Monday, March 19, 2018

Valley Of The Gods


(Photo from Google)

The Valley of the Gods in southeastern Utah, North of Mexican Hat, UT and south of Bluff, UT, and is one of my favorite places to camp and tour in this area.

This BLM primative dirt road was in good shape this year and I camped one night on east end and another day I drove the length of the road.



Being north of Monument Valley to the south on Navajo Nation Land, you are rewarded by similar structures along the road.



My Prius has made this trip and would have been able to do it this year as well, but with the low clearance Prius, much more care must be taken for random large rocks in road and bottoming out in dips.

Look at the recently graded road below.



Coming in from the east you cross a wash.  The wash water flow this time was minimal.  In fact it was 2” deep when I crossed with my Prius 2 years ago.  Don’t cross with a car if you haven walked the wash to prove it is flowing less than 4”.

Of course, with my truck/camper I have little worry or thought on height issues, but I do have to look out for one thing that can give me a bad day.



That one thing is going too fast over bumps.  It Telly doesn’t have to be too fast or bumps bigger than speed bumps. I have airbags to absorb the majority of the bounce shock, but it doesn’t absorb it all.

Somewhere since Page, AZ I must have gone over a bump that caused me problems.  I was going to climb a big steep switchback grade but stopped as I had just checked my FWC camper’s 4 turnbuckles and found one mounting bolt broken.

I opted to not take the climb with only 3 tiedown’s working and went to find parts for a repair.  I will document what broke and the repair in a separate post.  



Above is only a sample of the Valley of the Gods Road views and this is what you see when you go to bed and wake in the morning.

You can see why it is a great place to visit.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

2 comments:

  1. Good to know the road has been worked on. last year when I went to camp there, it was so muddy I decided to just park by the sign at the entrance (north end) for the night. Even 4WD can get stuck, and how unpleasant that stuff is.

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    Replies
    1. R,

      So true on 4x4 and still have problems. I’ve been lucky at the Valley of the Gods the times I visited.

      I’ve been out on a number of roads here in southeastern UT since we have had rain and snow. I had some tough places and others where I turned around.

      Brent

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