Search for Assembly Hall Peak - Solo Camping on the desert - Utah

Description

This week I wanted to find a new spot on the desert to camp and also I wanted to locate a new overlook to view the expanse of the San Rafael River valley. I was not disappointed.

In all my camping the shelter gear we make at wildernessinnovation.com is key to my comfort, made for the real world. Also being multipurpose, I can take less gear with me.

Tags: camp cooking,red rocks,san rafael swell,camp cooking steak,san rafael swell utah,san rafael swell atv trails,san rafael river,Assembly Hall Peak,hiking,camping,camping on the desert,camping in utah,make a poncho into a hammock,Climasheild APEX,dyneema,perry peacock,adventure,camp cooking cast iron,camping alone,solo hiking the remote desert

Video Transcription

heading out on the desert again I try to see what I can come up with in a new spot or something sure if I'm gonna do that or not just because [Music]

they started two and a half hours earlier today doesn't hitting out so so that'll help quite a bit but still we're in the time of year when it gets dark sooner so

[Music]

believing the farming area here were more towards the desert comes more and more but flora more barren as we go along here right up through there is the last farm

we hit the desert I'm kind of taking a chance here I guess I had to make a choice of three different roads I could take and two of them I've been to that area number times and so I was like well this wanna go somewhere a little different

so this is see turnout last spring I camped up on top of there in several time I don't know we'll see what we gotta do here I've only got about a hour I think before the Sun Goes Down well it's just after 7 o'clock p.m. and I drove I drove up won this cool Canyon I you can only drive so far and might be kind of cold explore tomorrow maybe I don't know there's some places right ahead of me where I pulled in here a couple spots would be nice to hang my hammock according to the weather temperatures should get down to 20 20 20 21 degrees or so tonight where a lot of stuff is pretty moist when driving through mud puddles and all kind of stuff out here so take a couple little things with fatwood here and then I'll just arrange some twigs over that little spot right there it may not be the prettiest thing but bottom line is if it works that's what matters piled all this the plow though this wood in the pit here then I jumped in on it and smashed it down so that everything's a little closer together well I believe it's going to be a success took a few minutes while it was starting I do like I've often showed on here just gathering some more stuff and getting it ready to go on there while I'm waiting for the fire to catch so I I shoveled me out a little keyhole in the sand here and put some rocks right there so this will be my cooking area I can keep my regular fire back there move some coals up under here and put my cast iron on before I doing my cooking well here goes the liver

I'm just pitting around a little bit well not exactly peddling around yeah posting a little bit of some stuff on Instagram

and I mix up a little little egg I guess pepper up the flour nicely there a little bit of sea salt here and probably just cook a couple pieces maybe get some egg on both sides of that thing there I have to clean up the back of my Tahoe here I don't know how many I'll do a couple pieces like this hope I'm not grossing you out you know there's some people don't really care for liver much so but I've always liked it okay that in there yeah if you don't like this fast-forward for a couple minutes

fact probably in the video I'll probably hope all right let's make this happen check on this I put this little tin on here just to help it's getting pretty chilly out here the night air is cooling right off rapidly here oh look at that let's look at nice oh look at that that is that is just like perfect there's some liver pick it up some liver a lot of people don't like it but I love it it's great haven't had any for about a year well there we go give it a shot cold night hmm well it's so good plenty of iron in my system after this right well it's about midnight I guess I should put up my hammock here it's old gnarly tree right here I think I'll hang one end of my hammock in there and then this tree over here I'll hang the other end over here kind of up in some of that stuff there I might wind up trimming out a branch or two here today I just grabbed my multicam poncho so I'm gonna use that one I haven't used that in for a little while so let's get her started here well you just put a any kind of little weight on your Dyneema cord or your parachute cord whatever you use them to drop through here and then a little shake like gravity pull the thing through there very simple and you'll see it comes out the other end here and at that point we just pull that little loop off of there oh we got it just like that right there and you just pull the free end through the loop and we're making a gathered in hammock so what we do is gather the end they get it up there snug all right I'm hung up between my trees give a little sit down I like to be about this height right here come up squirt off at the knees it's a good height to get in and out put your shoes on all that sort of thing awesome all right well especially since the temperature's going down to 20 absolutely absolutely be using the Beast that's nice that gives me some gives me some width some room delay wrap slightly up around me with that thick foam pad grab my clothes Nene roll blanket I think I put this in here and I don't even think I put this in here in videos I don't even tell people what it is it's got snaps down one side it just kind of helps it hold in place you know so if you're kicking around at night you got to get in get out or whatever the blanket is still aligned up and down like you want it it's still in place even if you flip one side out of the hammock you just grab it and flip it back in because it is attached to one side so that way you don't have to worry about losing that or readjusting it yeah so all I do is I just take these snaps on the host mean arrow blanket and they're double sided female on one side male on the other just to give you a little flexibility and how you use them and what you snap them to and all that sort of thing so I am ready to go here now so here's my camp does it look lonely and barren and barren waste or whatever I don't know that's actually it's actually pretty nice though I like it sometimes I lived in the east for you know a long time and and out in the East you know there's so many trees you can't see very far this is kind of the opposite here you can see all over the place is hard anything blocking of you so it's just it's beautiful differently I just I got up this morning I was doing a few things and thought I got to go up on top of this Ridge up here and see what's on the other side you know and I saw what was there and I thought oh there's a higher place up here so I'll see what's over there and then there was a higher place up there so let's see what's up there so I did all that and then I'm back here I want to cook breakfast on my Coleman stove because I got a lot of stuff I want to do and I don't want to take the time for a fire right now it's my cooking situation today I didn't I didn't feel like cooking over the fire cuz I'm in a hurry so I stacked up my boxes put my stove up there cooked right there and it was good enough well I'm gonna collect me a little bit of pine sap got a little bit here let's go collect him right let's go collect him I'll show you how it's done sometimes I wonder how these pinions even live he's so much SAP where I was dripping from well I don't break the bark off there's a nice big lump this was gold I could be rich so there's a piece was on some bark I'll see this right here

that's a big chunk right there a lot of times you'll see an injury on the tree and then you go down to the ground below that's what you'll and that's where you'll find all your little treasures here it's just all over here look at all these I mean look at this one that's a monster right there I think I gathered probably about 10 pounds of of pine sap and I could I could do some more if I get other stuff to do today I'm convinced somebody could take a five-gallon bucket this area right here you could probably fill it in less than an hour without any problem that's just what you're dedicated to doing he could tear it up so there's my sleeping quarters last night it was uh there's a thick frost on everything when I went to bed last night I crawl in there blanket over me the Beast under me good to go slept like a log simple Dyneema cord with a little hammock suspension key on it one on each inning see a little bit over here there we are right there pretty crude right now prototypes I got somebody working on a run of run of these havoc suspension keys plasma cut and everything tumbled and all that we'll see how that turns out maybe I'll have a few to sell initially before we some point we'll do a CNC run or something like that but well I'll get my blanket stuffed in here I think kind of packed up I was gonna stay here and go exploring around here and and come back this afternoon but I hiked around this morning before breakfast and I discovered that what I thought I was gonna find out here is not out here so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna waste my time messing with it get up and I'm gonna go to another spot this is how I usually roll my beast up if I've been I've been using it inside a hammock and I just dropped the hammock to the ground and I I just roll the beast up on top of it and it helps it roll up a little cleaner

just like that you were synced on both sides that we got it I'm off the beaten track here the roads kind of disappeared a time or two here glad I was able to pick up on it just want to see where this brings me out it's it's heading in a direction that I like I don't know if it gets me far enough to give to an overlook or not well the roads getting a little bit narrower for this big beast maybe I should turn around when I get a chance I don't know like it's almost to the edge of big deep canyon but I don't know how close it takes me there well we broke out of the rocks and trees and the side hills twisty turny stuff into a big open grassy valley we're getting close to the place I want to be but I don't forget us there or not this thing isn't on the map I don't know where the heck I'm at well I've got a bit of a wash on a very tight turn right there so I got to go up I think I can get around it hope all this is worth it well so we got a number of tight places I've had to squeeze through and get through and all that sort of thing I had a wash to get through where I was afraid my front and back bumpers would hit at the same time but made it through it so that's good the road is getting less and less well-defined here what we'll just see where it takes us it's an adventure it's an adventure I'll tell you what well the roads blocked so I can't come along any further very easily so I don't know I might be making a bad decision it's happened before but it doesn't look like it's too far from here - where's overlook down to the San Rafael River Gorge so I thought well I'll just i just hiked a little bit see if it looks like i get pretty close fairly soon then you know we'll call it good these valleys up here pretty much all like this one they're framed by cliffs and getting closer here well I'm climbing now came across those valleys with just some ups and downs now I got some stuff here getting up over onto Ridge up here I don't know I don't know what I'm gonna find I hope I find something good if not least it's exercise well come along here

I'm hoping this gets somewhere I'm trusting my gut I got a lot of gut to trust but I know most these roads I've followed in the past they're kind of unmarked usually if they're kind of going in the direction they usually lead to some kind of a scenic overlook or some kind of destination I bet so I'm just trusting that's the case cuz there's really there's really no other reason this road you know I mean so oh yeah yeah we're we're getting into it here holy cow here we are I'd have to go a little bit further but hopefully if the Sun angle I can get a good picture here oh my gosh look at that look at that right there is that not spectacular pretty nice pretty nice it's almost like the in an airplane up here I believe we're about 2,000 feet down to the valley floor from here try to angle my camera a little hopefully we can avoid some Sun but look at all those peaks and cliffs and valleys and oh my gosh that's the San Rafael River right over there running down the bottom of there time for a little snack now that I'm up here man this is spectacular I love it I was beginning to wonder whether I'd like I'd find anything out here or not I thought I had a little waist farther to go and all of a sudden BAM Here I am oh my gosh I've been all over down in the bottom of there - it's crazy

you

well it's a bit of a hike but well worth it man that was that was a stunning view suddenly come in you know they got up on there BAM there it is look at a covert across the valley to send you across the valley assembly hall peak and oh my gosh it's stunning the only bad thing is the time of the day the Sun all that doesn't exactly make for premium pitchers so you know I don't know I don't know how the pictures and video turn out I guess we'll just have to see you when I get back to the computer but nonetheless I had a good time while you conceived my from my tire tracks driving in here that this road this trail whatever it is this trail it's made for ATVs not for full-size vehicles because I'm about a foot and a half too big you