Sunlight Basin, Morrison Jeep Trail Wyoming 2018 solo trip.

[roving1]

Took a solo trip out to NW Wyoming. Goal was the Morrison Jeep Trail but the weather was terrible and had to go to plan B and hit the Sunlight Basin. Weather got good enough right at the end to do the Morrison trail. Happy trip. Was supposed to be a 2 week trip that got condensed to a week due to life getting in the way. As always more rushed than I wished but still very happy I did it.

I rigged up a video mount for my phone as an afterthought. This is all low quality hacky stuff. The Morrison videos have lots of stream of consciousness NSFW narration too so they will not be for everyone lol.

My purpose for sharing this is for those, like me, who fantasize about going to a place and then want to suck up all the photos video and info about a place that they can. There is very little about the parts of the Morrison Trail in particular that are not the switchbacks.

Sunlight Basin Link

Morrison Jeep Trail Link

 

[Ace Brown]

Would you say the switchbacks are doable with a small off road trailer and very experienced driver? Can’t tell from the vids.


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[roving1]

With a short wheelbase and really light small trailer kinda sorta. I backed up a little at a time and probably would not have jackknifed a trailer. But it would make things so much harder. A lot of the switchbacks have ledges or small rockpiles that you have to get over from a dead start after backing. The weight of the trailer killing traction is probably more of an issue and would be an issue for the rest of the climb which is 3 times longer than the switchbacks and unrelenting. I doubht I would have had the traction to get a trailer over more than a couple of spots even with twin helical LSD's.

I was warned away from trying this trail by myself but I thought I had the skills and the mindset to be OK and I was right. But I wouldn't tow a trailer up this. Even if I could do it it would take the risk reward out of fun territory for me.

Expedition Overland did it but it's more an example of why not to do it.

 

[roving1]

Plus they spent all day doing the switchbacks. I think I spent 45 minutes on the switchbacks and 7-8 hours for the whole trail.

 

[Ace Brown]

Agree it would be very difficult especially without a big crew of young strong guys to manhandle everything. Thanks for posting the XO video. It was very convincing.


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[DaveInDenver]

Looks like a good trip. Gotta bump to next year hopefully, this September is getting too full for a longer trip and I doubt it'll still be open in October.

 

[roving1]

A blast from the past. I finally edited footage from this trip into videos. One for the upper Morrison trail and one for Sunlight basin. Low quality vids with cringey narration for your pleasure lol.



The older video of part 1 of the switchbacks. Looks like I never actually posted the video version in this thread.

 

[BigSwede]

Would you say the switchbacks are doable with a small off road trailer and very experienced driver? Can’t tell from the vids.


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A little late but I just saw this - I would not try to take a trailer on the Morrison. Too many three-or-more point turns. And if your trailer drags you off the trail you will roll all the way down.