White Pocket (06-20-22)

 

Driving around this area of Arizona, you can’t help but notice the Vermillion cliffs.  Every time we turned our heads, they were there. So much so, that I barely thought to get  a decent picture of them.

This area is known for its beautiful, colorful, rock formations.

Many of the hikes here require a permit, and one hike, called The Wave can only be hiked if you literally win the lottery to do so. Visitation is very limited. (this is the Wave, but not my picture)

But not ALL the hikes require permit- White Pocket is open to anyone- anyone who can get there, that is.

White Pocket is just one of the sandstone rock formations in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. This is one outing that required some preparation on our part. Since these rock formations are out in the middle of nowhere, I downloaded the map for offline use. I was still a little unsure that we had the right route.

The night before our drive, we found a place to camp that was as close to White Pocket as we felt we could get in the camper. 

In order to drive this route, you have to have a 4 wheel drive high clearance vehicle -

They take it pretty seriously, and want to make sure you know what they mean.

After airing the Jeep tires down to 20 PSI, we were on our way. My fears of getting lost in the desert were put to bed by the signs we encountered along the way.

The first few miles were on a pretty easy gravel road, but soon enough we encountered the "interesting" part.

We would go through patches of soft sand, sometimes deep enough to hit the undercarriage on the Jeep. It was a little like driving in snow...you have to go at the right speed, and stopping is not an option.

There were other sections that were more solid- those are the areas that high clearance was required.

We didn’t see any other vehicles on the way there, which was a little nerve-wracking for me because I assumed if we had trouble, there would be other rigs on the road.

Just when we thought we were there, the road was the worst we had encountered, with deep sand that had the driver saying “ oh crap”. 

Once we got to the parking lot, we did see several other vehicles parked there.

After a short hike down a deep sandy path, we found out why it was all worth it. This is what we saw…