Words and pictures by Nick Ingram

When my wife first suggested Southern Utah for our holiday in 2005, my first thought was car hire – we must get a 4wd / SUV class car this year, there’s bound to be plenty of trails to explore in that neck of the woods. We go to the States every other year – my wife inherited a timeshare – and four years ago when we went to Arizona that’s what we did. Unfortunately on that occasion the hire car was a Mitsubushi Shogun Sport, and whereas that was a perfectly good enough vehicle I had really wanted a Jeep. When in Rome (or America) and all that. And I’d never driven any Jeep vehicle, and I’d always fancied a Wrangler, not that they are an option from the big car hire firms.

Anyway we flew into Las Vegas in late June, stayed overnight to get over the jet lag, and went to pick up the hire car. Signed the forms, and was handed a set of keys – which said Jeep on them. Went to the car park to find it – double result. Brand new model Grand Cherokee, with less than 1500 miles on the clock. We would soon rectify that! 200 miles later we arrived at our destination – Brian Head, Utah. The last 30 miles was a climb up from the interstate to the resort, rising 3,500 feet. The resort is a ski town, and sits at 10,000 ft above sea level, and in the summer is deserted. Fortunately we found a bar / restaurant open, although Utah has some funny drinking laws – you must be a member to get a drink. Joining the club cost 3 dollars a week, so they don’t try to dissuade you too much.

The next day we woke up with thumping headaches – altitude sickness. Unfortunately those that offered the cure – 5 minutes of pure oxygen from the local nursing station – had left for the summer, so we just had to put up with it. We drove out and went further up the mountain, and just a mile or so further up the road we came across snow. Lots of it. Six foot plus banks of snow piled up beside the road, and the ground covered. We found out later that the road across the mountain had only been opened the week before we arrived... remember this was late June!

Time to test the legendary off road capabilities of the Grand. Although we had the base model – no 4wd switches, no low range, no lockers – the Jeep ploughed through the packed snow on a trail up the mountain with ease. The only drivetrain control that I could find appeared to be a traction control switch, and even when I switched it off I couldn’t get the wheels to spin up on the loose surface.

We met up with an old friend from Rhino Riders over the weekend. Marty had emigrated to Utah a year ago, and although keeping in touch is easy these days thanks to the internet, it’s still nice to see old faces. We spent a convivial evening in the bar talking about old times, how we used to get our SJs stuck, favourite sites, how all the old crew are doing, and generally putting the world to rights.

The next day, we just had to go offroading together again – out with the maps and guidebooks. So on the way home from a rock crawling event – see Rock Crawling Southern Utah article - we took the Summit Canyon Trail back up to Brian Head. By road it’s 31 miles from the base of the canyon, using the trail it’s 20 straight up the side of the mountain. The Jeep handled this loose dirt trail with aplomb, never slipping a wheel or giving a moment’s cause for concern, even when going through the occasional puddle or water filled rut.

Later in the week, as well as taking in the national parks (Zion and Bryce were our favourites) we had more opportunities to take the Jeep off the metalled road. The dirt trail over Hatch Mountain and the drive over Kolob Terrace were great fun, and it seemed to me to be exactly what the car was made for – supremely comfortable over rutted fire roads which it tackled with no drama what so ever. And boy was it fun...

At the end of our week in Utah we headed off to our next destination via another national park. Grand Staircase Escalante is an area the size of Wales with just a few one horse towns along the way. This stunning empty wilderness with just one deserted road running through it took our breaths away, had we known what is was going to be like (and that there are hundreds of trails off it) we would have spent much more time there. And so on to our next destination – did I not mention it earlier? A small town that a few of you may have heard of – Moab!

Getting There
The best advice we can give you is book early and shop around. Websites like Opodo and Expedia can help. Accommodation is not that cheap any more, the days of the twenty dollar motel appear to be over, budget on fifty dollars per night. Car Hire is still cheap, but again book early – we paid approximately 300 pounds for 20 days hire of the Grand Cherokee. Finally – go somewhere different! There’s so much more to the States than Florida or the big cities, and if you do your research there’s so much off roading to do, just do an internet search for your chosen state and look for Backroads or Trails.

2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee
We were lucky to get a brand new Jeep from the hire company. The car was the latest model IFS version, base model. What did I think of it? Well as a road car it was fine, although the engine needed to be worked hard to get adequate performance from it. As far as I know it was a V6 – obviously petrol – and it needed to be kept above 3,000 rpm to maintain good progress. Off Road it handled everything that we threw at it with ease, but how it would handle british mud is not something I could comment on. Comfort was good, space was adequate, no reliability issues and nothing fell off. Economy? I’ve no idea, with petrol at around a pound a gallon I didn’t even think about it... The only real minus point was that I had to duck my head to get in, and I’m under six feet tall. Would I buy one? If I lived in the states, yes – whether it suits life here in blighty is something about which you will have to make your own minds up.