After losing all of the year 2008 to family matters - the death of our mother to Alzheimer's Disease - those of us who could not travel were happy to be back on the road in 2009. Saddened by the loss, but eager and enheartened, we set about from our current base of operations in California to further extend our reach into the Great American West, adding two new states to our catalogue: Utah and Montana.

We began the travel season in Utah, a state we have long regarded as one of the most thrilling in the country. It did not let us down. We decided to start by exploring the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the southern half of the state, which yielded two trips of widely differing difficulty. The first, Smoky Mountain Road, was by far the most challenging, a thrilling, eye-popping ride requiring a gully system shoot of catagory #8 rock-crawling through, what has come to be called the slickrock country, as well as a bluff cut run with 300 foot sheer drops. As mentioned, where it comes to thrills, Utah did not let us down. For the less experienced, we put together a fun little adventure through the Wolverine Loop still in the Staircase commingling it with a ride up the length of Capitol Reef National Park. This was nothing but a whole lot of fun.

In Montana, after learning from the friendly folks at the Darby Ranger Station about something we were entirely unaware, we charted the Magruder Road. If you're planning to off-road in this part of Montana and Idaho, this is not to be missed! Nowhere in the country can you drive through pristine wilderness, but here.

This season we enlarged our Idaho catalogue by one, this the trip through the Clearwater National Forest following almost exactly the footsteps of Lewis and Clark as they crossed the mountains on the LoLo Trail. For history buffs, you can't do better.

And lastly, we returned to, what is perhaps, our favorite state in the West, Nevada for a charting trip through another part of the Humboldt National Forest.

Next year look for us to begin the season here in California with an adventure into the southern reaches of the Six Rivers National Forest to a special botanical area known as the Lassics, then to expand our Oregon catalgue with trips into the Umpqua and Willamette National Forests. We are also looking to add Washington to our catalogue as well as another adventure in Utah.

Thanks for all your support,
The scouts at Dirt Road Adventures