Top of the World - Epic Off Road Trip to MOAB Utah - We Finally Made it Out West!

As an east coaster, there are certain places that we dream of going. One of them is the Alpine Loop. We did part of that last week. The other is Moab. Tag along with us as we conquer Top of the World. Top of the World is an approximately 11 mile long trail located near Moab, Utah. It's a popular trail that's known for its challenging terrain and stunning views. And for a couple of season east coast off-roaders, it's unlike any other place that we've been before. Although I've been to Utah several times in the past, this is my first time visiting Moab, of the landscape surrounding us. This is truly unlike anything that either of us have off-roaded before. I just can't even put into words how great it is to be out here with nothing like this Well, she's in Knob Side's livery because we just came from the SEMA show, and next week she'll be back at Designs Incorporated in Chesapeake, Virginia to get the wrap removed and she'll be back to her normal beautiful granite crystal metallic self. The great thing about having a driver that you trust is that you can jump in the passenger seat of your own vehicle and shoot video. Internet police, please forgive me, but this seems to be pretty common practice out here. After you pass the Top of the World sign, the trail begins to transition away from being a scenic drive through the desert and into more of an off-roading experience. As we moved up in elevation, the sand and gravel trail that we had been on had transitioned into an otherworldly rocky terrain. For us, this is where the trail truly began to get interesting. As we continued to move up in elevation, the scenery became even more amazing. So much so we failed to capture the steepest obstacles on camera as Jason and I were focused on spotting and crawling and simply forgot to break the cameras out. It must be something special if someone shooting a video for YouTube forgets to record it. It's just after sunset and we are finally at the top of Top of the World. Now, moment of truth with me. I have a severe fear of heights. I mean like legit. I am borderline freaking out right now. This is as close as I can go to the edge. Jason's out there though, but I'm gonna enjoy the view from back here. This really sucks. You don't know how bad I we began to make our way down the trail in the pitch darkness. It made heading down the same way that we came up a good bit more fun. We're on our way down the mountain now and it's dark. We're traveling very slowly and I'm actually having a pretty good time. I've mostly recovered from my rather embarrassing near panic attack over the height up there. It is what it is. I've been dealing with that problem since I was a kid. I should have known better than try to go out there. There's a lot of videos on YouTube, a lot on this trail. Most of them are probably better than this one, but one thing they don't touch on very much is just how much rock crawling there is on this trail. It's easy to watch videos on this trail and get the impression that this is a beginner trail. It is not a beginner trail, so don't come out here and get in over your head or bite off more than you can chew. I have my NovSight light pods on and you'll notice that I'm running the amber lenses on them. Amber is actually coming in really helpful as far as not exaggerating the shadows on the rock obstacles. Lighting them up with all bright white lights, at least to me, tends to exaggerate the shadows and take away your depth perception so that you can't get a true feel for how steep the obstacle is. So I'm running the ambers even though I typically prefer white light and it seems to be working out pretty well. Jason is still running down the trail doing spotting. You can see him down there. He is truly a godsend. Jason is one of my best friends. He's done nearly all of the mechanical work on both of the jeeps that I've owned in the last 12 years and he is just an all-around great not to mention a stellar jeep mechanic and hopefully when he watches this video he understands that I appreciate everything he does for me. It was getting late and we had a 2,000-mile drive to Virginia to complete after this, so we were now out to cover ground quickly, which is easier said than done on this trail. Coming down the trail in the dark, while it was slow going, was not nearly as challenging as going up it. Jason, are you having fun? As has become the norm with Defiant Off-Road, we got a late start and we're on the trail after dark. We are having a blast though and I hope you are having a blast watching the finished video. You have a vision in your head when you make this of how it's going to turn out and it doesn't always turn out how you expected, but if you are enjoying the video, how about like the video and subscribe to the channel? That would greatly help me and if you extra special want to help out and support the channel, check the description for the link to my Patreon and sign up for that. It's been said that there's nowhere else in the U.S. like Utah and after crisscrossing the state twice in a week, I can't say that I disagree. Top of the World has given us a taste of what Utah has to offer and we definitely want more. I can say with near certainty that we'll be back. We are done at Top of the World. We're out here a good bit later than we planned on because we got going a little late. That seems to be the standard operating procedure these days. Get to the trail way later than we intended and be out on the trail way later than we intended. To be honest, I'm glad we were though. Negotiating all of those rock obstacles in the dark turned out to be a lot of fun. It involved a lot of teamwork between me and Jason and we got the job done. You guys out here in the west have no idea how good you have it. We just have nothing like this back east and I must return to this place again because it is simply epic. If you've liked this video, please do me a favor. Like the video, subscribe to the channel and check the description of the video for a link to my Patreon. Please subscribe to that. It helps me greatly. It will keep these adventures going. I will tell you that in 2024, there will be a return trip west. We now have about 2,000 miles to cover and not a lot of time to do it, so we're gonna get on the road. Until next time, this has been Defined Off-Road.