps. It also helps if they're seasoned backcountry explorers with proven rides. It always looks bad if you come back to civilization with fewer vehicles than you left with.
We kept the group small to keep our travel speed reasonably high. Dr. Bob Telepak is a part-time resident of Moab (his house served as our ultimate destination) and spends almost every free minute prowling the backcountry of southern Utah and trying to preserve access for motorized use. Terry Rust is another seasoned backcountry traveler with a love for quiet, red panoramas and perfect star-filled desert nights. Bob was driving his "desert stealth" Scout; Terry would accompany us with his Jeep Comanche; and the group would be rounded out with our own "new" Comanche pickup.
Our early afternoon rendezvous point was the gas station in Big Water. We topped off our tanks and pointed our hoods toward the west shore of Lake Powell on the first leg of our long journey. The recent addition of gas in Big Water is a great boon because you can now head into the empty lands to the north with maximum range. Our initial route took us along Recreation Road 230, and sure enough, the hard surface ended after only 3.3 miles. Moab lay more than 150 miles away as the crow flies, and we knew that it was quite a bit farther by the route we intended to take.
We sped along, enjoying the relative smoothness of good graded dirt, pausing for some photos of the otherworldly features in the stark bentonite hills at the base of the high cliffs delineating the Kaiparowits Plateau. We hit the boundary between the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the adjoining Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, turned north on Smoky Mountain Road, and almost immediately began scaling the cliffs of the plateau. Upon reaching the top of the 1,800-foot climb, we debarked to admire the view and marvel at the extreme contrast between the almost featureless desert below and the much-greener mesa top.
The trip north went quickly, and we were soon looking for a likely evening campsite. We found a suitable spot and pulled up for the night. We had traveled just short of 52 miles, all but the initial few off pavement. We had the first of a series of perfect evenings, watching the sunset and a brilliantly full moonrise, and enjoying the camaraderie a desert campfire always brings.
The next morning, we continued north, dropping down off the heights and following Alvey Wash all the way to the town of Escalante. Civilization meant a chance to once again top off the tanks and have the first of a series of conversations with agency personnel about road availability on our point-to-point trek. Of course, cruising through Escalante also meant racking up a few more miles of pavement. The reason for the land management agency conversations was that we were venturing into unknown territory. Not only was the route completely new to us, but there were significant discrepancies as to which routes our various maps showed as open to motorized travel. A conversation with a friendly Forest Service recreation officer (yes, they actually still exist) confirmed that our intended route had recently been driven by a 4WD, but they couldn't tell us what condition the road was in. Perfect.
We headed north out of Escalante on about as big a road as you can find and not be on pavement: a full 40-foot width of graded, graveled all-weather road that serves as the main access point into the forest for an intermittent stream of logging trucks flying down the centerline. We carefully watched for approaching dust clouds and hugged the ditches around the sweeping corners. As we wound higher, the terrain changed as the desert pinon and juniper below gave way first to aspen, then to fir and spruce. We were climbing to the top of the Aquarius Plateau, a 10,000-foot-plus table of green grass, tall trees, and shallow pocket lakes. As we headed up, we left the timbering areas behind and the road regained its normal Forest Service proportions. It then became a whole lot narrower when we turned east on a secondary road toward Jacobs Reservoir. Past the area of the reservoir, we were on a two-track and depending heavily on the GPS for location and route finding.
Shortly after lunch, we climbed a rocky ridge line and found ourselves on Boulder Mountain. Large, flat meadows were now interspersed with interesting outcroppings of rocks, patches of trees, and many small pothole lakes. We headed toward Spectacle Lake perched on the edge of this huge flat-topped peak, then turned north on a faint two-track. The terrain we were now traveling can only be described as weird: absolutely tabletop flat, no trees, and nothing taller than very short tundra grasses. If not for the cold wind sweeping this featureless area, it would have been hard to believe that we were 'wheeling along in excess of 11,000 feet.
Our next landmark was another shallow depression called Elbow Lake, where we regained a more pronounced road and once again headed almost due east. We were now meandering toward the prominent edge of the Boulder Top escarpment known as Chokecherry Point. We came across a sign proclaiming the road ahead had been adopted by a local 4WD club, which was a good omen. The road deteriorated rapidly as we neared the edge of the plateau, with the graded dirt giving way to about as rough a rock-imbedded trail as we have driven in some time. Some of the rocks were large enough to take a bite of the undercarriage or rocker panels, and we very, very slowly crept to the edge, wondering what we would find for the route down. It was getting late in the afternoon, and spending a mid-September evening atop an 11,000-foot plateau sounded like a good bet for an uncomfortably cool night. We needed to lose some altitude.