Van Camping Utah to Secret Ancient Ruins

Is the risk of getting stuck out here with no fuel to the truck high enough reward to just get up this hill? I've been living in vehicles for six years and I am no stranger to taking risks for off-road adventures. Even if it meant the demise of my vehicle home. Now there's this one place I have only heard rumors of, said to be seen by only a daring few. So today we are going to attempt to find one of the possible last untouched, unmanaged ruins in the country. And we're taking you along, so let's get into it. Good morning Utah. Not a bad place to have your morning coffee, huh? It is so magical. This is my favorite thing about Utah in the winter, is that you are most likely going to have these off the beaten path spots all to yourself. Makes me never want to leave. But I only have a week left and there's a lot to see between now and then. Oh yeah, in case you're new here, I'm Nikki. I've been living in vehicles for over six years with my rescue dogs, camper, and RV. This is Justin. He just moved into a truck a little over a month ago and it has been epic. But Justin's gonna be going off on his own way soon. So we got to show him all the best off the beaten spots of Utah. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be epic. So today we are going somewhere I've never been before and apparently it's really sketchy and hopefully it doesn't end up like yesterday when we got stuck in the sand. So I got written directions to this trailhead and uh honestly they're a little confusing. So um what do you guys say we just kind of hit it and figure it out together? Is this gonna send it? It's gonna send it. Hey-o. After being on the road solo for most of this time, this is one of my favorite setups ever. Justin is part-time on the road and I'm full-time but having the two separate rigs that we live in is just a dream because when he wants to go home he can and he doesn't have to have me with him and vice versa or he can come out and meet me and I can stay places. It's just the freedom and the respect is just like... Anyways, let's try to find this trailhead. Oh boy. All right. Here we go. Let's see how this goes. Let's see. The van's okay so far. Do you think we should maybe take the van a little bit further so it's out of sight from everybody and then get into your truck? It looks like we want to take it down this thing. All right. We're in 4x4. I'm so nervous. Okay so the sand looks like it's getting kind of deep up here. I don't know if I might walk and check it out real quick and see if there's another spot to pull over but I think this might have to be the spot. Let me check real quick. It's still on slippers. Oh yeah that's some pretty deep sand but I think the van... the van's great so I think we're gonna take the van and park it right over here. Yeah that seems good. Look at that guy ready to take the recovery boards. You guys, I love off-roading just to cool spots. It makes you feel so capable. All right. Let's get to that spot. So honestly I'm really tempted to keep going because it's so much fun so yeah. Yeah I'm gonna keep going. Worst case we get stuck right? Let's go. I built this thing to off-road. I have the locking dips, I have the winch, the onboard air system and I finally have someone with me so like why not put it to the test? We're just gonna send it. Mid-off-roading professional. How are we doing? Good. We're doing good. Yeah this is great. Do we need to air down you think? I think right now we're fine. Famous last words. Last time I said that I ended up with a slashed sidewall so maybe. Oh that's a big dip. Let's go down here like this. Oh it's getting sandy. Rule number one. Do not stop in deep sand. Keep rolling. So I just went up to the top there. It's uh super rutted and rocky so like for instance the van is gonna be like this and being top heavy I feel like let's not risk it. Why don't I just put the van right over here and then we'll take the truck up. Yep that's stable. There she is. All right let's pack her up. Go boys. Okie dokie. Here we go. Okay. Stuff in here. First step. Air down. If we get into deep sand we can go as low as like I feel like 15. I didn't know you were gonna pull it then so I jumped. Oh yeah that looks good. Look at the surface area. You talking about me or the tire? Another necessity is going to be these recovery boards for sure. Catch. I'm so excited. Don't hit my lights. How do you feel about this road? Yeah it's definitely the sketchiest this truck's ever been on. This is so much fun. Should I get up there? It goes up that way? Okay I'm currently checking if this is too sketchy and we should just walk it. This is gnarly. Like you would hit underneath bad. If you had a skid plate we would be perfect. From the bottom to the top right here because the camera is so bad that's like a good three and a half feet wall. I feel like you can make it but it's it's pretty gnar. If you look under my truck the last time I hit the bottom of my truck my truck immediately lost fuel and pressure and broke down. Yeah so right now we're basically going risk versus reward. Is the risk of getting stuck out here with no fuel to the truck high enough reward to just get up this hill? Oh my god look at all the dogs though. Hi boys. What do you guys think? Should we go for a hike or should we send it? If that hits that front parley we're done the suspension's out. What do you think? Do we walk it or do we do it? I'll walk it and I'll talk you through it. I mean worst case we walk back to the van and then we gotta... no oh my god I don't like this. Do you want to go here or there? Probably here? Ouch. I'd go there. Okay now this way. Yep you're good keep going. That was so cool. Can you put your hooks on now? Sav will like it. My boyfriend is so much cooler than me. Have a look. Any hits? I'm sleeping. Yeah there's no way the van was gonna make that. Wow this is smooth sailing now. We're gonna check that on the way back. Let's get to the ruin first. Oh it's up there. You can see the dwellings in the cliffside. Oh my gosh that is sick. I'm so excited. Oh this is incredible. We are here. They're ready to check out the ruins. You got a little cactus? Where are they? I got it. It was stuck in his back paw. Oh good job. Yeah we'll have to do a cactus check at the end. All right little baby goes in the car. So places like this it's really really important to respect the rules but also protect the archaeology and the whole sites because there's not people that are here making sure that people follow the rules. So one is dogs don't really mix with it. You don't want to be on the walls. You don't want to grind the stones. It's really just to explore but treading lightly. Oh wow. This is incredible. I cannot believe this place is just untouched and we have it all to ourselves. Look at the petroglyphs up there. How freaking cool this place is. I know I know he's out here because getting here was rough. I like that you censored yourself. You're learning. Oh wow. Oh my god that's so sick. It is wild how well preserved these people's lives and even these writings on the walls are. If we do our part and follow leave no trace ethics they will be here for a very long time. Kind of like your personal information and data if you're not careful. But in this situation we do not want that to happen because when your information is out there that could lead to identity theft, online harassment, robo and spam calls, and that is all thanks to data brokers. In case you didn't know what data brokers are, they are corporations that collect a huge amount of personally identifiable information from things like government corporations or social media. And having your personal information exposed and easy to find puts you at risk for targeted harassment. So what can you do? Thankfully there is help like Delete Me, the sponsor of this video, but they are people who do the work for you and make sure that your information doesn't get into the wrong hands. Delete Me actively monitors these websites making sure your info stays removed and the best part is they even send you regular reports to show their progress. Thank you so much Delete Me for keeping my information safe but also for sponsoring this video. If you would like 20% off your Delete Me consumer plans just go to joindeleteme.com slash nikki20 or go to nikki20 at checkout. All right this is amazing. Let's check out some more ruins, huh? Oh my god that's so sick. Maybe there was like a ceiling on that. Let's see what we can look at safely. Looks like there's a trail in. Oh there is. So do not climb on walls but stay on the trail and this is a trail right here, right? Take my hand so we don't end up on any walls here. Thank you. Wow. This is awesome. What a view they had. Right? What do you think was in here? Either the shower or the theater. Yeah that looks like a storage room. Maybe a baby slept in here. Just kidding. I don't know what I'm saying. We can't climb the walls but let's look over them. This is awesome. Whoa look what's up there. Look at all these different chambers. Look at the petroglyphs up there too. This looks like at one point it was a big room where we just sat around in a circle maybe a fire pit there and smoked a peace pipe. Sick. Thank you. Look there's steps that go up to the rest of the house. Oh yeah let's check it out. Wow. How long ago do you think they built this? I don't know but I'm fascinated to find out. Imagine life then. Oh my goodness. I am in heaven. These people must have been tiny. These holes are little. I don't know if I could fit through that. Oh yeah I guess those are the doors huh? You can see where they step through. Yeah. I think cliff dwellings are my favorite thing to do and explore. There's one just like this that I love in New Mexico. Oh yeah. You want to walk around the corners and see what you can find? I love my job. Like this is work today. Like you guys, you guys, thank you for making this possible and making this my life. I don't know maybe. There's got to be more around here. I mean if they lived here there's got to be so so many markings. Oh wow right in here. What do you think they mean? Well we got the animals. We got a person. Honestly that looks kind of like a alien. I know right? Whoa. I mean maybe they knew things we don't. Right like look there's an alien with a spaceship. Right. No actually look alien and a spaceship. Looks like a little person. Hands up you're under arrest. Oh my god you got me a rock. Wow this is a really pretty one. Take only pictures leave only footprints but finding rocks for your partner and then putting them back is really really cool. That one honestly looks like a fat guy blow darting a toucan on the butt. It's a turtle. A turtle blow dart. Toucan. Rocks falling. It's a warning sign. Rocks falling? You don't think that that circle could be like rocks tumbling down? Because look at how many rocks fall in this area. What do you guys think everything means? Leave it in the comments. I mean or if you know. How cool. It seems there's petroglyphs up on the wall there. Let's check out here. It looks like they like were making something here. Whoa check this out. We got a petroglyph but what do you think they made here? So they were definitely grinding something here. I wonder what. Yeah it's a lizard. Whoa the rocks up here are sick. Look at this one I found. Look how red it is. I think people like watching your butt from behind. Look that looks like a face. Again thank you Nick and Becky for trusting us and giving away this beautiful spot for us to explore. You're the best. I love you. All right boys. Lunch time. Yerky. What's on the lunch menu sir? Sandies. Sandos. Oh cookie dough. Perfect for our off-road adventure. Cheers. Please sir can I have some water? Look at that. What did you have to do for all those condiments? Be happy I got them. Actually we were at a Maverick filling up water and he got recognized from the YouTube channel and he walks out with like a handful of condiments. Thank you. Cheers. All right that's a wrap boys. Now for the next adventure. Getting back and figuring out where to sleep because I don't know where we're gonna do that tonight. We also need to find a shower. Yeah okay let's figure this out. Way back down. Maybe that's what I can tell you because remember we have to straddle certain areas. Nice crawling. Nice crawling. Watch out. Hang on. Okay you're getting a little bit here. Remember you had to stay left though otherwise you slammed. My left. Or right. Right. You're dropping. Oh you got it. You got it. Oh you did it. Oh my god you did it. You did it. We did it. We did it. That was so cool. Okay now I'm feeling confident. What do you guys say we get back to the van? One. Two. We made it back safely to the van. We have two things that we need to do though. One we do need to air back up. We'll do that at the end. But number two. So there's something about the desert in the winter that is a little wild if you haven't experienced it. For instance right now it is 55 degrees but the sun and the dryness you can wear a tank top. But as soon as that sun drops over those mountains it's a different story. It's like sub freezing. So we want to take a shower today and I'm thinking there's going to be water where we're going tomorrow so let's use up some of this water in the back of the van. That's how we're going to shower today. Let's do it now. Yeah yeah when the sun's out. Yeah. Like necessary. I'm gonna get shower shoes. All righty. Hey boys. One sec. Okay I got my towel. Thank you sir. Oh oh god. Coming in. Coming down. You hear that? That's the heater going. And that is my shower and a heck of a lot of popcorn. The popcorn queen. So true. I've been looking forward to a real shower all week. Like a longer one. I don't mind if we overuse the water a little bit because we have I think 20 gallons and we can refill tomorrow morning. So I think the only thing I'm not totally thrilled about with this water heater is that the exhaust comes out right over here right where the outdoor shower is so you're kind of like breathing in fumes the whole time. But you do have hot water so can't complain too much. Ah now it's hot. Oh that's really hot. Yep it's working. Okay biodegradable wilderness wash. I love this stuff. A little bit goes such a long way. Um oh my god there's something in my eye and it's so hot. Ow. Ow. Oh it's actually so cold out there's steam coming off of me. It doesn't feel that cold. Also it's like such a massive misconception that like van wipers don't stay clean. Like I shower every single day. It's just we use less water. Are you laughing over there? All right Justin come on in. Okay uh for the sake of YouTube and all of you Justin is going to be showering in the nude so we'll be right back. That is always there's there's literally nothing like a hot shower when you're living out of a vehicle. In winter. In winter yeah seriously. That was the best. Okay next van life obstacle challenge here um we need to find a place to sleep. The next closest town is an hour and 45 which puts us there about six. Yeah and we do not like finding a place to camp in the dark especially because well one thing about van life is you don't own land so if someone's already there you're SOL. So um I think I think I know a place like 20 minutes from here. Closer the better. Yeah. Yeah I don't like setting up in the dark. Yeah okay so uh what do you guys say we go try to figure this out. Oh I gotta close my back doors. Wow that would suck driving away with that huh? Probably would drive away like that too knowing me. Okay got all that. All right wow it's a mess in here. It's another van life obstacle keeping everything organized and clean in such a small space. Let's get over there. Oh I think it's stuck there. We have like an hour before the sun goes down and we're doing good. Oh shoot I just realized we're gonna have to rack on 20 minutes for airing Justin's tires back up so we are gonna be cutting it really close regardless. Cannot forget that. All right here we go. Crap I'm stuck in the sand. I gotta try this again. I got stuck I gotta try again. but I kind of like this view. I mean check this view out you guys. Got a little camper's eyeball but then all that nose art behind it. Place. Oh no I didn't close my closet. I accidentally left my closet open. Oh no. Oh there's so much on the ground here. I should have known that was gonna happen. Oh well. What's for dinner tonight? In case you haven't picked up Justin is a chef. Oh my gosh for sure. They call me camp daddy. I'm the camp's daddy. All my friends call him camp daddy. Some of you guys call him bear daddy. Camp daddy. Camp daddy. He's the camp daddy. He's one daddy. What? Camp daddy. He's kind of fatty but he's the daddy. Of the camp-tastic place. I couldn't think of anything. Wait what's it what what rhymes with daddy That is a place of the yeah I got nothing. All right anyways dinner time. It's a red wine kind of evening. Do you like some? Yeah. Do you have a cup because I only have one. Oh there's a little dog hair in this one. It's a strong pour girl. Welcome to camp life. Cheers. Camp daddy how's it looking? Looking good. Juice the sauce a little and we're good to go. There she goes into the sunset. Oh that's amazing. Look who's pooped out from the day. These boys are done. Look at Rodney too. He's in the front. Cheers. This looks good. Thanks for cooking. Fireside history with Nikki Delventhal. So these ruins were occupied around 900 AD to like 1200 and they were ancestors to the Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo tribes. That is so cool. Apparently they were prehistoric farmers who grew corn, beans, and squash and they stored their crops in pottery jars and granaries. That's what those little rooms that we hiked to were for that we hiked up into. Yeah those were to store everything. The little square ones that were made from like the soil mortar and the wooden beams. Are you channeling your inner Native American when you talk about this? I am Native American. I know. I've been to a lot of ceremonies and I would say I relate most to Native American spirituality and cultures for sure. Love that. Yeah I think this is incredible. Probably why I'm so fascinated by the history and of the the ruins. So what do the petroglyphs mean that we found? Oh like the spiral one? Okay so spiral petroglyphs can have many meanings including a representation of the sun, water migration, or a calendar. Which is really interesting I feel like. But apparently for the Pueblo ancestors it mostly meant like the sky or the sun. But maybe also like solstices, not falling rocks. Didn't we see the same ones in the Valley of Fire? Yeah it's a very common petroglyph to see. But also if you think about it in the area we are where all the tribes were they're very like very common tribes. But apparently a lot of people will argue that the spiral represents the sun or the portal to the spirit world. So I think it has a very spiritual meaning as well. Which I could definitely see. Perhaps it represented life itself or life beyond life like eternity or the galaxy. Oh this is so cool. So long story short find yourself in petroglyphs, geek out, go get to a fire, and make sure you tune in next Friday for next week's adventure because it's just going to keep getting better and better. Cheers! We love you all.