Video TR (non-skiing): Camping Flagstaff/Sedona/Grand Canyon

Well, I apparently can't read a calendar because the second installment of our trip last week through southern UT/northern AZ/southern NV auto-published on YouTube last night 5 days ahead of schedule:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_010_ztsCc[/youtube]

Anyhoo, cat's out of the bag now. In this episode, we're boondocking along FR-535 in the Coconino National Forest about halfway between Flagstaff and Sedona, AZ. Here are some photos from the video:


Our camp

Along the way we visited Sedona, Flagstaff, Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments, the Grand Canyon and the San Francisco Peaks (including Arizona Snowbowl):


Sedona


Wupatki National Monument


The Grand Canyon


The San Francisco Peaks

Enjoy! In the next video installment, we'll travel to Lake Mead and Valley of Fire near Las Vegas. I welcome your comments and feedback!

Really professional lookin' videos you got there. Watched episodes 2 and 3. Well-edited; soundtrack was right on spot and transitions were seamless. Somewhat reminiscent of Rick Steves' Europe, in tone -- and I don't mean his cloyingly dorky mannerisms. The aerial shots must have cost a fortune in helicopter rental(!) yet do add quite a bit. Zoecam was a nice comic relief.
Episode 3 felt a little heavy on footage of "What we're gonna do" vs actually doing it. That'd be my criticism. And it would be good to be on the lookout for a signature quirk over time, to stand out better in the ocean that is YouTube.
I also have not seen Grand Canyon yet have a strong sense that it will be a "meh" overall experience for the reasons you mention. Though I feel I should, as it is getting old -- not to mention, hurting my credibility -- to add that caveat every time I steer a fellow traveler towards Southern Utah instead. Am in Moab now. If I can peel myself from the gorgeous fall weather and the cushy modern library here, I can make it there. I swear, these tax-rich little tourist towns have the best libraries ever -- Park City, Jackson, Bozeman, Moab.
I watched the videos as part of my YouTube Red subscription -- how many cents is that worth per view? Just curious.

Evren":23qpdd6g said:

Really professional lookin' videos you got there. Watched episodes 2 and 3. Well-edited; soundtrack was right on spot and transitions were seamless. Somewhat reminiscent of Rick Steves' Europe, in tone -- and I don't mean his cloyingly dorky mannerisms. The aerial shots must have cost a fortune in helicopter rental(!) yet do add quite a bit. Zoecam was a nice comic relief.

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I appreciate it! And thanks for the subscribe.

Evren":23qpdd6g said:

Episode 3 felt a little heavy on footage of "What we're gonna do" vs actually doing it. That'd be my criticism.

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I actually agree. I'm unfortunately still in my learning phase, and that's something that stood out to me as well. Unfortunately, those sequences had already been shot and I was home long before I realized my error and had no better way to introduce the sequences. I'll get better at this stuff over time.

Evren":23qpdd6g said:

I watched the videos as part of my YouTube Red subscription -- how many cents is that worth per view? Just curious.

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At the moment, nada. YouTube doesn't allow monetization until a creator achieves 10,000 lifetime video views. So, keep watching those vids over and over. :wink: At the moment I'm doing Grand Adventure just for kicks and a creative outlet. And actually, I'm not sure that a Red subscription (which I have as well) provides any monetization as of course, a Red subscriber sees no ads.

And while we're at it, YouTube won't allow me to claim youtube.com/GrandAdventure (instead of the incredibly memorable youtube.com/channel/UCFbkbLZ1WoWMGkGe7gUw27w) until I hit 100 subscribers, so the rest of you go hit that subscribe button!

Admin sez:
" I'm not sure that a Red subscription (which I have as well) provides any monetization as of course, a Red subscriber sees no ads."

Part of the spiel when I first signed up was, "support the content creators directly" or some such. Which led me to believe that they split subscription revenue based on my watching history... Aaand a quick search confirms this. They have separate tallies of ad revenue and Red revenue in your analytics screen. I also learned that while I pay 12.99 because I signed up through iOS, I can get that down to 9.99 by signing up directly with Google (since Apple takes its cut). Man! Watching your videos just saved me 23% on my monthly entertainment budget -- satisfied customer here

Better still, I pay $7.99 a month for my Google music subscription, and it includes YouTube Red. The price has gone up on Google Music since then, but I am grandfathered in.

I had to pause your video for a moment and was quite amused by the paused screen:

YouTube seems to realize that admin missed the Grandest Adventure of 2017.

Evren":nrahpi4n said:

I also have not seen Grand Canyon yet have a strong sense that it will be a "meh" overall experience for the reasons you mention. Though I feel I should, as it is getting old -- not to mention, hurting my credibility -- to add that caveat every time I steer a fellow traveler towards Southern Utah instead.

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Both of you ought to know that the far less touristy North Rim is a logical extension to a southern Utah trip. As for the South Rim I was there for half a day on the way home from Colorado April ski road trips in 2001 and 2011. In both cases I hiked halfway down and back in 4-5 hours. I don't think admin is too infirm yet for that. The Grand Canyon is so huge you don't see much of the bottom from the rim or vice versa. I find some of the views from halfway down well worth the trouble, and of course the crowds mostly thin out by then. There is an excellent viewpoint only 600 vertical down the Kaibab Trail.



Halfway down ~2,000 vertical the river finally comes into view.

Views in different directions:



Mule trains on the way back up:


Also do it in early spring or fall to avoid the blazing heat as you descend.

Nonetheless I have to say the one week river trip was the most impressive.

great job! We were just in Sedona a couple weeks ago for the first time ourselves. Seems like we're following each other!

Keep up the good work, and thanks for the ideas, too.

TY!

Imma troll Tony for a bit

Hey Tony, this is what passes for a state park in Utah (Dead Horse Point); it has two national parks and a mtn biking mecca next to it:




...and that's the Colorado, winding through the canyon.
It has a cooler name than "Grand Canyon" (obvious, much?) The town is pretty hip with a regular-priced grocery; there is plenty of boondocking available just a few miles away; and the library is the cat's pajamas.

Beautiful shots, Evren. And I might add that you can actually drive down to the Colorado River from there, too -- just not in a Porsche Cayenne. :wink:

Richard and I spent 2 days in Arches/Canyonlands in April 2011. That was earlier in the same trip as the Monument Valley and Grand Canyon pics I've posted here. Shafer Trail was probably the limit for the car.


We also drove the easier Gemini Bridges Trail on the way into Canyonlands.


That trip was also fast paced after a week of skiing in Colorado.
Day 1: Drive from Aspen to Moab, afternoon in Arches
Day 2: Northeast section of Canyonlands including the 2 drives above
Day 3: Southeast Canyonlands morning, drive to Natural Bridges Monument, end of the day at Monument Valley
Day 4: Kaibab Trail hike halfway down the Grand Canyon 9AM-1PM, then we drove ~500 miles home.

Tony Crocker":xmzy4xx6 said:

Richard and I spent 2 days in Arches/Canyonlands in April 2011. That was earlier in the same trip as the Monument Valley and Grand Canyon pics I've posted here. Shafer Trail was probably the limit for the car.
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We also drove the easier Gemini Bridges Trail on the way into Canyonlands.


That trip was also fast paced after a week of skiing in Colorado.
Day 1: Drive from Aspen to Moab, afternoon in Arches
Day 2: Northeast section of Canyonlands including the 2 drives above
Day 3: Southeast Canyonlands morning, drive to Natural Bridges Monument, end of the day at Monument Valley
Day 4: Kaibab Trail hike halfway down the Grand Canyon 9AM-1PM, then we drove ~500 miles home.

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So, you did "drive-bys" of Canyonlands and Arches, the same crime you accuse me of at Grand Canyon? :-({|= And unlike the GC, Canyonlands has a million ways and a billion places to get away from everyone, due its sheer size and the relative inaccessibility of much of the park. For that reason, it's one of the few National Parks that I actually enjoy visiting.

Richard is not big on lengthy hikes, so that plus the timing were factors in the itinerary. Richard was interested in the off highway drives in Canyonlands so we did couple of those. I insisted on splitting up that morning at the Grand Canyon precisely because that's a place where you get a lot more out of a half day hike than you do rim peeping. I probably should have insisted Richard hike down the 600 vertical to that first viewpoint, but I did not remember that spot because I had been on the Kaibab Trail before only in 1970.

And as you note drive-bys in Arches/Canyonlands are not as congested as South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We did a few level 15-30 minute walks in those parks too.

Tony Crocker":2ls3u2iq said:

Richard is not big on lengthy hikes, so that plus the timing were factors in the itinerary.

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Mrs. Admin is not big on lengthy hikes, so that plus the timing were factors in the itinerary.

#hypocrisy

Tony Crocker":1iomo63j said:

Shafer Trail was probably the limit for the car.

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Admin":1iomo63j said:

And I might add that you can actually drive down to the Colorado River from there, too -- just not in a Porsche Cayenne. :wink:

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Surprisingly - well, I was surprised - the Cayenne is rather capable. When it first came out, 4x4 Magazine (or one of its ilk) ran a test, which included bringing it through the Hell's Revenge trail. HR rates a 6 on the RR4W 1-10 difficulty scale; the tip-toe version is a 4. In contrast, Gemini Bridges and the Shaffer Trail are a 1 and 1+ / 2.

I can't find the review at the moment, but basically they said some pretty good things about its off-road capability. They also mentioned
1. most people who go off road regularly wouldn't like it since they prefer to actually drive the car themselves ie: the testers felt it was a bit too automated
2. you can buy two Jeep Rubicon Wranglers for the price of a Cayenne.

There are a ton of videos of HR, but many/most really focus on the optional obstacles like the Escalator, Hell's Gate (around an 8), and the infamous Mickey's Hot Tub.

Here's a sped up 19 minute clip:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu8BuN1VL20[/youtube]

Marc_C":20auto3f said:

There are a ton of videos of HR, but many/most really focus on the optional obstacles like the Escalator, Hell's Gate (around an 8), and the infamous Mickey's Hot Tub.

Here's a sped up 19 minute clip:

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And then there's this classic:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFwPXEeJ3aI[/youtube]

Admin":3jje5ewh said:

And then there's this classic:

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Yeah! Good old crazy Crown Vic guy! Truly a WTF video! It's worth remembering:
1. You don't necessarily need a fully tricked out 4x4 for a lot of off-road - although that car certainly isn't doing even the Tip Over Challenge, let alone the other obstacles mentioned above.
2. 85% or more of off-road is the driver and possibly spotter, not the vehicle
3. Moab area sandstone has incredible friction
5. That guy is a hard core local that knows the terrain in the HR area intimately, and knows where a CV can travel (notice how frequently he deviates from the standard Jeep path).

Just found this vid below. The driver contracted with some Jeep outfit (probably Dan Mick {https://danmick.com/}) to drive with one of their drivers in the passenger seat as coach. She's obviously pretty scared (face it, HR *is* scary) but gets through the obstacles.
Admin: when do you want to join us on HR this autumn?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm91T4m7dnE[/youtube]


From Dan's site:
"Obstacles

This trail departs from Sand Flats Road just past the entrance station. It immediately climbs up on a narrow fin to demonstrate what the majority of the trip will be like. Descending from this fin it enters a low spot that collects rainwater, when wet it is called “Lake Michigan”. It then climbs out of the low spot via a couple nasty shelves as it passes through a fence. The first clump of slickrock has high mounds and steep descents that lead to a second mound that does the same thing. The major slickrock area includes steep climbs, sharp turns, and a hair-raising descent along a steep ridge with little room for error left or right. “Tip-Over Challenge” is a brief rock hill with a sandy base that requires tight maneuvering, an excellent line of attack, some help in the differentials, or the easy bypass on a slickrock fin. Just above Tip-Over is a shortcut to avoid the final hill, called “Rubble Trouble” because of its large loose rocks and a couple of tough ledges. Rubble Trouble begins to the right just past the top of the Tip-Over climb. Overall the trail is fairly well marked and it recieves enough travel that tire rubber usually points the way.This can be our easiest 6-rated trail if one chooses to utilize the bypasses, but it can be quite difficult if obstacles like Hell’s Gate and the Escalator are attempted. Given all the options, a guide is a good choice for the first trip over this trail."

I think I'll take a pass.

So... would you guys suggest a vantage point I can easily hike to, that would give me maximum opportunity to see & photograph some of this action up close? Is it worthwhile, if you don't have any skin in the game? I have gone through a bunch of the videos on YouTube and somewhat familiar with the location names (escalator, suicide hill, etc.)