Just back from a five week national parks/friends/relatives road trip with some overlanding type travel thrown in.  Southern Utah was the priority, but we also wandered around Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado.  

First stop was in the Owyhees where we met up with some friends we met on our last trip down there.  We used the Twin Springs Campground as a base camp and wandered way the heck back into hills to sort of a secret Shangri-La type valley with caves that had been inhabited by Native Americans for centuries. Possibly the coolest place in the Owyhees, but maybe too many rattlers to be Shangri-La.

 On to Utah. Before the trip I realized that I'm a frustrated archeologist, so we stopped at an excellent paleontology and archeology museum in Price, highly recommend, before heading out to Nine Mile Canyon to see North America's best concentration of petroglyphs.

 From there we zoomed off to Canyonlands and the White Rim Trail. In the spring and the fall you need to make camping reservations a year in advance. In the middle of June I was able to walk right up to the reservations desk in Islands in the Sky Visitor center and make a reservation for the most popular campsite, White Crack, for the next day. If you can handle the heat, you can beat the crowds. I was, however, worried about the Jeep overheating pulling the trailer up long rough grades in almost 100 degree heat. We left the trailer in a campground and hit the trail with only a $20 Walmart tent.

 I was not disappointed with the scenery over the 100 miles of this 4WD trail, it was truly amazing from beginning to end.  

 98% of the trail could probably be done with a high clearance 2WD truck.  Low range was nice for the descent down the Schaeffer Trail. Murphy's Hogback was a pretty steep climb with a rocky ledge at the top.  Hardscrabble Hill was a really steep and loose climb on switchback shelf road with a scary ledge right before another  switchback.  We didn't take any pictures of the really scary parts because we were scared

 Next stop was the Needles District of Canyonlands. The main campground there was great, so we parked the trailer there for three days and did some hikes and the Horse Canyon 4WD trip. The trail up Horse Canyon follows a deep sand wash up to some arches and the small Tower Ruins, one of my favorites ruins of the trip. A permit is required, and a ranger gives you all of the dire warnings about deep sand and so forth before they let you go in. They mentioned a water crossing as being the hardest part, but looking at all the sand around not seeing much water for days I didn't think much of it. They weren't kidding. With a little bit of a bow wave the water came over the hood, and with the locker engaged it still felt like we might not make it.  We didn't take any pictures of the water crossing because the first time it just looked like a big puddle that wasn't too deep.  The second time we were too scared

 Next stop was Comb Ridge near Bluff.  Before we left I found an obscure hiking book that listed several hikes to Anasazi ruins on BLM land.  As you can imagine, fewer crowds and better access to ruins on BLM land compared to NP land.  It was a goal of mine to go to a place where I could touch, but not move or remove of course, 1000 year old pot shards and something like a corn cob.  At Comb Ridge we found several such places and had them all to ourselves, although the mosquitoes and heat chased us off after a short time.  

We camped at Valley of the Gods, the poor man's or overlander friendly version of Monument Valley.  Thanks for the tip Brian!  Brian took better pictures there.  It was dang hot there, however.  At this point the heat became the motivating factor to move on.   

 We went to Santa Fe for some cultural time and then Mesa Verde and a bunch of other national parks.  We hoped to do the Medano Pass 4WD trip at Great Sand Dunes National Monument but the trail was closed due to fire.  This was the coolest expedition vehicle we saw.  The Australian owner was trotting off to the showers at Mesa Verde just as we were hitting the road, so I didn't get a chance to chat. 

 Heading north again, we visited friends and family in northern Colorado. The heat had followed us, with temps near a 100, so we didn't do a lot of mountain exploring. On the way back through Utah we did manage to camp in an Aspen grove, which was another goal of mine for the trip. We had hoped to explore the area around Great Basin National Park in Nevada, but is too dang hot so kept moving on and camped at Ruby Lake again. Found some really cool Jeep trails in the Ruby Mountains that I would like to explore some day. We spent the last night on Alvord Playa, a great way to end the trip.

 The M101 trailer worked great on this trip for the most part.  It was really nice to bring more stuff and to just leave the tent and everything set up at camp and then do unfettered day trips.  I removed two leafs from the massive leaf pack before we left and put new shocks on, which made for a surprisingly supple suspension that soaked up washboard and potholes better than the Jeep. I really had to flog the poor Jeep to get it to pull the trailer up hills and mountains, however.  I often fantasized about driving a sports car on the same roads. For regional trips I think I'll keep using the trailer, but for the next real big trip I might consider an Oztent or something of the sort.  I guess there is no perfect camping solution.

Awesome, Thank you for sharing!

Yeah, I'm tempted to move to the west side of Colorado. Rockies on one side, Moab and surrounds on the other, and you don't have to be Mormon. 

 Nate et al,

If you want great views, mountains, desert, and rain like you are used to up there...Colorado is your bet.

Wow, Nate, absolutely...wow.

Some of those pictures are just stunning.  How about a slideshow at my house this fall after the time change?

x2 - or a little further south so some of the Seattle area guys can make the drive up too.