Backroad itinerary building: planning steps

What to take away

• Read the vehicle wording on the route page first. It sorts most candidate routes immediately.
• Note which sections of a route are harder than the rest, and plan around those, not the average.
• Protected areas along a route bring their own rules. Read them before you camp or shoot.
• The last step is a phone call, made in the week you travel, from a place with signal.

Planning a backroad trip is a short list of steps done in the right order. Skipping one rarely causes an obvious problem at the time, which is why people skip them. Here is the sequence that holds up.

Step one: read the vehicle wording

The route page tells you what it expects, and the wording is usually precise. The BLM's page for the Gold Butte Back Country Byway in Nevada describes a 62 mile scenic loop beginning about 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas, reached from Interstate 15 at exit 112 five miles south of Mesquite and Bunkerville, and says the route is rugged and requires sturdy tires and high clearance vehicles.

It then adds the detail that decides the itinerary: the last 20 miles, on Gold Butte Wash Road and Mud Wash Road, should only be traveled by high clearance vehicles. The page mentions the historic mining town of Gold Butte established in 1908, the sandstone at Whitney Pocket around twenty miles in, and a 110 foot sinkhole called the Devil's Throat.

That is one route with two difficulty levels. Plan for the harder section, or plan to stop before it.

Step two: check what the route passes through

Land status along a route brings rules with it. The BLM's page for the Lakeview to Steens Back Country Byway in Oregon describes a route crossing the Warner Mountains, the Warner Valley, the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge and a wide expanse of high desert, notes that the Warner Wetlands area has been designated for environmental concern with emphasis on protecting waterfowl habitat, and says camping and hiking are permitted on the refuge while hunting and fishing require permits.

Read that before you plan an overnight. A route can be one drive and several sets of rules.

Step three: the working sequence

1. Confirm the route is open to your vehicle type this season.
2. Identify the hardest section and decide whether it is in or out.
3. Mark fuel, water and food, and set day lengths from the gaps.
4. Read the land status along the route for camping, permits and restrictions.
5. Choose an overnight and a fallback overnight.
6. Write the bail out from each major junction.
7. Call the field office in the week you travel, and again if the weather changes.

Step four: the last call

Make step seven properly. Ask what the surface is doing now, whether any gates are closed, when the road was last graded, and whether anything has happened that would not be on the website yet. Write the answers down with the date.

Then leave a copy of the route and your return time with somebody at home. That costs nothing and it is the single most useful thing on this list.

Where to go next

For the reasoning behind this order, and why route designation comes before scenery, read how the backroad itinerary process works. If you want alternatives to driving a route end to end, six ideas worth trying covers connectors, bail outs and part paved routes.

Common questions

How long before the trip should I start planning? A month for anything with a reservation or permit. A week is enough for a simple route you can bail out of.

What if the field office cannot tell me the current condition? Ask when someone was last out there, then plan for the more cautious reading. Uncertainty is information.

Should I plan the whole route or just the first day? Plan the whole route, then commit only to the first day. That way you always know what the alternatives are.

Is a paper record really necessary? Yes. Phones fail, batteries die, and a written route with names and numbers works everywhere.