txj2go
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Here is a trail report for White Rim trail and Flint trail. My cousin and I took my Jeep there mid-October 2021. The plan was to camp 5 nights, with some bad weather thrown in we actually camped 4 nights. We drove something like 300 miles offroad.
You have to reserve campsites about 4 months in advance and campsites for the White Rim trail are very difficult to get, like trying to get the most popular concert tickets there are. Campsites in the Maze might not be quite so hard to get. I managed to get one night at Labyrinth meaning we would have to do the remainder of the trail in one day. This is doable but doesn't give you any time to get out and explore. If possible it is better to stay one night closer to the middle of the trail, or get 2 nights, one near each end of the trail. The trail itself is not difficult but there are a couple of short but pretty steep climbs. There are smooth sections and some rough sections, but nothing that really is difficult for a Jeep. There are a lot of spots to stop and look at side canyons. All of the developed campsites have pit toilets so you don't have to go very far between rest stops. We drove the trail counterclockwise because of our logistics. I've been down the Shafer Trail numerous times so we skipped that, waiting to experience the Mineral Bottom switchbacks. We went out the Potash road because we wanted to see the petroglyphs along the river, otherwise I would recommend skipping this road because it is long and rough without much to see. We did see 3 or 4 groups of mountain bikers on the trail along with their support vehicles, I think the tour companies are the ones that buy up the campsites. There were very few spots where we had a tiny bit of cell service.
The Maze seemed to be less busy. We saw a couple of other vehicles plus 2 groups of mountain bikers. We bought gas in Hanksville, then 20 miles north on paved road and 46 miles southeast on dirt road to get to Hans Flat ranger station. To get your permit the rangers go over each of the rules with you including needing to pack out all of your trash and human waste. We took a side trip about 20 miles round trip to Panorama Point for the first night. This was pretty remote, several other campsites in the area were each at least 5 miles away. The views were also very good and we had a small amount of cell service. The next day we drove out of there and on towards the Dollhouse about 45 miles away. This 45 miles took us about 6 hours, over half of it was technical, some very technical. We went down the Flint Trail switchbacks and the rangers warned us that it was very rough due ot erosion the past few years. Turned out they were right and I really didn't want to have to climb back up it. My JLU Sport has Rubicon takeoff tires and suspension. On the way down the switchbacks and out to Doll House I scraped bottom a dozen times. I've seen videos of lesser vehicles doing this trail and having difficulty. There were a few obstacles where people were stacking rocks and using careful spotting to get their barely-SUVs through. One of the major obstacles that gets filmed a lot- we just drove right up it without getting out of the car. You have to be on your toes- you'll drive up on an area of slickrock with almost no clue as to which direction the road goes from there, sometimes you can spot tracks in the distance, sometimes you have to take a guess and hope it's right. All of the obstacles that we scraped on going down, we just drove up without incident the next day. I didn't want to go back up the Flint Trail so we went out the south route to Hite. The Flint Trail is narrow with very few spots to pass and when you start it you can't tell if there are any vehicles coming down. Fortunately there is very little traffic and we didn't meet anyone when we went down. I didn't want to push our luck by doing it again.
I was really concerned about fuel before the trip. I can go around 350 miles on the highway but offroad the mpg is much less. From Hanksville to Doll House and back is about 210 miles, and we had an extra 20 mile side trip added in. On real technical pieces of trail I can drop to below 10 mpg. So I carried an extra 5 gallon can with me that I bought at Harbor Freight. They get good reviews but the lid on mine leaked and we had to deal with gas fumes for a couple of days. As it turns out we did not need the extra gas and could have made it on just the tank in the Jeep. I thought it was better to be safe than sorry. Since we had enough fuel I was willing to take the risk that the station at Hite was not open, the rangers had told us that it was not open. Turns out the station was open after all so we bought gas there and went on towards Blanding.
I had considered the trip to Doll House to be sort of a bucket list trip. I don't know why, maybe because of the scenery, the remoteness and the road difficulty. Now it's off my list. In March my daughter and I did the Elephant Hill trail in the Needles district. Looking on the map our campsite in March was less than 10 miles from our campsite at the Doll House, as the crow flies. But it would be maybe 200 miles by road to get from one to the other.
The night after we left White Rim we were dispersed camping just west of Arches and discovered that there are several networks of ATV trails out there. On my Gaia mpas the ATV trails looked the same as roads. We tried driving down one and ended up partway down a steep slope about to go down an even steeper slope that became pretty narrow. We managed to tun around and were able to climb back up. So watch what dashed lines you follow on Gaia. That night it also rained and it was cold and rainy the next day. We drove from Moab out Kane Creek road a bit. The last time I was out there when you went past Hunter Canyon the road became a little more rugged, not suitable for my sedan. Since then that road has been widened and graded all the way to the cutoff to Hurrah Pass, and also they have built a lot of campgrounds out there. Even though the road was wide and graded, it was rougher than it should be for a graded road. I’m guessing there would be camping available in this area even during the busy season.
Driving along the Green River:
Parked at Labyrinth Campground near the Green River
Above Potato Bottom:
The steepest climb- up Murphy's Hogback. It is much steeper than it looks in the photo:
You have to reserve campsites about 4 months in advance and campsites for the White Rim trail are very difficult to get, like trying to get the most popular concert tickets there are. Campsites in the Maze might not be quite so hard to get. I managed to get one night at Labyrinth meaning we would have to do the remainder of the trail in one day. This is doable but doesn't give you any time to get out and explore. If possible it is better to stay one night closer to the middle of the trail, or get 2 nights, one near each end of the trail. The trail itself is not difficult but there are a couple of short but pretty steep climbs. There are smooth sections and some rough sections, but nothing that really is difficult for a Jeep. There are a lot of spots to stop and look at side canyons. All of the developed campsites have pit toilets so you don't have to go very far between rest stops. We drove the trail counterclockwise because of our logistics. I've been down the Shafer Trail numerous times so we skipped that, waiting to experience the Mineral Bottom switchbacks. We went out the Potash road because we wanted to see the petroglyphs along the river, otherwise I would recommend skipping this road because it is long and rough without much to see. We did see 3 or 4 groups of mountain bikers on the trail along with their support vehicles, I think the tour companies are the ones that buy up the campsites. There were very few spots where we had a tiny bit of cell service.
The Maze seemed to be less busy. We saw a couple of other vehicles plus 2 groups of mountain bikers. We bought gas in Hanksville, then 20 miles north on paved road and 46 miles southeast on dirt road to get to Hans Flat ranger station. To get your permit the rangers go over each of the rules with you including needing to pack out all of your trash and human waste. We took a side trip about 20 miles round trip to Panorama Point for the first night. This was pretty remote, several other campsites in the area were each at least 5 miles away. The views were also very good and we had a small amount of cell service. The next day we drove out of there and on towards the Dollhouse about 45 miles away. This 45 miles took us about 6 hours, over half of it was technical, some very technical. We went down the Flint Trail switchbacks and the rangers warned us that it was very rough due ot erosion the past few years. Turned out they were right and I really didn't want to have to climb back up it. My JLU Sport has Rubicon takeoff tires and suspension. On the way down the switchbacks and out to Doll House I scraped bottom a dozen times. I've seen videos of lesser vehicles doing this trail and having difficulty. There were a few obstacles where people were stacking rocks and using careful spotting to get their barely-SUVs through. One of the major obstacles that gets filmed a lot- we just drove right up it without getting out of the car. You have to be on your toes- you'll drive up on an area of slickrock with almost no clue as to which direction the road goes from there, sometimes you can spot tracks in the distance, sometimes you have to take a guess and hope it's right. All of the obstacles that we scraped on going down, we just drove up without incident the next day. I didn't want to go back up the Flint Trail so we went out the south route to Hite. The Flint Trail is narrow with very few spots to pass and when you start it you can't tell if there are any vehicles coming down. Fortunately there is very little traffic and we didn't meet anyone when we went down. I didn't want to push our luck by doing it again.
I was really concerned about fuel before the trip. I can go around 350 miles on the highway but offroad the mpg is much less. From Hanksville to Doll House and back is about 210 miles, and we had an extra 20 mile side trip added in. On real technical pieces of trail I can drop to below 10 mpg. So I carried an extra 5 gallon can with me that I bought at Harbor Freight. They get good reviews but the lid on mine leaked and we had to deal with gas fumes for a couple of days. As it turns out we did not need the extra gas and could have made it on just the tank in the Jeep. I thought it was better to be safe than sorry. Since we had enough fuel I was willing to take the risk that the station at Hite was not open, the rangers had told us that it was not open. Turns out the station was open after all so we bought gas there and went on towards Blanding.
I had considered the trip to Doll House to be sort of a bucket list trip. I don't know why, maybe because of the scenery, the remoteness and the road difficulty. Now it's off my list. In March my daughter and I did the Elephant Hill trail in the Needles district. Looking on the map our campsite in March was less than 10 miles from our campsite at the Doll House, as the crow flies. But it would be maybe 200 miles by road to get from one to the other.
The night after we left White Rim we were dispersed camping just west of Arches and discovered that there are several networks of ATV trails out there. On my Gaia mpas the ATV trails looked the same as roads. We tried driving down one and ended up partway down a steep slope about to go down an even steeper slope that became pretty narrow. We managed to tun around and were able to climb back up. So watch what dashed lines you follow on Gaia. That night it also rained and it was cold and rainy the next day. We drove from Moab out Kane Creek road a bit. The last time I was out there when you went past Hunter Canyon the road became a little more rugged, not suitable for my sedan. Since then that road has been widened and graded all the way to the cutoff to Hurrah Pass, and also they have built a lot of campgrounds out there. Even though the road was wide and graded, it was rougher than it should be for a graded road. I’m guessing there would be camping available in this area even during the busy season.
Driving along the Green River:
Parked at Labyrinth Campground near the Green River
Above Potato Bottom:
The steepest climb- up Murphy's Hogback. It is much steeper than it looks in the photo:
Sponsored
