White Rim Road? (canyonlands)
Thread Starter
|
Member
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 70
Likes: 0
White Rim Road? (canyonlands)
has anyone traveled the white rim road? do you have any pics? did you do it in your f150?
I am planning a trip out west (from the northeast) for this summer and am hoping to take my truck (98 f150 4x4 Off-Road, 115k). One of the main things I want to do on this trip is travel the white rim road and I am having trouble determining whether or not I can tackle it in my truck (or if I would be better off shelling out for a local jeep rental). I am also wondering if my driving experience is adequate for tackling WRR. I say this because some of the reviews I read mention off-road experience being important....im not sure if they want to make sure some city-folk person doesnt rent a 2wd frontier and assume they can tackle the road or if true off-roading experience is necessary. I acknowledge openly that true off-roading is a different story but I wonder if my experience in driving in blizzards and on unpaved surfaces for years in 2wd and awd cars as well as my truck and true off-roading on my atv means I, as a driver, will be able to navigate WRR.
I also was curious if there was anything I should do to my truck to better prepare it for such a challenge.....I dont want to go nuts but a couple of things I thought of was buying some off-road tires like the wrangler-MT (right now I just run OEMish RTs). My only problem there was wondering how they would hold up to all my day to day on-road driving as well as the rest of the potentially 9k mile road trip. I was also reading about how ppl often appear to bottom out in some areas of the road (mufflers etc hve been seen laying around) and what wondering if it would be worthwhile to change from the OEM exhaust to one that came out straightback tight under the bumper, or whether it would be worthwhile to replace the plastic OEM "nerf bars"/steps with real nerf bars (that are actual bars like on the FX4s)
Also worth noting my truck is an automatic..
thnks for your feedback and post pics if you got em!
I am planning a trip out west (from the northeast) for this summer and am hoping to take my truck (98 f150 4x4 Off-Road, 115k). One of the main things I want to do on this trip is travel the white rim road and I am having trouble determining whether or not I can tackle it in my truck (or if I would be better off shelling out for a local jeep rental). I am also wondering if my driving experience is adequate for tackling WRR. I say this because some of the reviews I read mention off-road experience being important....im not sure if they want to make sure some city-folk person doesnt rent a 2wd frontier and assume they can tackle the road or if true off-roading experience is necessary. I acknowledge openly that true off-roading is a different story but I wonder if my experience in driving in blizzards and on unpaved surfaces for years in 2wd and awd cars as well as my truck and true off-roading on my atv means I, as a driver, will be able to navigate WRR.
I also was curious if there was anything I should do to my truck to better prepare it for such a challenge.....I dont want to go nuts but a couple of things I thought of was buying some off-road tires like the wrangler-MT (right now I just run OEMish RTs). My only problem there was wondering how they would hold up to all my day to day on-road driving as well as the rest of the potentially 9k mile road trip. I was also reading about how ppl often appear to bottom out in some areas of the road (mufflers etc hve been seen laying around) and what wondering if it would be worthwhile to change from the OEM exhaust to one that came out straightback tight under the bumper, or whether it would be worthwhile to replace the plastic OEM "nerf bars"/steps with real nerf bars (that are actual bars like on the FX4s)
Also worth noting my truck is an automatic..
thnks for your feedback and post pics if you got em!
Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 84
Likes: 0
From: Tacoma, WA
We drove about 1/3 of this road/trail a couple of years ago but it was not in our F150 (we didn't have it then) We were in our Nissan Xterra that has similar ground clearance to our F150 but a shorter wheelbase. We had 31" BFG M/T tires. We had ZERO problems and we didn't have a lot of off-roading experience. I don't think we bottomed out once. We just took it slow. We had nerf bars/rock sliders but we didn't scrape the rocks with them even once. Still, I would at least remove those wimpy step rails before you tear those up on the trail.
The freakiest part is the steep drop-offs. I mean, you'd open your door and you were looking straight down 1000 feet! You were between a rock wall and a drop-off without much room between. So, I hope you don't mind heights!
Just for peace of mind, I would get some tires with some thicker tread and sidewalls. There is a lot of sharp rocks to drive over and I wouldn't want to be caught out there at the edge of the cliff with a torn sidewall.
You should also bring some extra gas if you are doing the entire trail. It can take more than one day to run it and at low speeds and 4WD your F150 will suck a lot of gas.
Like I said though, we only drove about 1/3 of the trails so we can't vouch for the difficulty of the entire trail.
The views are nothing short of spectacular from the White Rim Road. A truly unforgettable experience.
Buy a book called "Guide to Moab, UT Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" by Charles A. Wells. There is lots of great info in here about the White Rim Road and other trails around Moab. I like the way the book gives a difficulty rating for the trails and it says what kind of rig you need to have for the trails.
The freakiest part is the steep drop-offs. I mean, you'd open your door and you were looking straight down 1000 feet! You were between a rock wall and a drop-off without much room between. So, I hope you don't mind heights!
Just for peace of mind, I would get some tires with some thicker tread and sidewalls. There is a lot of sharp rocks to drive over and I wouldn't want to be caught out there at the edge of the cliff with a torn sidewall.
You should also bring some extra gas if you are doing the entire trail. It can take more than one day to run it and at low speeds and 4WD your F150 will suck a lot of gas.
Like I said though, we only drove about 1/3 of the trails so we can't vouch for the difficulty of the entire trail.
The views are nothing short of spectacular from the White Rim Road. A truly unforgettable experience.
Buy a book called "Guide to Moab, UT Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" by Charles A. Wells. There is lots of great info in here about the White Rim Road and other trails around Moab. I like the way the book gives a difficulty rating for the trails and it says what kind of rig you need to have for the trails.