Utah’s Backcountry Discovery Route provides a myriad of opportunities for remove overland adventure

Adventure and diversity: two very important ingredients that make life remarkable. Growing up, my mother and I drove cross-country between New York and southern California six times. I kept track of all the states and the weather (we dodged a tornado and saw the destruction it had left in a small town we drove through later that day). I recorded the terrain and the experiences we had. We ran out of gas in New Mexico. My mother had said we were driving on a wing and a prayer but I didn’t know what that meant until the car started sputtering and we had to pull over. I was young, so the memory is vague, but I remember we were picked up (literally, riding in the back of a pick-up truck) and driven to a nearby reservation to fill a couple of gallon jugs with gas. The reservation reminded me of Fajardo, a small fishing village where we had lived in Puerto Rico. There was abject poverty all around me, yet the people were friendly and went out of their way to help us. It’s no surprise that adventure and exploration weaved its way into my Soul.

Flash forward to today. My husband and I raised our daughter camping. When she was about 10 we bought a Tacoma and built it for overlanding. As time went on, we explored and camped in terrain that was more challenging: rocks, ruts, fun. At first Andy was behind the wheel, then I wanted to have a go at it and fell in love. When my truck died, I got a 2014 Wrangler JKU built out with AEV components and a 3.5” SC lift. Because of our love of backcountry exploration and primitive camping, we’ve added a Tuff Stuff awning, a Snomaster fridge/freezer on a Tembo Tusk slide, Goose Gear interior with side and floor cubbies and an Autohome Maggiolina Extreme RTT. I’m running 35” Falken Wildpeak A/T3W tires and the latest addition was AEV high-capacity coils that give me a 4.5” lift to support all the extra weight. Now, my rig is a self-contained overland/primitive camping beast.

A few years ago, I met Chris Wood at his AEV In-field Dune Driving class in Florence, Oregon. By this time, my husband and I had started The Adventure Portal (TAP), www.theadventureportal.com, to share our passion for everything overland. The following year, we asked Chris to put on dune driving training in conjunction with TAP. Over the next few years AEV and TAP hosted two dune driving classes and the Golden Spike run during Easter Jeep Week in Moab.

Last year, Chris invited me along with a few other AEV junkies to run the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. It was a game changer. Those ten days of backcountry driving across Colorado had a huge impact on me. The solace of the woods and meadows and immense beauty of the Rockies were exhilarating. I wanted to do more.

This summer we drove approximately 970 miles on the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route. As with the COBDR, Chris was leading the trip and had invited a group of likeminded overlanders to join him. He spent months mapping out each day’s route and scoping out prime campsites along the way. As he did that, we downloaded the GPS tracks from ridebdr.com and purchased both the Butler Motorcycle Map for the UTBDR and the Utah Road and Recreation Atlas, in order to familiarize ourselves with the route. Backcountry Discovery Routes is a non-profit organization whose mission is to establish and preserve off-highway routes for dual-sport and adventure motorcycles. All trails are fit for 4×4 vehicles. The maps are an excellent resource, as they divide the route into suggested days and describe both the type of road you’ll be following, elevation and points of interest along the way. They’ve also created videos describing each section of the route, accessed by scanning the barcode that corresponds to that section.

A few weeks before the trip, we had a conference call to discuss the route. We reviewed the mileage and possible campsites for each day, noting how frequently we would hit a town for gas and supplies. We discussed the type of weather to expect, Utah fire restrictions for our campsite areas, and if there were any wildfires that might affect our route planning.

Our resident firefighter/paramedic, Steve Drewniany, had his eye on the status of fires in Utah as well as fire restrictions in the areas we were to travel. He used InciWeb, the Incident Information System (inciweb.nwcg.gov) to follow fires, and Utah Statewide Wildfire Information (utahfireinfobox.com) to check on campfire restrictions. Steve reported that there were two fires burning, the Monviso Fire and the Trail Mountain Fire, neither of which were in our area of travel. The weather forecasts showed temps ranging from the mid-40s at night to 100+ during the day. Chris planned most of our campsites at high altitudes to dodge the extreme heat. We were traveling during monsoon season and would be spending a lot of time driving through desert, so we were prepared to experience massive amounts of dust and possibly heavy rain. We also talked about the impact that sharp increases in altitude can have and noted that ibuprofen should be taken a few hours before any significant gains in altitude.

Having extensive navigation tools and covering safety precautions beforehand is obviously vital before starting a backcountry expedition. As I mentioned earlier, we carried paper maps as well as having the GPS tracks downloaded on our various devices. I used the Magellan TRX7 and others in the group used apps on their iPads (Hema maps, Gaia GPS). We had a DeLorme InReach both for navigation and SOS communication. I carried an extra set of upper and lower ball joints, and front and rear wheel sensors. Steve, our trip paramedic, brought a defibrillator and professional quality first aid kit. We planned to bring more water than we’d normally carry because of the dry heat and we each filled our AEV fuel caddies with 10 gallons of gas. What follows are a few notable moments along our journey across Utah on the Backcountry Discovery Route.

Most of us had to drive 12-14 hours to get to our starting point in Bluff, Utah, so the mileage stacked up significantly. Unfortunately, despite previous servicing, Todd’s Jeep started leaking transmission fluid on the second day out (he had driven to Utah from Washington state to meet us at the starting point). We had transmission fluid, so we filled him up and he drove into Moab to get his Jeep worked on.

Thankfully, he was able to join us on Day 4 in Onion Creek, just outside Moab, and had no further issues with his rig.

On Day Two, Steve checked InciWeb and found that another fire had started. The Dollar Ridge fire was located close to one segment of the UTBDR. He kept his eye on the site and gave us updates daily. On July 5 we learned that the Dollar Ridge Fire had scorched over 40,000 acres. It was burning in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, leading to road and trail closures directly along the BDR.

Steve also got updates on the advrider.com forum. He connected to another UTBDR traveler who was a day or two ahead of us and provided some alternate route options. After a map meeting, we sussed out the location of a trail around the west side of Strawberry Lake that would hook us back up to the BDR north of the fire. This alternate route turned out to be stunning.

During our trip across Utah, we encountered temps up to 110 degrees and drove an average of 100 miles each day. Most days we broke camp and hit the trail by 8:30 a.m. Some days we landed in camp as late as 6:30 pm.

As I mentioned, Chris had scoped out possible campsites for each night on Google Earth, and luckily most of them panned out well. We camped in areas with stunning vistas, from mountains with pine forests and aspen corridors, to red rock canyons and spires, to lush green meadows full of sheep, babbling brooks, rivers and lakes. No matter how long the day had been, or how many obstacles we encountered, the crew, Chris, David, Mary, Todd, Steve and I, always had a smile and good times in camp at the end of the day. I mentioned earlier that planning is vital, but equally important is getting the right crew to travel with. Days can be long and tiring and despite the beauty and fun of the expedition, people get worn down. A crew that can roll with the punches is essential.

The trip was epic. Seeing states from the perspective of a ride along the BDR has inspired me to explore more of the BDRs and feed my need for adventure. I am looking forward to many happy trails to come.

Editor Note: Follow Lori’s travels and enjoy a refreshing take on vehicle-based adventure by visiting The Adventure Portal website at www.theadventureportal.com

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