It got a bit scary at times, but we had a great 4 day adventure exploring remote snowy trails west of Capitol Reef National Park and the strange terrain west of Hanksville, Utah in search of the Mars Desert Research Station. Katya cooks an amazing Thanksgiving dinner on two wood fires, her Solo Stove and a campground fire ring. Fantastic scenery of course and big views!
Where To Explore and What An AWD Van Can Do
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Overlanding Wood Fire Thanksgiving Dinner Capitol Reef National Park
We did a four and a half day journey around Capitol Reef National Park in Utah for Thanksgiving. While this included a nice campground there with heated bathrooms we also did some interesting off-roading and camped in the San Rafael Swell, a favorite rock structure west of Hanksville. A storm a few days before turned the terrain into stick clay muck so we stayed in campgrounds. Also, Katya needed a big table and a second fire ring for her creation. We aren’t setup for doing that at remote sites.
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Overlanding the San Juan Mountains Colorado – Corkscrew, Hurricane, California Passes
We’ve long heard that vans can’t do this route. But hey! It was rather easy, at least for us. BIG scenery, miles of fall colors, mines, and a snow scare late in the off-roading season. This was part of a 10 day overlanding trip in Utah and Colorado. Join us for a wonderful and exciting adventure!
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Overlanding Rim Rocker to Moab via Uncompahgre Plateau – Anyone Can Do Most Of It.
The Rim Rocker route is a series of roads and trails from Montrose, CO to Moab, UT, although it can be driven in either direction. However, in this video the Preston’s start near to Grand Junction and drive south over the Uncompahgre Plateau to the intersection of the Montrose Nucla Road and the Rim Rocker trail to Moab.
The trip from where they turned off SR 141 to Divide Road to where they intersected with US 191 south of Moab is about 165 miles, a nice 4 day trip. Most of the trip except Coyote Spring Road can be driven by any high clearance vehicle. Elevations and scenery ranged from cool forests at 9,000 feet to the hot high desert at 4,000 feet.
The only really gnarly trail was near the end and can be avoided by those who don’t want to deal with brush and big rocks.
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Overlanding Gourmet – Katya’s Wood Fired Solo Stove Meals (Early 2024)
Learn 5 meals from Katya Preston’s gourmet Solo Stove cooking on overlanding trips in the spring of 2024 to July 4th 2024. She is inspired by celebrity wood fire cooking chef Francis Mallmann. The scenes for this video are in disbursed camping sites in Colorado and Utah. Some remote disbursed sites have some level of development by the Forest Service or BLM. While Katya rejects fire rings, large tables and toilets are nice to have available.
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Katya Explains Overland Gourmet Cooking: Rack of Lamb on Solo Stove
Katya will show you how to BBQ herbs and turn them into salsa for her rack of lamb dinner, along with BBQ’ing a rack of lamb on a Solo Stove. Her goal was to have both low and high heat at the same time on one Solo Stove, a celebrity chef Francis Mallmann trick. Did she achieve it? Watch and find out!
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Defeated But WOW What A Trip! Delores Triangle Remote Overlanding! Utah / Colorado Border.
A beautiful remote area to explore but there are roads on the maps that seem abandoned when we try to use them. Katya cooked a gourmet wood fired dinner in a fantastic campsite by a creek and under cottonwood trees. Unfortunately the Sheep Creek road was badly washed out ahead of us, which we suspected when we saw how little this trail was used, but the BLM has recently repaired it.
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Epic Overlanding Trail between CO & UT. Famous Kokopelli Trail Leg 3 of 3
While the challenges on this leg of the journey were few, the diverse scenery from the Onion Creek canyon up into the lush green of the La Sal Mountains then the plunge down to the finish in Moab, Utah is fantastic! Along the way we hit 125F in Fisher Valley, dinosaur footprints, hordes of wildflowers, and huge views everywhere. We celebrated the end of this journey at Moab Brewery, a tradition for us for over 20 years.
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Overlanding Cottonwood Canyon Utah – Earthquake fault, arches, slot canyons, camping and remote.
This is an overlanding crowd favorite. It is geologically fascinating and scenic while including arches, slot canyons, and great disbursed camping. However, sometimes we get lucky and get a campsite in Kodachrome Basin State Park with its towering “pipes” and tasty ice cream served at the entrance station. Explore with us!
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Epic Overlanding Trail between CO & UT. Famous Kokopelli Trail Leg 2 of 3
Our first use of traction boards to get out of a mess in a narrow deep wash. The hard part of this route was still ahead. We knew the Kokopelli Trail was tough for mountain bikers and even Jeepers and we were right, taking an AWD Transit van on this trail would be tough on us.