I Drove America's Most Brutal Pioneer Trail

In 1879, more than 250 pioneers were asked to do something close to impossible: leave everything behind and build a wagon road through a thousand-mile cliff. They said yes. Nearly 150 years later, I took the Jeep and trailer down the Hole in the Rock trail outside Escalante, Utah, to retrace part of that route myself. What starts as graded gravel turns into washboard, slickrock, and shelf roads the deeper you go and that was the easy version. The pioneers had no road at all. They built it as they went, and a journey they figured for six weeks ended up taking six months. Along the way I stopped at Devil's Garden, the natural amphitheater at Dance Hall Rock, camped under some of the quietest, darkest skies I've ever seen, and paid my respects at a memorial that's a sober reminder this country still demands it. It ended in the town of Escalante, where I came face to face with one of the wagons from that era and I promise you'll never look at a wagon the same way again. This is Recon America. 🗺️ Download this exact route on onX Offroad: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01KSTZNJG1Z7N26XBSA3FRV3GQ 🔗 Get 20% off onX Offroad: https://bit.ly/onxtrailrecon20 🌎 TrailRecon Shop: https://bit.ly/trailreconstore ⛑️TrailRecon First Aid Kit: https://bit.ly/TrailReconFirstAidKit Follow me on: 🛻 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trailrecon/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trailrecon/