Moab to Kanab, UT

Howdy All,

Does anyone have a dirt route that will take you from Moab to Kanab, UT?

As I search Google Maps I can't find any dirt route that will take me over the Green River heading West.

I'll keep searching, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Thanks.

Here is a mostly dirt route. Take Lockhardt basin west and south out of Moab. Then some pavement down to the Abajo Mountains. Then there are dirt roads down to the west side of Blanding. (I haven't ridden the last part of this.)

From there you can take Elk Mountain road and Wooden Shoe roads to Hite Marina for gas.

Then pavement over to near the Henry Mountains. This gets you across the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers. There are dirt roads that will take you to the bottom of the Burr Trail. Take the Burr trail - mostly paved to Boulder then pavement to Escalante. Spectacular ride.

Then take Smokey Mountain road south to Big Water.

Then pavement , US89, several miles west to House Rock Creek road. Take it south maybe 15 miles to pick up the Great Western Trail. Take this road west to 89A. It is then about 12 miles of pavement then into Kanab.

I have done nearly all of this the past few years so have pretty good feeling that it works.

I have posted GPS tracks for this in GPSXchange.com

Thanks wbbnm. I'll look that up. Any chance you could post the gpx file here?

Thanks again.

There is very little I don't have in that area. Look at Utah Tracks on GPSXchange.com

I collected some tracks and key waypoints from several trips into one file and attached it. Turned out to be pretty easy in BaseCamp.

I got intrigued about getting thru the Abajo Mtns and saw that there is a way thru Canyonlands west and south of Needles Outpost that meets up with Elk Mtn road. I have never ridden it but included a route.

I remember seeing quite a few threads about this road and Beef Basin. There is supposed to be a difficult hill called Elephant Hill that one must go up to get out of Canyonlands. Might be worth some research if you intend to try it.

There is a moderately difficult section in Lockhardt Basin noted by the waypoint Gulch. It is several hundred yards of 8-12" step-up ledges.

A word to the wise. The gas station at Needles Outpost only takes cash and gas costs ~$6 a gallon.

Thanks wbbnm for the tracks. I checked out the route you previously described and it looks good too. I also saw the "beef" road when searching on google maps.

Thanks again. This was the missing link for my trip. Now I have tracks from Moab to San Diego.

You're welcome.

Roughly how are you getting from Kanab to San Diego?

A couple of my tracks thru the Utah area were part of a trip to Death Valley and back in 2010.

We are going to redo much of that trip next month, but are only going as far as western Nevada and then looping back north instead of south.

BTW. Both times we have done Smokey Mountain road between Escalante and Big Water, we have done it kind wrong down south. We took the Smokey Hollow cutoff instead of the real Smokey Mountain road. You get into lots of sand in an arroyo in Smokey Hollow. The other road might be better.

Tat

I rode the TAT a few years ago. And the version we rode didn't go anywhere near Kanab and certainly not San Diego.

We went thru Ritchfield Utah, probably 100-200 miles north of Kanab, and then turned north at the Great Basin in Nevada and went up thru Oregon to the coast.

I'd be very interested to see the tracks/plan to San Diego.

I was thinking Kanosh, Ut. on the West side of Ritchfield. I appologize....

You had me a little confused. I thought (hoped) maybe there was a southern version of the TAT that I had never heard of.

We did take a pretty good route from Kanab to Death Valley a few years ago. We went from Kanab to Mesquite via the Arizona Strip. We wanted to see Toroweep but had to turn back and detour north due to rain and mud.

We took Mormon Wells road thru the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. We tried to get over Wheeler Pass past Cold Creek down into Pahrump but had to turn back due to snow.

Took some nice but difficult dirt roads from Pahrump into DV. We came in via Echo Canyon. Then we looped south thru Panamint Valley, Goler Wash, over the Shoshone.

Then we headed back east thru the Mojave.

I have just pieced together lots of different tracks from this forum. Done lots of searching.

From Kanab, UT I'll dip south into NW AZ then back up into Mesquite, NV. Mesquite to Vegas, then Vegas to Barstow, then Barstow to San Diego. I have found it all on this site. I don't know the names of the roads, and I've never been on any of them, but most of them have been verified by ride reports.

I'll try posting the portions I found.

Here is the Grand Canyon Loop I found.

Here is more of NW AZ:

Too lazy to read the GC loop track- where'd it come from?

Here is some more North/Central AZ:

It came from this forum, with an accompanying RR. What is there to read about the attachment? Doesn't it just involve uploading it into basecamp then looking at it?

For the Page to Jacob Lake area to Bryce area, I have a ton of tracks in my GWT file.

Pistol - Thanks for the info. I too get a lot of ideas and tracks from here and other places. I think the GC loop is a classic.
We are going to do the east and a lot of the north legs next month.

We are going to use some of Countdown 's tracks to get up near Kanab for a night. Then we hope to loop back north west of Mesquite thru the Desert Wildlife refuge to Alamo and then start heading home.