Moving on to Idaho (Red Rock Pass)

Through all of the hiking and adventure in Colorado, I finally decided I had enough of it and moved on this past weekend. With one night at Rabbit Ears Pass outside of Steamboat Springs, I spent Saturday traveling through Wyoming to Grand Teton. After dealing with some unexpected car troubles, on Monday, I finally made myself to a boondocking site at Red Rock Pass in Idaho.

With no grand hikes or anything for the weekend, this will be a simple post. I actually forgot to even take pictures at Rabbit Ears Pass, although the views were gorgeous and a large herd of sheep coming through was quite entertaining. Of course, I only ended up spending one night there before moving on Saturday.

Originally, I scoped out a couple of campsites in some vague areas of Wyoming’s Red Desert, but most importantly, I wanted to check out the Killpecker Sand Dunes. These are the second largest active sand dunes in the world! They’re quite the ways away from basically everything else, but turned out worth the drive.

Entering to the actually visible dunes, I stopped first at the wilderness study area, where I thoroughly enjoyed the nearly complete lack of human footprints or any development in sight upon and around the sand. Of course, I left plenty of my own footprints traipsing around the sand, enjoying the surprisingly vast views before carrying on to other areas.

After a quick stop at the OHV area, including a campground, just to look around for a short bit, I started to make my way towards the Boars Tusk access area. Unfortunately, the road was pretty rutted up and I just didn’t feel like making my way down that madness, so I turned around and headed back to the highway.

As I got back into cell range, I popped up maps and looked at the available campsites I saved previously. After looking around, I just decided to go ahead and head up to Grand Teton for the night. Who wouldn’t love the beautiful views of the Tetons? I definitely do! So I plugged in the Shadow Mountain area, where there is some great boondocking and heading there, finding a lovely campsite before sunset.

Sunday morning, I woke up and began to pack up. When I started up Tivona, though, the Check Engine Light suddenly came on. Checking fluids and everything, she seemed to be running fine, so I ran into Jackson, to the one auto parts store that was even open on Sundays. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t run the OBD2 codes as I’ve done at other stores, and noone else was open. Tivona was still running just fine, but I didn’t want to go too far.

I did end up driving over the Teton Pass, scoping out some other campsites on the West side of the Tetons. As I checked those out, cell service sucked, especially without a booster, so I just ended up going back to Shadow Mountain for the night again, knowing that Jackson was still the closest place to get the check engine light checked out.

On Monday, I woke up and called the local Subaru dealer in Jackson first thing in the morning. They were able to squeeze me in for a quick diagnostic, while I went to hang out and work for a short bit in the local coffee shop across the street.

As it turns out, it was just the generic EVAP code, and after clearing that, it has stayed off ever since. Basically: probably nothing significant. Kind of a waste of money for them to do their diagnostics, but when the car is my home, I have to take these things rather seriously, even in those scenarios.

Following this, I drove up, going through Yellowstone National Park, to the West side of the park and ultimately into Idaho, where I scoped out multiple campsites. Pulling into the Red Rock Pass area first, I found a lovely campsite to spend the rest of the week and setup. Finally able to relax!

1 comment

  1. Thanks. I’m heading North from Arizona so I’ll have to check those places out.

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