Tips? N Arizona, NM, CO road trip

[dgorsett]

Slight route revision. Heading SE from Cedar City, UT > Page, AZ > Shiprock, NM and then bending north and staying overnight in Mancos, CO (red) > From Mancos > Durango > Pagosa Springs then south towards Los Alamos, NM, and staying 2 nights at a nice boutique hotel in Taos, NM (yellow), From Taos we go north towards Saguache, then bending NW towards Gunnison > Montrose > Grand Junction. One night there (green) on the way home to Cedar. Not planning too much off-road drives, but just seeing the sights and scouting for future trips. SO much out here. VERY warm out here now so I’m thinking the chance of any winter weather is dropping fast.

Very nice. Bandoler NM near Espanola is good. I assume you're going to Mesa Verde NP while at Mancos, takes some time. Your choice of North Cochetopa Hwy 114 out of Saguache is a good one, scenic and kinda unknown. Also, if time allows FWIW, any time spent on UT Hwy 24 and 12 will be well worth it. If you like old jeeps, there's a guy on the east side of the road in Saguache that has kind of a Jeep Museum. A quick run up to the Black Canyon NP near Montrose, drive over Colorado NM on your way out of Grand Junction will be worth it. If you have an extra hour and you're taking your mapped route on I70 in Utah, Google how to get to the Head of Sinbad and Dutchman arch OR Black Dragon, each would take about an hour and will stretch the Broncos legs a little /subaru type roads.

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[HalfmuleFarmer]

Almost ready to jam. I think I’ve figure out how to not run out of gas. ;-)

 

[CalvinT]

Almost ready to jam. I think I’ve figure out how to not run out of gas. ;-)

You'll see the sign about 42-43 miles east of Kayenta where US 191 goes north.

I love that sign because almost every other sign in the country gives directions to a town or city.

 

[dgorsett]

Almost ready to jam. I think I’ve figure out how to not run out of gas. ;-)

You'd miss Shiprock (but see something very similar north of Kayenta) if you went North out of Kayenta see Monument Valley, through Bluff and swing through Hovenweep NM and end up in Cortez , just FYI.

 

[HalfmuleFarmer]

You'd miss Shiprock (but see something very similar north of Kayenta) if you went North out of Kayenta see Monument Valley, through Bluff and swing through Hovenweep NM and end up in Cortez , just FYI.

Okay! Good option. Will discuss with my trusty co-pilot while on the road tomorrow!

 

[HalfmuleFarmer]

Just a post-trip note of thanks to all the commenters to this thread. GF and I had a great trip and the Bronco performed flawlessly across 1435 miles over 4 nights / 5 days. I’m not a big photographer, as I prefer to just do the thing, not photograph doing the thing, so I only took some limited shots. But tried to make them good. Takeaways: 1) We probably should have given ourselves a bit more time, or a few hundred fewer miles. Ratio of driving hours to not driving hours maybe a bit too extreme. And 2) crossing the Rockies in late March or early April is maybe a bit optimistic. We made it no problems, but we did get snow and icy rain on winding mountain roads. A bit colder or snowier and it would have gotten hairy. I didn’t get photos of the BEST part of the trip by far (because I was driving and just looking), but it was the *incredible* vast, open spaces across Navajo territory, from Shiprock up into Cortez, CO, coming south up into Taos, NM and from New Mexico back up into Colorado. Totally amazing territory. Lots of tiny towns, two lane roads, big sky, Americana. Thanks again, all.

 

[HalfmuleFarmer]

Oh, and PS: Pretty stock 2.3L Badlands SAS, kinda loaded for travel, and still averaged +21 MPG over quite a bit of miles, maybe only 75% highway. How is it possible that some people say they’re only getting 13-14 MPG?

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