Driving back roads in southern Utah

[Dennis Prince]

We are planning a trip in September to southern Utah and northern Arizona, we plan to drive as many back roads and jeep trails as we can in a month in our T's. I am wondering if anyone has any experience with the roads and trails in this area and any suggestions for places to go, things to see and places to camp. Thanks Dennis

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[D.Yoder]

This is an unbeoliveable trip with a T.

Utah Backcountry Discovery route.
Look it up on the net.

[modernbeat]

I've driven all over the Escalante area, and all around Lake Powell in Jeeps and trucks. Will be covering the area again in a T during another trip from Peublo, Colorado to Los Angeles in mid summer after the passes in Colorado are open.

What sort of roads are you looking for? Easy dirt roads? Harder trails?

I guess my first recommendation would be Burr Trail Road off Utah 12 outside of Boulder, Utah, down through the Burr Trail switchbacks, down to Bullfrog, then 267 to 95 to 261 then down the Moki Dugway, all the way to Mexican Hat.

Another route would be to start in Cannonville, then take Kodachome Rd south. It turns into Cottonwood Canyon Road which goes all the way down to Hwy 89 with lots of side roads and camping on it. The intersection of Cottonwood and 89 is near the Toadstool Hoodoos.

[Steve Jelf]

It's been about forty years since I was there, but I enjoyed the remote roads south of Henrieville. Places to see include Kodachrome Basin, Grosvenor Arch, Bryce View, Chimney Rock, Shakespeare Arch, Cottonwood Narrows, etc. Near Tuba City are Dinosaur tracks, and farther east is Monument Valley, where you expect to see John Wayne leading a company of cavalry. Another great place to explore is Canyonlands National Park (inlcuded on Dean's map), and the Coral Pink Sand Dunes are worth a visit.

[modernbeat]

Also, explore the KMZ files on this site. They have gathered up a lot of data in those files. The "Utah Trails.kmz" is pretty useful.

http://offroadinghome.com/nevada/nevada.htm

They've also got more files on the other southwest states.

[modernbeat]

Steve, I was right there in 2017!

[modernbeat]

The Moki Dugway



The Burr Trail switchbacks, looking down

[Dennis Prince]

Thanks guys, This is some great info,

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keep it coming. The type of roads that we are looking at are all kinds from paved to maybe fairly serious 4x4 trails, the landscape and the driving experience are what we are after. We do quite a bit of dirt and gravel roads and even some areas without roads.

[BobD]

A good place to camp just above the Moki Dugway is Muley Point. One can overlook Monument Valley from here.

View from Muley Point.

Scenes on Burr Trail, Henry Mountains in background. A nice place to camp on the upper Burr Trail is Deer Creek CG.

[DLodge]

Dennis, you might try contacting Russ Furstnow to see if he still has a spare tour book from the Canyonlands Tour. We went on that one in 2009. It was based in Kanab and covered southern Utah and northern Arizona.