car recommendations and map

[balt charlie]

Hey all, new poster here. I posted in the intro forum if any of you are interested.
I will be renting a vehicle for a 10 day trip this week. I don't plan on doing 4X4 but want to drive to(and hike) Spooky and peek-a-boo canyons. I hear the road there is rough. What do you folks think would be a good rental choice? Most of my driving will be in the Nat. parks. but I do like remote camping sites on BLM land so an SUV might be a better choice??????
I have the Delorme Atlas for navigating to BLM lands. Do you think this is good enough to find camping on BLM lands?

[DOSS]

If you can rent a Subaru then get one.. it should get you anywhere you are wanting to go.. otherwise anything with 4x4 would be a good choice as some of the dirt roads can get sloppy with a little rain on them

[trackrunner]

What's the differnece between a rental car and a jeep?



































There are some places a jeep won't go.
Now if it was a rental jeep . . .

[denaliguide]

i have made it out early weed bench to the head of spooky and peekaboo in a rented geo metro. key being rental. with careful and skillful driving on dry roads it will make it. if the roads are wet then forget it. i did rent a pickup in vegas once, that was nice. the higher the clearance the better at any rate.

the delorme atlas may not have the detail you need. you can probably get the 1:100,000 map for that area in escalante at the blm office or at escalante outfitters. i know escalantee outfitters carrys lots of maps.

[uintahiker]

Libraries are also a good choice to check out maps. If you drive carefully, you'll be fine with whatever car you want- but of course high clearance is better. As for camping- are you looking for places on the map or what? I usuallly just spot a place that looks good and camp there. (You could always ask on the forum for recommendations for the area as well.)

[Cirrus2000]

I got out there in a Mazda 5 (rental), with very little visible damage. All broken pieces were able to be jammed up into the underside of the engine compartment, and stayed there all the way back to Vegas.

I've rented a Liberty and a Patriot in the past, and they would definitely do that trip, easily. Funnily enough, all three of those vehicles were classified as SUVs. (Mazda 5?!?!?)

[balt charlie]

Thanks for the info. 4x4s seem like the ticket. I reserved one today for tomorrows trip. It's a small SUV but am clueless as to the make or model. I have rented mini vans before with my family(3 kids) and drove Chaco canyon's washboard road. very difficult ride.

Maps, I've used Delorme atlas when differentiating between private and National forest lands, never BLM. I just want to know when I am on BLM while trying to find a campsite. thanks, I'll check out Escalante Outfitters.