Day 5: Nevada to Utah

325 miles 

Avg. Fuel Econ. 22.5 mpg

Today we drove the Smokey Mountain Road. It is a 77 mile off-road trail that starts in Big Water and goes all the way to Escalante. It moves through the middle of the Glen Canyon recreational area and then into the Grand Staircase-Escalante national Monument. It starts at 4500 feet of elevation at the trailhead and quickly ascends to 6500 feet. The view from the smokey mountain outlook is beautiful. The trail took us about 5 hours. The last 20 or so miles were very rough and challenging. During the trip we only encountered 3 other vehicles. It is very remote and it is more beautiful than the pictures will ever show. On our return trip we drove through Bryce Canyon National park. If I am honest I prefer the more remote trails over the touristy places. 

We were able to use several of the Canyons off road features today. We used the off road display. It will show the pitch and roll angle of the truck on the trail. During several of the climbs and descents we observed 17 degrees of pitch, and 9 degrees of roll. We used the off road mode, hill descent control. And we were able to get all this done because the AT4 comes with a 2 inch lift kit stock. I installed the accessory front and center skid plate kits as a precaution but we never bottomed out or scraped on anything. I love this truck.