The Jeep Tour

From the time we knew we were coming across the southwest Bud wanted to return to southwest Utah and take a jeep out in the open country around here. He heard the best way to do this was with a guide. I went on line and found Off the Grid 4×4 Tours who offered just that, jeep rentals with a guide. Here we are just off the highway and Bud has taken over the driving. Our guide, and owner of Off the Grid, is Steve.

We headed up the rocks and sand south of the state park.

It wasn’t long before we had a great view of the reservoir.

I wasn’t seeing anything that resembled a trail, but Steve said we were right on the route.

Sometimes the only thing you could see of a route were the scrape and skid marks from other vehicles.

We were headed up a rock formation to “the memorial” and we were taking the easy route. We were definitely gaining altitude.

We got to a gnarly part and Steve got out to take pictures, guiding Bud from outside.

I was having fun but hanging on!

This felt even steeper than it looked. I was amazed how the jeep would just crawl up those sandy rocks.

This was the memorial.

All around were mementoes left in honor of fallen soldiers.

The whole thing was built by volunteers at the base of the highest rock in this formation.

Its railings and plaques and even some folks ashes all were placed in this spot with a spectacular view.

From there we headed higher up along the edge of the dunes to another rock formation to see the “Flintstone House”.

The red rocks and sand with the blue sky are just gorgeous, they almost seem unreal.

Before we got to our next stop we had more rocks to climb. I included this minute and a half video to show just how Steve carefully guided Bud, but with humor that put you at ease. He didn’t seem worried about his very expensive modified jeep.

He was calm and throughly enjoying himself,

even when Bud hit something underneath hard on a rock…

crawling down these.

The jeep came through fine.

And we were at the Flintstone House.

It lacks headroom but as a rock formation it is pretty cool.

Steve pointed out this webbing the wind had carved high on the surrounding rocks.

Our next destination was over there, the “top of the world”. It’s the sandy looking point on the top right.

But to get there we had to cross some dunes. We took a roundabout route to minimize the dune crossing. As good as the jeep is on rocks, it’s too heavy to negotiate deep sand with ease.

We had to take a running start up the dune, then when it got too steep Bud had to turn quickly back down. The dunes looked like even mounds but were wave shaped; we were driving up the face of a wave, which got steeper as you got higher.

We made it to the rocky ridge.

We drove to the far edge and Steve put one tire up on a rock formation for pictures. I have hold of the jeep…

because it’s a long drop from here.

We had a great view of the Arizona Strip, a swath of empty land that runs all the way to the Grand Canyon. Maybe in the future we’ll go out there.

But this trip we were happy to make it to the “top of the world”.

It’s the highest point on this mesa and gives a panoramic view. As you can see, a lot of folks come up here. (The jump in the video is when I stepped off a little ledge as I was turning around.)

It was time for us to go back. You can see everywhere we went from the campground, from the memorial rocks on the left to the little sandy looking blip on the right that is the “top of the world”. But we had taken almost three and a half hours playing on those rocks.

I am very glad we found Steve and Off the Grid 4×4 Tours. This was way more rugged and way more fun than I expected and Bud had a great time driving.