The Needles is still full of challenges and is not a place for inexperienced drivers or vehicles without the right capabilities. It’s filled with steep grades, large obstacles, off-camber drops, and paint-scraping narrow sections. Elephant Hill (the way both in and out of The Needles) has a switchback so tight it can only be navigated in reverse. If you get stuck here, a tow truck will cost more than $2,000. Group sizes are strictly limited to keep noise and dust down, to minimize wildlife disruptions, and to let the sights and sounds of nature prevail.

There are some amazing campsites in The Needles and they all require a permit. Even single day-use requires a permit. The permits are highly sought after and become unavailable several months in advance. Some popular days and popular spots get reserved within minutes of being released.

Brett, Jess, and Mark each reserved a campsite in the Devil’s Kitchen campground in The Needles over Memorial Day weekend. There are only 4 total campsites in Devil’s Kitchen, so between the three of them they had reserved almost the entire campground. It’s a really special place with spectacular views. Each reservation allows for up to 10 people and 3 cars but the rangers reminded us of the group size limitations in the park. They don’t want to see multiple groups moving together as one larger group.

Big Groups Are Bad

I am not a fan of large groups when camping. Despite my love for Canyonlands, when I heard there would be as many as 30 people camping with us, I did my best to get out of it. I love Devil’s Kitchen and the hikes in The Needles, but I really don’t like activities with so many people. Especially when the logical divisions in the groups don’t align with the campsite restrictions. Charmaine had just been backpacking and camping through The Needles, but she really wanted to go back and show me some of the cool places she had just been. We had also invited my brother Joe to camp with us. I tried to persuade him to camp with us somewhere else this weekend, but he was pretty excited about The Needles. So once it was clear I wouldn’t be able to get out of it, I tried to make the most of it.

To enter The Needles, we drove south from Moab for about 40 miles on highway 191 and then west for another 35 miles on highway 211. We passed several nice looking campgrounds just off of highway 211. We stopped briefly at Newspaper Rock and then continued down towards The Needles. As we were just about to enter The Needles, there’s a small outpost where we stopped to top off our gas (at $10/gallon) and buy a few last-minute items before heading into the park. I didn’t use more than about 1/3 of my gas in the park, so I would like to avoid stopping at the outpost on future trips, but I doubt that will happen. We always seem to be part of a group where someone is concerned about gas, so I’m sure we’ll just keep paying the premium for a little peace of mind.

Elephant Hill and The Squeeze

Not long after entering the park it was time to air down and climb our first obstacle – Elephant Hill. For some reason I always expect it to be more difficult than it is. I pretty much just drove straight up and over it this time. Of course, I was following good lines selected by the experienced drivers in front of me, and I had plenty of volunteer spotters especially going down the steep side, but our 4Runner made quick work of the hill. We stopped at the top for some lunch before dropping down through The Squeeze and on to our campsites in Devil’s Kitchen.

The Squeeze is a narrow one-way section of road between Elephant Hill and Devil’s Kitchen. It’s the type of place where you have to pull in all your mirrors or you’ll scrape. It’s a place where you sometimes have to inch closer to the side you’re already close to in order to avoid tilting your vehicle into the wall when your tire goes up over a rock. You have to drive slow and you have to trust your spotter. I really enjoyed going through The Squeeze in years past, but it was Charmaine’s turn to drive this year. She drove through like a boss, never going too fast, doing all the things the spotter suggested, and making it look so easy. Joe and Carrie also made it through without incident.

Devil’s Kitchen Campground

The Devil’s Kitchen Campground is literally right around the corner from The Squeeze, so we pulled in and setup camp as soon as everyone was through. As I expected, there was some confusion about who was camping and parking in which spot. Joe got the short end of the stick and had to park his car in a different spot than where we were camping. That’s just the way it goes with these larger groups. But I think he managed to have a good time anyway. Everybody seemed to interact well and get along, which made it a good experience.

Devil’s Lane, SOB Hill, and The Joint

The next day we went down Devil’s Lane to the petroglyphs and then over SOB Hill and up to The Joint. Somewhere along the very tame road to The Joint I managed to slice through the sidewall of one of my tires. That made for an interesting experience trying to get my Hi-Lift Jack to work correctly. We never really did, but Brett eventually came back and manually manipulated the sliding parts and pieces enough that we could get the tire changed. My spare tire isn’t the same size or width as my regular tires, so that meant I was probably done doing the crazy stuff I sometimes find myself doing.

Hiking to Druid Arch

The Joint trail was great and from there we did the hike to Druid Arch and back. I wasn’t sure if it was just going to be us and Joe or if more people would join us. As it turned out, everyone came along. Well, everyone except Peter, Justin, and Walt.

The Confluence

The final day we went out to The Confluence, which turned out to be a much trickier trail than I remember. Since my car was sort of on the sidelines, Joe decided he would drive and we would ride with him. It was a fun time, but getting Joe’s mostly-stock 4Runner over some of the obstacles was a challenge that wouldn’t have succeeded if it were not for a team effort. Coming back was actually a bit worse and we were forced to winch him over a big obstacle where he had gotten high centered. Hopefully his rig survived the abuse.

The next day we went home. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t time for some shenanigans.

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The Paw Hole Problem

Our first attempt to reach White Pocket went sideways. The dirt roads inside the national monument are basically just deep rutted sand. Our 4Runner is very capable. We have after-market suspension, wider rims and larger tires. We let out some of the air in our tires to give us a softer ride and a bit more traction in the sand. Our friends have a similarly capable Land Cruiser. The sandy roads were not an issue for either of us. So why did we have to turn back before reaching White Pocket on our first go? Because we are stupid and didn’t read the map before driving to Paw Hole. We originally thought we would just drive up past Paw Hole and continue on to White Pocket. It is definitely the shortest route. Unfortunately, when we got to the Paw Hole trailhead, we realized the road we wanted to take heading East to White Pocket is designated one-way going West. There were no other cars around and we considered just doing it. But we figured it might have some narrow sections that made it difficult-at-best to pass an oncoming vehicle, and we didn’t want to cause trouble, so we ultimately decided to head back out and take the long way around. Later we decided it may just be too steep to be passible in the deep sand.

There was a motor home and a Sprinter van on the edges of the White Pocket parking lot. They were camping there and probably taking some amazing sunrise and sunset pictures. We also saw a well-equipped Jeep. The owners of the Jeep showed up as we were putting on sunblock. They gave us a quick rundown of what they thought was the best and then they headed home. They described the trail out to the rocks as being formidable, but it was a pretty easy walk. I wouldn’t even call it a hike.

The clouds were rolling in, which looked really great and provided some interesting sun and shadow spots across the rocks. But they also brought rain, which was a problem. We didn’t mind getting wet or walking around the rocks in the rain, but we had to drive back out on those roads of deep sand. Rain and deep sand are not the recipe we needed, so we didn’t stay very long once the rain hit.

Despite our worries, the drive out was a piece of cake. The rain hadn’t made it very muddy. In fact, it may have been just enough to help hold some of the sand together. We zoomed along the back country roads and headed back home. What a great weekend. We will be back.

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When we decided to move to Southern Utah, I thought we would probably visit Zion National Park all the time. It’s been 18 months and we haven’t been even once. We actually visited Zion more often when we lived hundreds of miles away. That may seem pretty pathetic until you realize we are surrounded by magical places that we haven’t ever seen. One of those places is Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.

Vermillion Cliffs National Monument

You may not have heard of VCNM, but you have probably seen photos of “The Wave.” It’s the most famous formation/attraction inside VCNM. It’s so popular there’s a highly competitive lottery system to get a permit to visit it. If you are not lucky enough to be selected during the original lottery (3 months ahead of your potential visit) there is another option. You can apply for one of the daily geo-fenced permits. It’s another lottery, but your odds are much much better because it’s only open to people already within a short distance of the monument. The geo-fenced lottery happens 2 days before the day you want the permit. This was the situation in which we found ourselves on this particular weekend.

We had pay $9 each to enter the “daily lottery”. It’s a bit of a scam, but what else are you going to do? Mark tried for Coyote Buttes North (aka “The Wave”) and Charmaine tried for Coyote Buttes South (aka “The Southern Wave”). We knew the chances were much better in the daily lottery than they were 3 months ago in the regular lottery. Still, we guessed there must be at least 100 people trying to get a permit for The Wave, even on Mother’s Day weekend. We hedged our bets and had Charmaine go for the far less popular Southern Wave. We have no idea how many people tried for either permit, but we failed to get any. So we spent $18 on lottery tickets and got nothing… or did we get something great?

Deep Sand

We decided to explore around the Kanab area while waiting to see if we were going to get the permits or not. We headed up to see a slot canyon that some people call “Kanab Peek-a-Boo”. The other (real?) name is Red Canyon, which is such a creative name. I see why the good people of Kanab decided to copy the name of a more famous slot canyon. We love the “real” Peekaboo Gulch slot canyon in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, so we were a bit skeptical about what we might find here in Kanab. We also needed to be on the lookout for a good spot to camp.

Instead of following the crowd and taking the usual/easy way, we decided to explore the deep sand roads above the canyon. At one point, while descending a very steep sandy hill, we wondered if we would be able to get back up the hill. The answer was probably not, at least not without great effort. Our 4Runner is a lot lighter than Mark’s Land Cruiser, so when we decided to turn around about half way down the hill (just before it got really steep), the 4Runner was able to get back up without too much trouble, but the Land Cruiser was stuck. It took a couple hours of digging and driving on recovery boards, but it finally broke free and made it back to the top of the hill. I probably should have winched it at the same time.

We parked at the top, just off the road, and walked down the deep sandy hill past where we had been stuck and down to the wash at the bottom. It was at that point we realized how silly we had been to have never sent anyone down before spending hours digging. We didn’t need to go back up the sandy hill. There was a very easy non-sandy road that went straight to the slot canyon. We had a good laugh about it as we walked up the wash to the trailhead and watched cars rolling in and out past us as we walked.

Red Canyon / Kanab Peek-a-Boo

As luck would have it, everyone seemed to be leaving the slot canyon as we arrived. We had the place to ourselves. That was a stroke of luck, because we had been passed by several Jeeps and side-by-sides on our walk.

The Kanab Peek-a-Boo slot canyon is pretty nice. I wouldn’t say it’s amazing, but it’s definitely worth doing once. Maybe twice. There was a bolder blocking the canyon at one point, so we didn’t actually make it to the end before turning around. So there’s a decent chance we’ll be back sometime, but I would still pick the “real” Peekaboo Gulch over this one every time… unless that time is when you have to remain in a geo-fenced area waiting to see if you won the lottery for a permit to The Wave.

The Great Chamber

After leaving the slot canyon, it was time to find a place to camp. We headed north and decided to visit The Great Chamber at Cutler Point before settling down to camp for the night. There were a lot of pull-outs from the road that probably had decent tent spots, so we were not too concerned about finding a spot. Once again, we arrived to see the only other car in the area leaving. We had The Great Chamber to ourselves.

The Great Chamber is a yellow sandstone monolith that looks like a big scoop of ice cream was removed from it. Where the ice cream has been removed there’s a chamber. It’s a really cool place and we had plenty of time to really explore it. Inside the chamber is a tall pile of yellow sand. I can’t think of another time or place where I have seen sand this color. It’s very distinct and really does remind me of ice cream.

The chamber is about half way up the monolith and from the top of the sand pile you get a great view of the valley. While looking out across the valley we saw a single orange bluff sticking up not too far from where we drove in. As we drove away from The Great Chamber, I was leading and drove right past the road up to the orange bluff. I thought about driving up to it, but it was close to sunset and I wanted to get back to the part of the road where we had seen the pull-off areas for camping. Luckily Mark started honking until we turned around and followed him up to the bluff. We wound up camping right next to it under some huge pine trees. It was one of those epic camping spots that you never get. But we got it this time. And there was plenty of time to explore the bluff and watch the sunset. We actually had LTE there, which was a shock. And, of course, we were completely alone.

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