While in the US visiting the SEMA Trade show last year NZ4WD columnist Peter Vahry figured it would be rude not to check out Moab’s famous rock-based trails.

There are a great number of places in North America to go four-wheeling, but few have reached the somewhat iconic standing that the area around the town of Moab in Utah has achieved. 

One guidebook Moab, UT, Backroads & 4-Wheel-Drive Trails by Charles A Wells, lists 80 different trails although that’s spread over more than 155 square kilometres (60 square miles). Some however are only just outside the town and include trails such as Fins & Things, Willow Springs Road, Tower Arch, Seven Mile Rim and Top of the World, all of which are achievable in just a few days.

While in the US, I was travelling with a fellow Auckland 4WD Club member, Andre Jorna, and we drove from Las Vegas NV to Moab UT via the Grand Canyon north rim with an overnight stop in the town of Kanab. 

We arrived in Moab on a Saturday afternoon and after finding our AirBnB accommodation first, our next task was to sort a rental Jeep for a few days. We’d done a bit of research and it came down to checking with two different rental companies. 

We felt that Barlow Jeep Rentals offered the best deal and standard of Jeeps, but it took a while to sign everything off, including a separate insurance cover. We thought that insurance was going to be expensive, but it was only about US$10 per day for a four-door JL Rubicon with a 50mm lift.

Straight into it!

A reason for wanting to quickly get a vehicle organised, was that I was set to meet up with a group of 4WD club members on Sunday morning to explore the Seven Mile Rim trail.  They were coming from the town of Grand Junction in Colorado, about 160 km away. And, as I’m sure you can imagine, it was quite a gathering on the Sunday morning with some 15 assorted Jeeps including our bright green Rubicon.  

The trail starts right alongside the 191 highway and climbs onto a ‘mesa’ (defined as an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill. Ed) of bare rock with the occasional stunted trees, usually pinyon-juniper and a few cacti.

It was certainly useful to have such an escort on our first day out as we learned a bit about the capabilities of our Jeep on the rocks. The guidebook rates this trail as difficult and suggests that “one tippy spot along the south wall of Merrimac Butte is scarier than it appears,” which I can certainly vouch for as we crabbed across a rock face! 

We also learned that our Jeep had a fault that would affect the downhill crawling ability by suddenly increasing the engine revs… rather disconcerting. Later that day we dropped the Jeep back to Barlow’s and they arranged a swap for the following morning with another Rubicon, but with more modifications including more lift.

Fins & Things

One of the Colorado club members was staying in Moab and offered to guide us again, so we headed for an even closer trail to Moab, one called Fins & Things. It starts almost alongside that fabled, but now closed ‘Lion’s Back’ rock and the rocks are a gritty sandstone with even more grip that those on Seven Mile Rim. 

Again, the rating is ‘difficult with very steep slickrock climbs and descents and a few big ledges to get hung up on.’ Fortunately Rubicon #2 had no trouble this time on the downhills, which was a relief as some were as described ‘very steep’! Amazing terrain and quite different from the previous day with seemingly endless humps and hollows to navigate. 

Another thing was the solitude; there were no others to be seen or heard on that trail, probably because we were in the tail end of the season and winter was pending. For us though, the weather played it’s part by remaining fine with clear skies and reasonable daytime temperatures of around 16˚C. The early mornings were a little crisp at -4˚C although with no moisture to freeze, there was no evidence of frost!

Arches National Park

Fins & Things was just a morning excursion so for the afternoon we gave our guide a break and headed out to Willow Springs Road which runs into the back of Arches National Park.  It’s a ‘dirt’ road that wanders across the countryside, passing by a section of rock with dinosaur footprints and eventually a ‘T’ junction where a sign indicates the way to Tower Arch. That sign does not say it, but we later found that travel is recommended to exit at that point. 

Again, the area was largely deserted apart from some vehicles parked by mountain bike trails, so we turned left and headed towards Tower Arch. There were warnings of soft sand and rock ledges, but again the Rubicon scarcely noticed them. The weather-sculped rock formations were quite dramatic in the late afternoon sun (well, it was 4.15 pm) and that road then connected onto the main sealed road through Arches National Park.  

We hung around to watch the sunset shortly after 5.00pm and its glow created dramatic effects on the rock outcrops.  It seems that the best viewing of the main arches in the park is around dawn as many appear to be more east facing.

Top of the World to ‘ya!

Our final day of four-wheeling saw us with two guides again and their suggestion was to visit the ‘Top of the World’ trail on Waring Mesa.  This trail is not on the list of Barlow’s recommended trails and we had a wee chat with them about being allowed to take their Jeep there. 

Because we had a couple of other experienced four-wheelers with us, they didn’t say no but explained that the problem was that the rock ledges on that route have been dug out and undercut by the ‘side x sides’ as they attempt to climb.  

There was certainly clear evidence of that problem as we negotiated many ledges, but with the Rubicon’s front and rear lockers engaged the Jeep just hauled itself up and over with the minimum of fuss. 

This was the only trail that had other users on, a pair of Jeeps that we passed just below the most technical section near the top and three young motorcyclists who were heading down, but suddenly turned around to join us at the top. The guys on the trail bikes were Canadian and wanted us to take their photo parked on the edge of the Top of the World.  

The other Jeep drivers arrived soon after and turned out to be two brothers from Texas, also wanting their photo taken parked on the edge of the cliff edge.  The view is stunning and more than 360 degrees, as it has that other dimension too… a huge drop of nearly a kilometre! 

That was one place that we decided against getting a photo of the Barlow Jeep perched out in space, figuring that the company might not have appreciated that sort of publicity.  After descending that particular mesa, we made a short side diversion to the bank of the nearby Dolores River which can be forded at certain times of the year, so with the Jeeps a bit dusty it was into the water to check the depth. Not a problem on that occasion with the water running slowly and about 900mm deep. 

Lucky us! 

We’d certainly been fortunate to have the company of those friends from Grand Junction to guide us on those technical trails, not to mention having an understanding Jeep rental company. It didn’t hurt to also have the opportunity to meet and chat with the company owner, Nena Barlow, who was in Moab from her home in Sedona, Arizona to meet with Jeep executives about plans for getting the Jeep Gladiators into the rental fleet.

An interesting place Moab, a town which sits in a valley beneath an overshadowing bluff and alongside the Colorado River. It seems that its early existence was due to uranium mining during the 1950s which generated many of the routes used today for recreation and the proximity of both Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. 

There is evidence of the effect of motorised recreation and various associated events such as the Easter Jeep Safari, everywhere, with a number of new hotels, plus –. obviously, the number of tour and rental companies that line the main street and the variety of restaurants, bars etc.

Maybe November is a little late in the year to take full advantage of all the tourism options, as we noted that many places were closed for the winter, even some well-established looking museums, but it worked for us and our travel plans and I’m sure it would for other Kiwis keen on getting the sort of slickrock action we can only dream about at home!