Team Toad: Elephant Hill Road, Canyonlands NP, Utah

Elephant Hill Road is the second Jeep Badge of Honor trail I've done. While it's a very scenic road and rather challenging, to me it's just a way to get to Horsehoof Camp, perhaps my favorite place to do night sky photography.

This trail is in the Needles District of Canyonlands

The biggest obstacle getting to Horsehoof is SOB Hill, just southwest of Devil's Kitchen. On the downhill side there is a place to pull to the right and then back down the hill.

I managed to just drive over the rocks in one go on the way down. The same trick failed on the way back up, and I wound up high-centered and without lockers I was stuck.

As I prepared to extricate myself, I was met by a group of Australians in a Toyota, and they provided a winching point for me to pull my rig up.

The second time I drove to Horsehoof Camp was pulling the Toad Pod, and this time I backed up the west side of the obstacle into the pull off.

Of course this was early morning after a heavy rain, to the gravel and rocks were slick. I used my Maxtrax to back into the turn-around. You can see there was enough room to back the Jeep and trailer into the spot. From there I could drive forward over the SOB rocks without incident.