Utah deserts are hot in the summer so Jim seeks cooler high country. His drone flys 3 amazing slot canyons! Unfortunately the France Canyon wildfire west of Bryce Canyon National Park closed forest roads and limited the available routes but Jim discovered a route high enough to avoid most of the heat. Explore from Zion National Park east to Boulder Mountain including Devil’s Backbone and Death Hallow!
Join us was we explore the very remote Smokey Mountain Road in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It is land of deep high desert canyons, vast rugged terrain, few other vehicles, smoldering coal seams, and the hugely scenic Kelly Grade switchbacks.
White Pocket is an amazing treat! It is very remote and a bit difficult to get to but it is hard to stop looking at sandstone that is both beautiful and has swirls like it was once plastic. We’ll take you on this adventure with our drone and also explore the less used northern road between White Pocket and House Rock Road.
Gold Butte is primitive. No ranger station, no facilities except a couple of trail head toilets. It has a small Mojave Desert oasis that you can camp at, some fantastic rock formations, and an interesting sink hole that you can only see into with a drone. It is just off I-15 north of Las Vegas and once you leave the main trailhead area almost no one is out there. Explore it with us!
Washouts and almost vertical climbs and descents in remote areas of Valley of Fire State Park push our van to the limits! In the end it was a full back tracking retreat but what an adventure!
For our March 2025 Southwest Traverse we were looking for lessor known routes and avoiding most of Mojave Road and such. Bitter Springs Scenic Byway south of Valley of Fire State Park is scenic, remote, and interesting. The colorful rock formations on the north end were incredible! We saw no other vehicles so certainly off the beaten path.
As we traversed the Southwest deserts in March 2025 daytime temperatures climbed into the upper 90’s, too hot to camp. So after leaving the Mojave Preserve we drove to McLaughlin, NV on the Colorado River to check it out and get a hotel room looking down into the clear Colorado River. We passed a sign to Christmas Tree Pass and I checked it out on off-roading map apps. Easy and scenic. Perfect as we head north to Bitter Springs Road the next day. It is only 17 miles but much of it is very scenic rocky mountains. Explore it with us in this video.
This isn’t a big scenery drive. Visual treats are far apart. However, there is something special about the vast emptiness. Our previous videos on this trip include Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Kofa Wildlife Refuge, and the “interesting” Desert Bar. After this we have Christmas Tree Pass, Bitter Springs, the west side of Valley of Fire State Park, and we end the trip with Gold Butte National Monument. Our last night was a hotel in St George, dinner at George’s Corner downtown, our favorite restaurant there, and we were exhausted.
It wasn’t far off our route and seemed interesting and was. Hugely popular with vehicle licenses from many states and Canada in the parking area. It is a remodeled old mining camp made into a huge bar and kitchen complex with take-out only. The old bar itself is just for serving now, no seating indoors. I wish we flew the drone to show the big picture of all these buildings. The whole site has many different buildings hacked into one business
Join us as we explore this beautiful national treasure over several days. Sonoran Desert cactus everywhere and huge views of tilted volcanic mountains. As for wildlife, you could get lucky and see pronghorns or desert big horn sheep. We saw a few birds and a lizard.
