HikeArizona.COM

hello everyone. my name is bryan and im from ohio. this summer (jun 12th- jun16th) i will be in arizona and i have nothing to do but enjoy the scenery. i am looking forward to this because ive never been west of the mississippi. my friend and i will have a jeep 4x4 and we would love to explore the north rim of the grand canyon (or general vicinity) while we are here. ive had a difficult time finding useful info on the kind of trip we would like to embark upon! we want to basically car camp off of 4x4 dirt roads. we want to be able to take as much in with the time we have. i would love to off road through the wilderness, stopping at sites and short trail heads. i would even dedicate an entire day to a magnificent day hike. we just want to be able to camp off the side of the road so we can access the jeep if need be, we dont have alot of light camping gear. i do some weekend camping in the ohio valley, kentucky, and west virginia area so we have a decent tent and sleeping gear. any and all suggestions will be most appreciated, i figured that experienced hikers from the area would help me the most

Hey, there, welcome to Arizona this coming summer. You will find an endless array of places to "car camp." However, you caint car camp in an officially designated wilderness area. Your post noted,

"i would love to off road through the wilderness,"

Well, as we said, "Welcome to Arizona," but please note that you can't possibly "off road through the wilderness." It's against the law and even your peers would bust ya. Just caint be done. Period. Forget it.

What you CAN do is camp anywhere on National Forest and BLM lands, except where posted "no camping." Believe me, the few places that are posted "no camping" are places you wouldn't want to camp anyhow!

Basically, you buy a National Forest Map--the North Kaibab in this case, and let it all hang out along some roadside somewhere.

All anyone hopes for is that you understand and follow the practices of what's called "Leave No Trace." You can find out a LOT about the whole Leave NO Trace Ethic at http://www.lnt.org

As long as yer leavin' no trace and keeping your vehicle outta wilderness areas, everybody's gonna think yer way cool! Enjoy!

J&S

thanks for the info. sorry i worded that wrong. never intended to make my own trails. looking for dependable 4x4 trails that people have reliable experiences on