Nothing Special's 2022 Sand Hollow Utah trip

OK, here's the actual trip report I've been teasing about!  I've touched on the motorhome aspects of this trip in my motorhome thread, and on the Bronco-specific aspect in my Bronco thread.  But now I'm finally getting around to the actual trip report.

It was 3 1/2 weeks ago now that we left on this trip.  We drove out to Hurricane, Utah, in the southwest corner of the state, pretty close to St. George (I'll touch on the drive out and back at the end, but I'll start today by jumping into the 'wheeling).  Zion National Park is about 20 miles north of Hurricane, and Bryce Canyon National Park is a little northeast of that.  We visited both of those parks on this trip, but I'll talk about that later as well.

Sand Hollow State Park is just outside of Hurricane.  If you are familiar with Matt's Off-Road Recovery (I know a few of you are, from a discussion in Gary's Big Blue Transformation thread) you know a bit about Hurricane and Sand Hollow.  I've been watching videos of the area for years, and when Lesley wanted to do a 'wheeling / national parks trip to Zion and Bryce I knew where we'd 'wheel!

But knowing where and knowing anything about it are two different things!  I did some searching, but wasn't able to find any decent maps until just before we left, when I found GPS tracks of the trails at Dixie 4 Wheel Drive.  Then when we actually got to Sand Hollow we were able to buy a map that showed most of the 'wheeling area, but not in a lot of detail.  However it did have difficulty levels assigned to the trails (on a 1 - 10 scale) which was very helpful.

The layout there was a little surprising to me as a newcomer.  The 'wheeling isn't actually in Sand Hollow State Park.  You need to pay to go through the park to get to the staging area.  But from there you go through the tunnel that you often see in videos to get under a highway and you are now out of the park.  The trails are actually in what I think is called Sand Mountain OHV Area, and from what I can tell you do not need to pay a fee to 'wheel there (but I could be wrong about that!!!).  There is another access point at the south end of Sand Hollow Road.  This is the road that goes along the west edge of the park, but you don't actually have to go into the park to get to this access point.  All of that said, there's a pretty good chance that I'm missing some important info here, so don't take all of that as gospel!

But the Sand Mountain area is generally a big hillside, about 5 miles wide, that slopes up away and south from Sand Hollow State Park.  Then maybe 5 miles up the hill it reaches a rim that plunges down.  The trails are generally running up and down the hill, with the two access points at the bottom of the hill.  The trails range from gravel roads to sandy 2-tracks to wide open dunes, to technical rock crawling.  It's a big area, but you aren't really going to get lost.  Just head down hill, toward the lake, and you'll get out.

We got to southwestern Utah during a rainy spell, so the sand and weather conditions weren't typical.  But our first day promised to be pretty nice (maybe some rain, but it didn't come, partly cloudy and temp around 90).  On this day we decided to start with Milt's Mile.

This trail is rated a 6 or 7 (depending on which map or sign you are looking at) on a scale of 1 - 10.  It ended up being a good difficulty level for us.  Quite a few places challenging enough that Lesley opted to get out and walk (which is how we get pictures and video!), but nothing that made me think I shouldn't try it (or at least bypasses around what I thought shouldn't try).

The trail starts near the access tunnel from Sand Hollow State Park and climbs up into the Sand Mountain OHV area a ways, then (according to the GPS track) turns and comes back down to the other access.  The challenges were pretty much all in the first half as we climbed.  The biggest challenge in the second half was finding the trail.  But it wasn't a big deal if you lost the trail, you were just winding your way down to the exit anyway.

I did do the worst damage of the trip to the Bronco on this trail.  At one point I picked a bad line (or executed a risky line badly) and bent one end of the front bumper back quite a bit.  Oh well, that's what I have this for!

OK, enough talking, here are some pictures!








These last two pictures are where I bent the bumper




Here's the video from this day.  Sorry that it's out of focus.  That was my fault in messing up the settings on the camera.  We fixed by the next day, but this days video is blurry.  I think it's still fun to watch, but if it bothers you, just know it won't get better.  And the bumper damage happens at about 6:10.



The whole trail was about 5 miles and took a little over 4 hours (including stops for lunch, pictures, evaluating damage and so on).  It wasn't about 3:00 when we finished the trail, but we decided to call it a day and head back to camp at that point.

Man, you have that Bronco dialed in!  It just goes through anything - except that rock that bent the bumper.

I sure like Lesley's comment: "I don't know.  I have my eyes closed most of the time!"  

Seriously, your changes have really made the Bronco more capable.  The ground clearance is awesome as you aren't dragging things like you used to.  Well done!  

A man's got to know his limitations.  Or in this case, his and his vehicle's limitations.  The Bronco is doing great at going everywhere I point it, but "through anything?"  This was a 6 or 7 rated trail (and probably a 6) on a scale of 1-10.  There's a lot I won't even try.

But that's OK, as long as I follow Clint's advice.  The Bronco will do amazing things and go amazing places, I just need to keep in mind the limitations.  I have thought about building a "big dog" trail rig that can go on the 8, 9 or 10 trails.  Some day I might even do it!  But I do know that the Bronco will never be that.  It's too nice of a summer daily driver / Dairy Queen rig.  So now it's pretty much where I want it.

I still want to build that skid plate, and there will always be a list of minor things to tweak.  But I don't really see doing anything else major to it.  If I do any major upgrades I'm pretty sure that will be to a different vehicle.

But I am loving the Bronco on the trails!

(And yes, there was no way I was going to cut Lesley's comment out!  But to answer my question, yes, the left front tire did come off the ground.)

We have a place near here called Disney where there is some really hard-core rock-crawling done.  I've been there and don't even really like to watch as it is obvious that something and someone are going to get hurt.

So I'm not one of the guys that wants to do the 8 - 10 trails.  And the ability of you and your Bronco to go through what look to be really tough stuff amazes me.  In my opinion you are "there".

But there are the small things, like the skid plate, that can improve it incrementally.  

Lesley and I are big Disney fans!  We've been on 5 Disney cruises, and have been to Walt Disney World a bunch of times!

Oh, not that Disney.

Seriously though, I have heard of the 4 wheeling area / park at Disney OK and hope to get there some time.

When the grandtwins were here a few months ago I mentioned going to Disney to our daughter.  She said "Don't call it Disney!  The kids will have the wrong idea!"  So we called it Langley, which is the town at the other end of the Pensacola Dam.

Oddly enough, my mother lived in Langley part of her senior year in high school.  Several of her brothers worked on building the dam and their mother set up house for them there.

So yes, there is some confusion with the name.  But the rides are not nearly as tame in this Disney as it isn't unusual for the vehicles to fall off the rocks backward.  

If you come please let me know!  I'll meet you there.  

i don't know when / if we'll come, but I'll definitely let you know if we do!

Day 2 wasn't a 'wheeling day... fortunately!  It rained that day.  All day.  Hard.  With flash flood warnings.  We went to Zion National Park on day 2 and got soaked.  But on the plus side, the crowds were manageable!  And we got to see Zion in a different way than most, with raging rivers and dozens of waterfalls.  It was really cool seeing it like that!  Of course it's really cool seeing it the normal way too, and we didn't get to do that.  So I guess we'll have to go back some time!

Here are some pictures.




This is the falls into Lower Emerald Pool, if anyone is familiar with the park and knows how it usually looks.


And this is the trail across the creek below Middle Emerald Pool.  No sane person was crossing this on that day!

Wow!  We've been to Zion, but it sure didn't look like that!  Interesting.  And different.  I'll bet you'll remember that day.  

Day three had better weather than day two.  Not that it had a very high bar!  But at least it wasn't raining yet, and it was only flash flood watches instead of flash flood warnings.  So we headed to Sand Hollow for more 'wheeling, but opted for an easier trail in case the weather became an issue.  We opted to take on West Rim trail (rated 6), with West Rim Lite (rated 3) following it in case we needed to step down a level.

Our first surprise was when we tried to get into the park.  We were told that the tunnel was closed.  So we turned around and headed for the other entrance to the trails, under the bridge.  (When we got back to the tunnel a couple days later we saw marks from the sand being about 6' deep in the 10' high tunnel!  So no wonder it wasn't open on Wednesday!)

Our second surprise was when we got to the other entrance.  What had been a wide, smooth gravel road on Monday now had criss-crossing ruts about 3' deep!  It wasn't too hard to pick my way through with the Bronco, but a roll-back wrecker had driven up it on Monday.  That wasn't going to happen today!

At first the West Rim trail was pretty easy, with enough optional obstacles to keep it interesting.  But as we got around to the farthest west part of the trail (around "the Lunchroom") it got to be more than we wanted.  So we fell back to West Rim Lite and made our way down to Top of The World.

At that point the rain finally came, so we headed down Watertank Road, which is just an access road, so not difficult.  But it turned out to be more a run down through the dunes than a road like I'm used to, so it was still pretty fun.

OK, here are the pictures and video of West Rim:










And here is a picture and the video of coming down Watertank Road.  I'll warn you though, the last part of this video is shot from the passenger's seat as we bombed down at the breath-taking speed of 16 mph.  The ride of a 51 year old truck off-road at that speed makes for ...interesting video!  I think it's kind of fun, but if it's too hard to watch I won't be offended if you quit.  And know that once that starts it stays that way until the end.





By the time we got down the rain had stopped, but we decided we were done 'wheeling for the day anyway.  As we had been leaving on Monday we saw a group of Jeeps that had "made a call."  One was broken and they were at the access point waiting for a wrecker.  We waited to see if they had called Winder Towing (the on-road version of Matt's Off-Road Recovery), but it was a different company.  So on this day we decided to swing by Matt's yard and at least see if I could get a T-shirt.  I ended up meeting Trevor, who was a great guy!  He invited me into the yard where I got to see the vehicles up close.  And Lesley got to pet Peanut (one of the dogs in Matt's videos).  So that was a cool part of the trip as well!



We finished up the day with a short hike in Red Reef, a little northwest of Hurricane.  It went up a creek through a pretty deep canyon, and was pretty cool as well.

Day four was another non-wheeling day, but we did spend a lot of time in the Bronco.  We drove up to Bryce Canyon National Park.  We did the Queen's Garden Hike and drove to most of the scenic overlooks.  Then we drove out a little farther to another hike my wife found, Willis Creek.  That was a really short hike, only about 1/2 mile.  But it was in a really cool slot canyon.

Here are a couple pictures of Bryce:




And here's Willis Creek

Bob - You are making me jealous!  Janey and I did Lake Powell and those parks many years ago, and I don't remember them that well.  But your pictures and descriptions make me want to go back.

That is such a beautiful, and stunning, area.  So vastly different from anything else I've seen.  One of a kind.  Plus, they are grouped together so closely that the area begs for another visit.  

The only problem with vacationing in Utah is now Lesley doesn't want to go back to Colorado ever again!

This is the update I've been waiting for!  On day 5 we did Double Sammy!  This might be the best trail day I've ever had.  It almost certainly is the toughest trail I've ever run.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

With drier weather the last couple of days we decided to try a little harder trail.  With a 7 rating Double Sammy seemed like a possible candidate.  When we got to the start of the trail I decided it was harder than I wanted to tackle alone, but there was another group (or actually two small groups together) that was starting up, so we paused to watch.

As we watched them on the first couple of obstacles they tried to convince us to come with them.  After making sure they knew what they were getting into (with my 33" tires I wasn't going to be keeping up with their 40", 42" and 52" tires!) we started in!

Most of Sand Hollow is a network of trails that let you bypass something that's beyond what you want to do.  Double Sammy?  Not so much.  There are harder and easier lines, but the easier lines are far from easy.  And once you start in you are in for the duration, with very few bail-out options.

Pretty quickly I got past where I'd feel comfortable turning around and getting myself out, so I kept following!  It was fun watching the big dogs play on the harder lines, and it was a LOT of fun taking obstacle after obstacle that were all some of the most challenging I've done.  I did make it up the entire trail with no help (other than a lot of spotting), and very minimal damage (mostly just dragging my rear bumper a few times).  I was pretty drained when we got to the top, but it was a blast!

At the end is a signature obstacle, "The Chute."  I'm almost completely sure I could have driven up it easily (with a little spotting).  But the cost of a failure is pretty high, and it seemed best to end on the high note we were already on, so I put my tires on it for a picture, but didn't actually try it.

OK, pictures and video!







Here are a couple of the big dogs playing (no, I didn't take this line)









After Double Sammy we took it pretty easy.  We drove up through the dunes up to the back of the area where we could see the Flintstone House, then meandered back on East Rim Road and Razzle Dazzle, which for the most part are easy sand 2-tracks through the sage brush.


And here's the access tunnel that goes under the highway.  You can sort of see the lines about 6' up where the sand had been a couple days before.


So that's the end of the Sand Hollow part of this trip.  I'll still come back with a few thoughts about the drive and the campground.  But this is the end of the exciting stuff.  Thanks for following along!

I don't know, the scenery up there sure is pretty right now.  A buddy posted this - you might know where 'tis since we've both been on the trail zig-zagging up in the distance:  

Yeah, Lesley's been there.  And it's factored into her weighting of Colorado vs Utah!

(PS, don't miss the update I posted while you were posting this!)

WOW!  That is some wheeling!  You went places it didn't look like you could go.

But there were a few times I got worried, like at 5:38 with tires in the air!  And a bit later I think I heard Leslie gasp.  

You are right about the rear bumper, it surely has a bit of rash.  But overall the Bronco appears to be extremely capable.  In fact, one of the guys said something about that.

That orange Jeep's exhaust is obnoxious.  He's obviously got a Hemi in it, but I'll bet it gets tiresome.

YOU were worried at 5:38?  I had even given you the spoiler that I hadn't damaged the Bronco.  Can you imagine how I felt?!?!?

Seriously, I was very nervous approaching that.  I knew it was going to be... exciting.  And if you listen you can hear that I hit the throttle as that happened.  I had my foot over the gas pedal so I could try to drive the tires back under if/when that happened.  I don't know that it would've gone over otherwise (probably not).  But I didn't want to see!

I also have video of the other vehicles, but I didn't think I should post them without their permission.  In the video as they were going up the hill in the still picture above you can hear Lesley say "oh please tell me no!"  She was pretty nervous at times, but she also said it was the best day of 'wheeling we've had in a long time!  And the only reason you didn't hear her gasp at 5:38 is because she was slipping a little as she walked down the hill, and was looking at her feet when that happened.  She didn't even know about it until we looked at the video that night!

Along with loud exhaust the orange Jeep had REALLY low gearing.  I have a 71:1 crawl ratio, and his engine was turning a LOT faster than mine.  I'd guess he was in the 200:1 range.  I won't say anything against his vehicle (it was sure capable!).  But when I had the exhaust done on my Bronco last time they took it on themselves to put something like a glass-pack on it to "improve" the exhaust note.  I had them replace it with a real muffler.

Yes, I knew that you made it, but it was still scary!  (We watched a movie last night where a young girl was dragging her hand out of a boat in an alligator-infested marsh and I had to keep telling myself "This is a flash-back and you've already seen that she makes it."  But I was nervous then as well.)

I think I'm glad Lesley wasn't looking.  I don't think it would have been "oh please tell me no!"

Anyway, I'm glad you had such a good time.  And I'm glad she wants to go back.  Obviously she has faith in your capabilities or she wouldn't.

As for the orange Jeep, I don't see (hear?) the need to make so much noise.  Big Blue's Magnaflows are relatively quiet but on top of a mountain they and the fan make quite a bit of noise.  I think the muffler on your Bronco is about right.

I said I'd wrap this up with some thoughts about the drive and the campground, but I guess I really included  pretty much everything in my motorhome thread.  So I guess all I'll repeat is that we stayed in WillowWind RV park, right in Hurricane.  That was a pretty convenient location for what we did, and it was a very nice place, with lots of trees and grass (which must have been imported, since Utah doesn't have either!).  I could easily see us staying there again.


Overall it was a really good trip!  Lesley is already researching the touristy things we can do the next time we're there!