Arizona crew trail report

[r3dd0g]

I finally got the pictures gone through (9 days of trails takes a while) and uploaded. We all had a blast and got a lot of seat time, we clocked in 497 miles on the Rock Limo (AKA S-TON) in Moab this year. I made my own thread since I'm posting a ton of pictures.


I’m only posting about 1/5 of the pictures I uploaded here, the rest are on my picture site:
http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=47

-We arrived in Moab on Saturday afternoon, set up camp, went down and ran up Potato Salad Hill. Unfortunately we realized all of our camera batteries were dead and only got one picture... We went up several times on a couple different lines, the rig barely slipped a tire.

-Sunday we made a minor welding repair on Rob's rear axle, then we headed to Steel Bender with a storm looming overhead. We made it through most of the trail before the sky opened up and we got poured on, it was cool being out on the rocks in a big storm. The trail book said that the entrance hill was almost impassible in the rain, however it appeared that the entrance has been plowed and flattened since that was written.

[url]http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/P1060206.JPG[/url][img]
[img] http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/P1060208.JPG

 

[r3dd0g]

-Monday morning Rob needed to fix his CB so we ran La Sal Mountain loop with Justin, we took a couple of the passes (Geyser and La Sal) and some ATV trails. We got up over 10,000 feet a couple times. It was a very scenic trail, not too difficult, unfortunately we forgot our camera so all of our pictures are from our phones, hopefully Justin posts up some of his.

When we got back, we had dinner at Milt's and Rob and family joined us for a night run on Fin's n Things. We hit Baby Lion's Back after Fin's, but the back side was so flooded (~4-5 foot deep) we had to turn around and go back out the way we came. It was dark, so no pictures from the night run unfortunately.


-Tuesday we started the day by running Hell's Revenge. The Rock Limo went right up Escalator and Hell's Gate.

There was a bit of water in Car Wash.

It was still fairly early when we made it back to camp, so we decided to hit Strike Ravine. We were in a hurry to get through before dark, so we didn’t get many pictures.

 

[r3dd0g]

-Wednesday we ran 7 Mile Rim with Jack (DickeysK5) and the red Blazer (Chris + Family) along with Rob and Justin. We stopped at the buttes for lunch and found a 3’ long Rat Snake, then dropped down and back out of Wipeout Hill a couple times. My shifter broke on the way out, but I think that was the only issue we had that day. I managed to get it fixed enough to get it back to camp. I borrowed the shifter out of my Silverado to finish up the week.

Uranium Arch

Puppyvision

http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/P1060543.JPG

 

[r3dd0g]

Tusher Tunnel

-We had originally planned on heading to Colorado Thursday to run Castleton Gateway Road, but since we had run the passes on Monday, we decided to stay in town and run Kane Creek instead. I blew a water pump gasket on the way to the gas station, replaced it at camp and caught up to the group a couple miles past the trail head. There was a lot of water damage from the storm on Sunday, we assisted a quad rider that had gotten into too deep of water, ran across a Montero that had washed into the creek from somewhere upstream from Sunday's storm and ended up dragging Chris through part of the trail when his fuel pump started acting up. We got a late start to begin with(I hit the trail head at 12:30), but between helping the quad guys and Chris’ fuel pump issues it was after dark by the time we got off the trail.

I caught a big fish

Watch for flash floods! There were numerous places on the trail where you could see the high water mark was well above the tops of our vehicles, even when we weren’t in the creek.

The white thing in the background is the hood skin from the Montero. The water pressure ripped it off, leaving the rest of the hood framework on the truck.

 

[r3dd0g]

-Friday I blew another water pump gasket, I swapped the water pump this time thinking maybe the flange was warped (blew out in the same place 3 times). After fixing that we went out to BFE to meet everyone for Blazer Bash, then I led the newbie run through Fins n Things.

Snow! Apparently it snowed on top of Green Day while we were running Fin’s.

All the newbies made it through without breakage.

 

[r3dd0g]

-Saturday I was tail gunner for the cursed Golden Spike AKA Trifecta run. We started the trail at 8:40 and were making great time, on schedule to have lunch at the crack and be back on the highway by 2 or 3. We dropped into the valley with the big waterfall coming up by the tree's (I'm sure it has a name, but I don't know what it is) and stopped for pictures and to take a small break. We made it 10 feet from there and a Keith’s Suburban died, 1.5 hours of troubleshooting and we decided it was a bad ignition module (nobody had a spare).
Brandon headed back into town to get the part, 2 other rigs stayed behind and the rest of us moved on with me in the lead. We made it maybe 2 miles and James Watson's UA rig (Chegro) died. 1.5 hours of troubleshooting, including Stephen joining us from his Crack ‘n Back run and we decided we had another dead ignition module (verified by swapping one in from my S-10). We got ahold of Brandon earlier and had him wait at the parts store until we figured out what was going on.
With him on the way with parts, Stephen decided to head back to his group, and I started leading my group out. We made it 10 feet and Stephen's rig (Wally) died. After some troubleshooting, we figured it was a bad fuel pump and swapped in his spare. His spare was somewhat suspect (noisy) but it seemed to work. Stephen decided to hang back with his dad since his brother was only 15 minutes or so out by this point and I took what was left of my group out.
We stopped for pictures at the Golden Crack and got to Butt Scratcher by 5ish. I had Fred lead the group out and I turned around to get the rest of our group. I passed Stephen and James and got back to the stragglers from my group. I took the lead, the rig with the bad ignition module was running, but one of the backfires while troubleshooting blew out his power valve so it would sputter and die when at a steep angle. We managed to limp out without anyone needing a strap somehow and got to the highway at 7:20 with still a little bit of daylight left.

Launch Pad

My Axial Wraith had a big crowd watching when I managed to roll it all the way down Launch Pad, unfortunately the camera lady was laughing too hard to get any pictures of its tumble.

Keith’s rig broke right after this ledge.

Then James’ rig broke, followed by Stephen’s. My dog and I were recovering from the previous night’s activities

Finally we got moving again, our group was down to 4 rigs with a 5th waiting for us at the Golden Crack.

 

[r3dd0g]

Blazer Arch AKA Jeep Arch

35’s look tiny in the Crack

The camera settings got screwed up for the rest of the day and part of Sunday, I tweaked the photo’s a bit, but they still look weird.

At this point, I turned back around and headed back to lead the rest of the group out. We made it to asphalt at 7:20PM, just before dark. Not bad for the series of weird issues we had.

 

[r3dd0g]

-Sunday we ran Behind the Rocks. There were a surprising amount of rigs that showed up and after Saturday's adventures I did not want to spend an entire day on the trail. After a discussion with Brent, Shawn and Fred we talked to Scott (Mr. K5 AKA Mr. BlazerBash) and told him I was going to lead a fast group through the trail, down white knuckle then back up and out the way we came. The 4 of us took off from the rest of the group. We were cruising through making good time, came down Skydive and up Upchuck and stopped for a short break. Got back in our rigs and made it 100 or so feet and my front driveshaft CV let go (center ball). This slammed around a bit and cracked the case just past where it was repaired before so my week was over. I put it in two wheel drive, drove to picture frame arch for pictures with the group, then hit the sand dunes on the way back to the highway with Shawn and his Grandpa and headed back in town for lunch and shopping.

Camera settings were fixed at this point

http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/P1060994.jpg /img]
[img]http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/P1060997.JPG

The sand was very soft on the back side of the dunes, I was almost to my hubs even though I was in 2wd. Shawn went up in the Jeep with 4wd, but there was no way I was making it without my front wheels spinning.

Just a reminder, this is only a small fraction of the pictures I uploaded. I have around 600 from this run up on my picture site here: http://www.beastfab.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=47

 

[munepit]

Wow!!!! I really need to make it there sometime!!!! Great pics!!!! Looks like you did a mix of everything!!!

That mangled car is crazy.

Also, about 200 pictures up from here, you were coming out of a really small tunnel. Is that a tunnel? That is awesome!!!!!!

 

[r3dd0g]

Wow!!!! I really need to make it there sometime!!!! Great pics!!!! Looks like you did a mix of everything!!!

That mangled car is crazy.

Also, about 200 pictures up from here, you were coming out of a really small tunnel. Is that a tunnel? That is awesome!!!!!!

It's a mine, we backed into it for the pictures.

 

[ashman]

Looks like you guys made a pretty good week of it. I'd love to spend a week doing all the trails I'm capable of.

It's a mine, we backed into it for the pictures.

LOL, I was wondering the same thing! Great photo op.

 

[mrk5]

It's a mine, we backed into it for the pictures.

Looks like you guys made a pretty good week of it. I'd love to spend a week doing all the trails I'm capable of.

LOL, I was wondering the same thing! Great photo op.

Yeah, I've done that trail and I was bummed out because I didn't remember driving through something like that. Next time I'm going to try and do a poser shot like that.

 

[mrk5]

Whew! Done with "right-click, save-as".

 

[ssyork]

Thanks for sharing some great pics, looks like the s-10 did pretty good. Hope to wheel with you guys again next year.