Hey guys, figured I’d do some documenting of a trip I recently took out west with my wife, sister, and brother in law. My wife and I had been wanting to visit Zion National Park in Utah for a while. Unfortunately, I was only able to get 11 days off of work so we crammed a lot in! The trip wound up being about 4000 miles in total.
My rig:
07 LBZ Duramax. 3.73’s, EGR delete, intake, down pipe, exhaust, set on the heavy tow tune, Bilstein 5100’s, Airlift bags.
08 Carriage Cameo 32sb2 fifth wheel. About 11k empty, I believe it was 13-13.5k loaded for the trip.
Brother-in-laws rig:
15 F-150 5.0. 3.31’s, Bone stock I believe
15 Jayco 24ft travel trailer. 5k empty, 6.5k for trip.
Slight inconvenience:
The night before we leave, I’m shifting the camper over in the driveway and the brake pedal goes to the floor in the dmax. I hop out and there is brake fluid everywhere. The steel line rusted out between the fuel tank and frame rail. Find a Napa warehouse that has a whole set of SS lines and go grab them before they close. Stay up late and get the line swapped out. Wake up early in the morning to bleed the brakes and then we hit the road.
Trip Schedule:
First night we stop in a Walmart parking lot in Albert Lea, MN. Nasty sideways cold rain all night.
Second night we make it to Badlands National Park in SD. Quickly set up everything in the campground and did some easy hiking. It was a pretty neat park.
Third night we stopped in Rock Springs, WY at a KOA. We were pretty exhausted and just sat around a campfire that evening. I got good vibes driving through WY for whatever reason. I could see myself living there. However, it did get pretty cold that night and we were concerned about my brother-in-laws tanks freezing.
Next day we made it to Zion in Utah. We stayed at Zion River Resort which was a gorgeous campground that was full of high-end rigs. We spent 4 nights here. On our first full day, we headed to the National park and hiked The Narrows. This involved renting neoprene socks, water boots and pants. Then you hike the virgin river through a cut it made in the mountains. The next day we hiked Angels Landing which had an insane view and required you to pull yourself up this sliver of a mountain using chains. The next day we drove about 2hrs to Bryce Canyon and hiked that. Luckily we splurged on quality hiking boots and other gear because they were lifesavers. I could not believe how strenuous some of it was. The days always started off cool in the morning, but got to around 80 in the afternoon.
We got back on the road and stopped at 4 corners which was pretty lame. We got our pictures though.
From there we headed to a campground South Fork, CO. I didn’t realize this at the time, but our route required us to go up wolf creek pass to get there. It seemed to go on FOREVER! I got about halfway up and pulled over because I had lost my brother in law a few miles back. His truck had been struggling through a lot of the trip I think due to the 3.31 gears. At 65mph it was staying in 4th and dropping into 3rd @3600rpm fairly often when dealing with a headwind. He wound up stopping 4-5 times going up that pass because of trans temps creeping up. Once we got to the top we realized it was wolf creek pass and was almost 11,000ft. Then we cruised down the backside and made it to our campground.
Next morning we woke up to temps in the teens and his freshwater tanks were frozen. Luckily everything thawed out nicely by the time we made it to Dodge City, KS where it was 70. We stayed at a KOA there.
From there we headed to the Ozarks and spent 2 nights at a campground. We did some caves and checked out a bar that was themed after the Netflix show before heading home.
Overall, the trip was a blast. We saw a lot of neat stuff in a short period of time. I enjoyed being on the road and having a campfire in a different state almost every night. I would highly recommend checking out Zion. Sorry for the novel. I’m thinking I’ll put pictures in the comments.
My rig:
07 LBZ Duramax. 3.73’s, EGR delete, intake, down pipe, exhaust, set on the heavy tow tune, Bilstein 5100’s, Airlift bags.
08 Carriage Cameo 32sb2 fifth wheel. About 11k empty, I believe it was 13-13.5k loaded for the trip.
Brother-in-laws rig:
15 F-150 5.0. 3.31’s, Bone stock I believe
15 Jayco 24ft travel trailer. 5k empty, 6.5k for trip.
Slight inconvenience:
The night before we leave, I’m shifting the camper over in the driveway and the brake pedal goes to the floor in the dmax. I hop out and there is brake fluid everywhere. The steel line rusted out between the fuel tank and frame rail. Find a Napa warehouse that has a whole set of SS lines and go grab them before they close. Stay up late and get the line swapped out. Wake up early in the morning to bleed the brakes and then we hit the road.
Trip Schedule:
First night we stop in a Walmart parking lot in Albert Lea, MN. Nasty sideways cold rain all night.
Second night we make it to Badlands National Park in SD. Quickly set up everything in the campground and did some easy hiking. It was a pretty neat park.
Third night we stopped in Rock Springs, WY at a KOA. We were pretty exhausted and just sat around a campfire that evening. I got good vibes driving through WY for whatever reason. I could see myself living there. However, it did get pretty cold that night and we were concerned about my brother-in-laws tanks freezing.
Next day we made it to Zion in Utah. We stayed at Zion River Resort which was a gorgeous campground that was full of high-end rigs. We spent 4 nights here. On our first full day, we headed to the National park and hiked The Narrows. This involved renting neoprene socks, water boots and pants. Then you hike the virgin river through a cut it made in the mountains. The next day we hiked Angels Landing which had an insane view and required you to pull yourself up this sliver of a mountain using chains. The next day we drove about 2hrs to Bryce Canyon and hiked that. Luckily we splurged on quality hiking boots and other gear because they were lifesavers. I could not believe how strenuous some of it was. The days always started off cool in the morning, but got to around 80 in the afternoon.
We got back on the road and stopped at 4 corners which was pretty lame. We got our pictures though.
From there we headed to a campground South Fork, CO. I didn’t realize this at the time, but our route required us to go up wolf creek pass to get there. It seemed to go on FOREVER! I got about halfway up and pulled over because I had lost my brother in law a few miles back. His truck had been struggling through a lot of the trip I think due to the 3.31 gears. At 65mph it was staying in 4th and dropping into 3rd @3600rpm fairly often when dealing with a headwind. He wound up stopping 4-5 times going up that pass because of trans temps creeping up. Once we got to the top we realized it was wolf creek pass and was almost 11,000ft. Then we cruised down the backside and made it to our campground.
Next morning we woke up to temps in the teens and his freshwater tanks were frozen. Luckily everything thawed out nicely by the time we made it to Dodge City, KS where it was 70. We stayed at a KOA there.
From there we headed to the Ozarks and spent 2 nights at a campground. We did some caves and checked out a bar that was themed after the Netflix show before heading home.
Overall, the trip was a blast. We saw a lot of neat stuff in a short period of time. I enjoyed being on the road and having a campfire in a different state almost every night. I would highly recommend checking out Zion. Sorry for the novel. I’m thinking I’ll put pictures in the comments.
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