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Epic overland trip on the way to Blazer Bash - The S-10 is back on the road!
- Thread starter r3dd0g
- Start date
So much awesome!
cool adventure.
Was something leaking on the S10? Looks like something was leaking onto the front axle when you were winching.
Was something leaking on the S10? Looks like something was leaking onto the front axle when you were winching.
The oil cooler lines started to leak about half way through the trip. I think they rub on top of the relocated steering box and after 4 years, they decided to start leaking while I was nowhere near a parts store.
Once I got into Moab I cut the lines and put a hose loop on them to get me home.
Once I got into Moab I cut the lines and put a hose loop on them to get me home.
When we got up we were surprised to find that we actually had quite a scenic campsite:
We talked for a bit, packed up and down the road to Hole in the Rock. We stopped at a plaque on the side of the road with a boy scout emblem and decided to see what it was about:
It was about a bunch of kids dying in a wreck... I guess we shouldn't have been surprised since we were crossing Cadaver Creek...
The next plaque was less depressing:
We couldn't actually find the arch when we stopped here, we spotted it on the way back out, it was tiny and a long ways away:
They sure love gluing plaques to rocks in Utah:
I tried to fly the drone, but it was so windy I was worried a big gust would take it out of the sky:
The video footage I got was boring, so no video. We ate lunch, hiked down a little ways then headed back up the trail. We decided it would be neat to take a side trail up on top of 50 mile bench on the way back out with the plan of hitting the campsites I had spotted the day before for that night. The views up on the bench were awesome:
Stephen's rig was sporting his brand new SAS kit that was pretty much finished the day they left to meet up with us. He stopped a few times to take some marketing pictures:
It makes me want to SAS my DirtyMax:
When we got back down to Hole in the Rock Road, we bumped into some Toyota guys we had seen earlier. They informed me that I left my drone remote back at the end of the trail
... I attempted to drop my trailer prior to heading 25 miles down the trail to retrieve my remote, but it wouldn't cooperate. The hitch pin had ovaled out the hole and created a bur that wouldn't let it slide out... I ran back up the trail while Stephen and Family went to check out Dance Hall Rock and another side trail.
By the time we got back together and back up to Left Hand Collet Road, it was dark again... We took a turn off onto Right Hand Collet Road and found what appeared to be a decent spot and crashed for the night. This was the longest I drove in a single day other than the day driving to Page from home and the day driving home from Moab. I burned 20+ gallons of fuel and we must have done about 200 miles offroad (I had an extra 50).
We talked for a bit, packed up and down the road to Hole in the Rock. We stopped at a plaque on the side of the road with a boy scout emblem and decided to see what it was about:
It was about a bunch of kids dying in a wreck... I guess we shouldn't have been surprised since we were crossing Cadaver Creek...
The next plaque was less depressing:
We couldn't actually find the arch when we stopped here, we spotted it on the way back out, it was tiny and a long ways away:
They sure love gluing plaques to rocks in Utah:
I tried to fly the drone, but it was so windy I was worried a big gust would take it out of the sky:
The video footage I got was boring, so no video. We ate lunch, hiked down a little ways then headed back up the trail. We decided it would be neat to take a side trail up on top of 50 mile bench on the way back out with the plan of hitting the campsites I had spotted the day before for that night. The views up on the bench were awesome:
Stephen's rig was sporting his brand new SAS kit that was pretty much finished the day they left to meet up with us. He stopped a few times to take some marketing pictures:
It makes me want to SAS my DirtyMax:
When we got back down to Hole in the Rock Road, we bumped into some Toyota guys we had seen earlier. They informed me that I left my drone remote back at the end of the trail
... I attempted to drop my trailer prior to heading 25 miles down the trail to retrieve my remote, but it wouldn't cooperate. The hitch pin had ovaled out the hole and created a bur that wouldn't let it slide out... I ran back up the trail while Stephen and Family went to check out Dance Hall Rock and another side trail.By the time we got back together and back up to Left Hand Collet Road, it was dark again... We took a turn off onto Right Hand Collet Road and found what appeared to be a decent spot and crashed for the night. This was the longest I drove in a single day other than the day driving to Page from home and the day driving home from Moab. I burned 20+ gallons of fuel and we must have done about 200 miles offroad (I had an extra 50).
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There's still quite a few days left in the trip. I'll get more pictures up later today and over the weekend.
Sorry for the delay in posting updates, I've been busy.
We got up the next morning and realized we had found another cool campsite in the dark. I wandered around and took pictures and flew the drone around a bit after we were mostly packed up and while Amber was cooking:
Just up on the rocks that surrounded our campsite were petrified dinosaur tracks:
The views from up on the rocks were pretty nice:
When we finished packing, we headed back out to Left Hand Collet Road and headed towards Smokey Mountain Road. We had heard from some other wheelers that this route to Escalante was closed a couple days before, but we decided to see if it had dried out enough to cross. There was some cool erosion on the canyon sides on Left Hand Collet:
We got up to Smokey Mountain Road and headed towards Escalante. About 3/4 of the way there we bumped into a dozer and a grader that were repairing the road, so we new we were good from there on. Unfortunately we didn't seem to take any other pictures for a while. We stopped in Escalante for food and fuel then headed to Boulder, UT.
From Boulder we took the Burr Trail towards the Henry Mountains. The 75 miles of pavement we were on was the most scenic awesome stretch of road I've ever been on. The last 25 miles of the trail were unpaved, which is the only place we stopped to take pictures (sorry). You can see the Henry Mountains in the distance:
We continued on the Burr Trail South to get down to the South end of the Henry Mountains. The landscape went from desert scrub to a bizzare landscape similar to what we saw in Glen Canyon:
We got up the next morning and realized we had found another cool campsite in the dark. I wandered around and took pictures and flew the drone around a bit after we were mostly packed up and while Amber was cooking:
Just up on the rocks that surrounded our campsite were petrified dinosaur tracks:
The views from up on the rocks were pretty nice:
When we finished packing, we headed back out to Left Hand Collet Road and headed towards Smokey Mountain Road. We had heard from some other wheelers that this route to Escalante was closed a couple days before, but we decided to see if it had dried out enough to cross. There was some cool erosion on the canyon sides on Left Hand Collet:
We got up to Smokey Mountain Road and headed towards Escalante. About 3/4 of the way there we bumped into a dozer and a grader that were repairing the road, so we new we were good from there on. Unfortunately we didn't seem to take any other pictures for a while. We stopped in Escalante for food and fuel then headed to Boulder, UT.
From Boulder we took the Burr Trail towards the Henry Mountains. The 75 miles of pavement we were on was the most scenic awesome stretch of road I've ever been on. The last 25 miles of the trail were unpaved, which is the only place we stopped to take pictures (sorry). You can see the Henry Mountains in the distance:
We continued on the Burr Trail South to get down to the South end of the Henry Mountains. The landscape went from desert scrub to a bizzare landscape similar to what we saw in Glen Canyon:
This was one of the numerous crossings that would not have been passable had we been there a few days earlier:
As we were picking trails to get us up into the mountains for a cooler camping location, we came across a washout we weren't willing to cross. It was right at the beginning of the trail and there was another route so we decided to head back and look for a better way. We were hoping to get into camp before dark for once:
We ended up finding a decent spot on the East side of the mountain after cruising around one of the peaks and over a pass. It was a great drive, but once again we covered a ton of miles and we were all ready to stop for the night. I broke out the projector and we watched a movie before calling it a night.
Unfortunately we didn't stop and take a lot of pictures on this day, but here's another drone video from our campsite that morning:
As we were picking trails to get us up into the mountains for a cooler camping location, we came across a washout we weren't willing to cross. It was right at the beginning of the trail and there was another route so we decided to head back and look for a better way. We were hoping to get into camp before dark for once:
We ended up finding a decent spot on the East side of the mountain after cruising around one of the peaks and over a pass. It was a great drive, but once again we covered a ton of miles and we were all ready to stop for the night. I broke out the projector and we watched a movie before calling it a night.
Unfortunately we didn't stop and take a lot of pictures on this day, but here's another drone video from our campsite that morning:
We got up and packed up to get an earlier start than we'd been doing. Today we were going to Moab for Blazer Bash. The one campsite we picked while it was light out was probably the worst one of the trip. Because there had been a fire a number of years ago, there were very few trees, it was windy and none of us got much sleep:
We continued our trek through the Henry Mountains and headed towards Hanksville:
We stopped at a really cool campsite for lunch, there was a spring, running water, trees, a toilet and all kinds of cool stuff. Too bad we didn't take any pictures
.
We headed out of the mountains and into Hanksville where we fueled up. From there we needed to get to Green River, but wanted to do this while staying off the pavement as much as possible. We mapped out a route that looked good and headed into the desert again:
If you've noticed in the pictures I've been posting, the gap between my cab and bed gets bigger as the story progresses. I made a mistake when I mounted my shocks (which have a small bump stop built in to them). The coil springs bind before I ever hit the bump stop, so every time I bottom out it's a solid hit. The weight of all the stuff in the bed and the trailer were slowly taking a toll on the S-10 and when we were on the last leg of our journey to Moab we bottomed out bad. We were following what appeared to be "major" roads in the gazeteer but one of them wasn't very major. We twisted around in a small canyon, crossed a small creek and were cruising slowly along a rutted out trail when I managed to hit a washout that was "invisible" due to lighting. It was about 2 feet deep. The front bounced through with no problem as I was slamming on the brakes the rear dropped in and came to a stop with the trailer solidly bottoming out the rear axle.
We looked at the damage and just continued on in to Moab since there wasn't anything we could do about it at that point. We pulled into our campsite at Moab Rim and ordered pizza from Paradox, set up our beds, unloaded the trailer and crashed for the night. We decided we'd deal with the bent truck in the morning:
We continued our trek through the Henry Mountains and headed towards Hanksville:
We stopped at a really cool campsite for lunch, there was a spring, running water, trees, a toilet and all kinds of cool stuff. Too bad we didn't take any pictures
.We headed out of the mountains and into Hanksville where we fueled up. From there we needed to get to Green River, but wanted to do this while staying off the pavement as much as possible. We mapped out a route that looked good and headed into the desert again:
If you've noticed in the pictures I've been posting, the gap between my cab and bed gets bigger as the story progresses. I made a mistake when I mounted my shocks (which have a small bump stop built in to them). The coil springs bind before I ever hit the bump stop, so every time I bottom out it's a solid hit. The weight of all the stuff in the bed and the trailer were slowly taking a toll on the S-10 and when we were on the last leg of our journey to Moab we bottomed out bad. We were following what appeared to be "major" roads in the gazeteer but one of them wasn't very major. We twisted around in a small canyon, crossed a small creek and were cruising slowly along a rutted out trail when I managed to hit a washout that was "invisible" due to lighting. It was about 2 feet deep. The front bounced through with no problem as I was slamming on the brakes the rear dropped in and came to a stop with the trailer solidly bottoming out the rear axle.
We looked at the damage and just continued on in to Moab since there wasn't anything we could do about it at that point. We pulled into our campsite at Moab Rim and ordered pizza from Paradox, set up our beds, unloaded the trailer and crashed for the night. We decided we'd deal with the bent truck in the morning:
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Awesome! Love these type trips, which reminds me I still need to finish my last trip report.
yep, that S10 looked pretty sad when it rolled in, but I'm sure it's seen more trail than any other S10 by now. Glad it was only from the axle back, not at the cab
We got up in the morning and made a plan, we'd have breakfast at Moab Diner, put Amber in a rental car and I'd hit Moab 4x4 Outpost to see if they could help straighten my frame. After further inspection you could see that the frame had bent right at the coil spring bucket on either side of the frame, this is also when we noticed (Stephen did anyways) that the coils were binding. I tried to convince people that I had a dump bed with bad hydraulics, but nobody would buy it:
You can see the drivers side is bent worse than the passenger side:
Good thing the dogs are dead tired after 12 days of camping and were content to just be left in the cabin to sleep on the bed:
While Amber was doing laundry and shopping, I went to M4O. They couldn't help me, but sent me to Jimmy Foy Collision Repair. I met Jimmy and he told me to come back at 2 and he'd help me out.
I showed up at 2 and Jimmy pretty much let me have free reign in his shop with his crew. He had some concrete anchors in the slab that we chained to my rock sliders, then we put some jack stands under the front of the frame and used a 20 ton air over hydraulic jack under the bumper. We went side to side and pushed the frame up until the cab pretty much touched the bed:
Since the bed was bent to match the frame at this point, we ended up popping the welds on the front bed mounts on both sides of the frame. With the frame somewhat straight I headed back to camp to weld the bed mounts back onto the frame.
With everything back together, all the tools put away, shopping and laundry done we decided to hit the trail. We went out with a few of the Blazer Bash crew (Fred, OGB, and Chris H) we headed down to hit Moab Rim.
Unfortunately, the fun ended quickly... About 500 feet into Moab Rim on the first real obstacle, I popped a chromoly Superior 14 bolt shaft... The break was not what you'd expect. I've broken a stock 14 bolt shaft before and it was quite an event, the shock exploded my Detroit Locker, my ear was ringing and the whole truck jumped (I was on 42s in the old Blazer) when this one snapped it was nothing, I thought the Magnum box just popped out of gear. I put it back in gear and tried to move again only to get yelled at that my rear left wasn't spinning.
We limped off the trail and headed back to camp to figure out what happened. It was getting dark when we got to camp, but I just needed to swap a shaft so I didn't think it would take much time to get back on the trail. We acquired a spare set of stock shafts (thanks Jack!), borrowed a Jack and impact (thanks Chris P!) and borrowed a jack stand (thanks Caitlyn!). The shaft snapped inside the spindle, we pulled out the stub and found out why it broke so easily. At some point for some reason, the shaft rubbed inside the spindle, this wore a grove in the shaft (several) and created a big weld booger inside the spindle. The heat caused by this killed the temper in the shaft which is why it broke so easily. Now the inner half of the shaft was stuck behind the weld booger with no way to remove it. I have an ARB so there is a cross pin and no way to push the shaft out the other side without removing the carrier, which you can't remove because the broken axle can't be pulled out to allow it.
About this time Jimmy stopped by camp to say hi and found us working on the S-10 again. The entire Blazer Bash group kicked in along with multiple trips to Jimmys shop we all worked on finding a way to get the broken part out. The best solution we came up with was to use a hacksaw blade to slide between the shaft and the spindle to slowly cut at the booger. The cheap hacksaw we ended up with wasn't making any progress and the brittle blade broke so it was barely long enough to use at all. At about 11PM or so we called it a night. The S-10 wasn't by my campsite, so we had to put the broken flange back on to hold in the oil and drove it back to our cabin so we could work on it in the morning.
You can see the drivers side is bent worse than the passenger side:
Good thing the dogs are dead tired after 12 days of camping and were content to just be left in the cabin to sleep on the bed:
While Amber was doing laundry and shopping, I went to M4O. They couldn't help me, but sent me to Jimmy Foy Collision Repair. I met Jimmy and he told me to come back at 2 and he'd help me out.
I showed up at 2 and Jimmy pretty much let me have free reign in his shop with his crew. He had some concrete anchors in the slab that we chained to my rock sliders, then we put some jack stands under the front of the frame and used a 20 ton air over hydraulic jack under the bumper. We went side to side and pushed the frame up until the cab pretty much touched the bed:
Since the bed was bent to match the frame at this point, we ended up popping the welds on the front bed mounts on both sides of the frame. With the frame somewhat straight I headed back to camp to weld the bed mounts back onto the frame.
With everything back together, all the tools put away, shopping and laundry done we decided to hit the trail. We went out with a few of the Blazer Bash crew (Fred, OGB, and Chris H) we headed down to hit Moab Rim.
Unfortunately, the fun ended quickly... About 500 feet into Moab Rim on the first real obstacle, I popped a chromoly Superior 14 bolt shaft... The break was not what you'd expect. I've broken a stock 14 bolt shaft before and it was quite an event, the shock exploded my Detroit Locker, my ear was ringing and the whole truck jumped (I was on 42s in the old Blazer) when this one snapped it was nothing, I thought the Magnum box just popped out of gear. I put it back in gear and tried to move again only to get yelled at that my rear left wasn't spinning.
We limped off the trail and headed back to camp to figure out what happened. It was getting dark when we got to camp, but I just needed to swap a shaft so I didn't think it would take much time to get back on the trail. We acquired a spare set of stock shafts (thanks Jack!), borrowed a Jack and impact (thanks Chris P!) and borrowed a jack stand (thanks Caitlyn!). The shaft snapped inside the spindle, we pulled out the stub and found out why it broke so easily. At some point for some reason, the shaft rubbed inside the spindle, this wore a grove in the shaft (several) and created a big weld booger inside the spindle. The heat caused by this killed the temper in the shaft which is why it broke so easily. Now the inner half of the shaft was stuck behind the weld booger with no way to remove it. I have an ARB so there is a cross pin and no way to push the shaft out the other side without removing the carrier, which you can't remove because the broken axle can't be pulled out to allow it.
About this time Jimmy stopped by camp to say hi and found us working on the S-10 again. The entire Blazer Bash group kicked in along with multiple trips to Jimmys shop we all worked on finding a way to get the broken part out. The best solution we came up with was to use a hacksaw blade to slide between the shaft and the spindle to slowly cut at the booger. The cheap hacksaw we ended up with wasn't making any progress and the brittle blade broke so it was barely long enough to use at all. At about 11PM or so we called it a night. The S-10 wasn't by my campsite, so we had to put the broken flange back on to hold in the oil and drove it back to our cabin so we could work on it in the morning.
We got up in the morning and got to work. We went to the hardware store and bough some supplies. Jimmy had left us with some slide hammers and we had a small hole drilled into the end of the shaft from the night before. We picked up a tap and die set from Jimmy and the drill bits required from the hardware store, along with more hacksaw blades.
While everyone else was out wheeling on Friday, Amber and I took turns with the hacksaw blades, cutting away at the weld boogers. Sometimes we'd take a break and attempt to pull the shaft out with the slide hammer, but we weren't making much progress. It was hard to put pressure on the saw blade without it binding so we just slowly cut away at it as the day wore on. We broke the small slide hammer, so I welded up an adapter to allow us to attach the broken part of the small hammer to the big hammer. With the big hammer, we managed to break one of the bigger boogers loose, Amber worked at it with the saw for a while and managed to get it free and out of the spindle. Stephen Watson showed up just as we re-attached the slide hammer and attempted to pull the shaft, it slid all the way out, right up to the point the splines hit the remaining boogers...
This was the Friday of Blazer Bash so it was getting close to time for the BBQ, we decided we wanted to make it to that with the truck and trailer and since the shaft wouldn't come out, it would have to go with us. To prevent further damage, we cut the stub off the broken end of the shaft so we could leave the stuck end of the shaft in the axle tube without it engaging the splines on the diff. The flange was then glued and bolted back in place, we grabbed a shower and headed to the BBQ (late). At this point I was exhausted, my arms, hands and shoulders were sore from the hours and hours of sawing away (I'd estimate 8-10 hours between Amber and myself) and I just wanted to drink and talk with friends for a while. We headed back to the cabin after the BBQ and crashed fairly early so we could go back at it in the morning.
Saturday morning we got right to work, we pulled the shaft out as far as it would go, pulled the shaft from the other side, then pulled the diff cover and dropped out the carrier. At this point we were able to slide the broken piece of shaft out the opposite side and finally see what we had left to clean up. We headed to the hardware store for the umpteenth time and picked up a Dremel with an extension so we could clean it up. We cleaned until we melted the generic sanding drum spindle and decided that was good enough. We test fit a stock shaft, bolted it to the hub and spun it to make sure we weren't getting any contact and everything looked good. Just for fun, we test fit the Superior shaft and discovered that the splines are a bit deeper on it and it wouldn't clear the damaged section of the spindle...
After carefully cleaning out the axle housing, we glued a nice big magnet inside the diff cover, reassembled everything and topped off with oil. We grabbed a quick shower and hit up Milt's for a late lunch on our way to Hell's Revenge. Finally we were back on the trail after what seemed to be an eternity of working on the S-10, we had been in Moab for almost 3 days and had only done about 500 feet of trail...
We stopped up at the Colorado Overlook to snap a couple pictures:
We cruised through the trail up to the crossover point (just before Escalator) and then cut back across to the entrance so we didn't have to take the bumpy exit road. Someone had told us about the dino tracks near the entrance to Hells (right at the overlook for Moab) so we stopped to check them out:
We went ahead and cruised up Potato Salad Hill on our way back to town just because we were so happy to be back on the trail. Then we headed back to camp to find some of the other Blazer Bash attendees to make plans.
I had volunteered to lead a night run here prior to coming out, that was supposed to be Thursday night, but sh*t happened... A few people wanted to do a night run so I lead a small group up Moab Rim in the dark. It's a cool trail, and honestly it's less scary at night because you don't see that you're 2 feet from a 50' cliff... Here's a shot of the Moab lights from the top:
We had been told about the "endless cave" up at the corner of the cliff on top of Moab Rim closest to the Colorado so I went on a hike looking for it. After doing some research the next day, I think I was really close to it, but I didn't want to get that close to the edge at night. We'll have to go searching for it again next year in the daylight.
While everyone else was out wheeling on Friday, Amber and I took turns with the hacksaw blades, cutting away at the weld boogers. Sometimes we'd take a break and attempt to pull the shaft out with the slide hammer, but we weren't making much progress. It was hard to put pressure on the saw blade without it binding so we just slowly cut away at it as the day wore on. We broke the small slide hammer, so I welded up an adapter to allow us to attach the broken part of the small hammer to the big hammer. With the big hammer, we managed to break one of the bigger boogers loose, Amber worked at it with the saw for a while and managed to get it free and out of the spindle. Stephen Watson showed up just as we re-attached the slide hammer and attempted to pull the shaft, it slid all the way out, right up to the point the splines hit the remaining boogers...
This was the Friday of Blazer Bash so it was getting close to time for the BBQ, we decided we wanted to make it to that with the truck and trailer and since the shaft wouldn't come out, it would have to go with us. To prevent further damage, we cut the stub off the broken end of the shaft so we could leave the stuck end of the shaft in the axle tube without it engaging the splines on the diff. The flange was then glued and bolted back in place, we grabbed a shower and headed to the BBQ (late). At this point I was exhausted, my arms, hands and shoulders were sore from the hours and hours of sawing away (I'd estimate 8-10 hours between Amber and myself) and I just wanted to drink and talk with friends for a while. We headed back to the cabin after the BBQ and crashed fairly early so we could go back at it in the morning.
Saturday morning we got right to work, we pulled the shaft out as far as it would go, pulled the shaft from the other side, then pulled the diff cover and dropped out the carrier. At this point we were able to slide the broken piece of shaft out the opposite side and finally see what we had left to clean up. We headed to the hardware store for the umpteenth time and picked up a Dremel with an extension so we could clean it up. We cleaned until we melted the generic sanding drum spindle and decided that was good enough. We test fit a stock shaft, bolted it to the hub and spun it to make sure we weren't getting any contact and everything looked good. Just for fun, we test fit the Superior shaft and discovered that the splines are a bit deeper on it and it wouldn't clear the damaged section of the spindle...
After carefully cleaning out the axle housing, we glued a nice big magnet inside the diff cover, reassembled everything and topped off with oil. We grabbed a quick shower and hit up Milt's for a late lunch on our way to Hell's Revenge. Finally we were back on the trail after what seemed to be an eternity of working on the S-10, we had been in Moab for almost 3 days and had only done about 500 feet of trail...
We stopped up at the Colorado Overlook to snap a couple pictures:
We cruised through the trail up to the crossover point (just before Escalator) and then cut back across to the entrance so we didn't have to take the bumpy exit road. Someone had told us about the dino tracks near the entrance to Hells (right at the overlook for Moab) so we stopped to check them out:
We went ahead and cruised up Potato Salad Hill on our way back to town just because we were so happy to be back on the trail. Then we headed back to camp to find some of the other Blazer Bash attendees to make plans.
I had volunteered to lead a night run here prior to coming out, that was supposed to be Thursday night, but sh*t happened... A few people wanted to do a night run so I lead a small group up Moab Rim in the dark. It's a cool trail, and honestly it's less scary at night because you don't see that you're 2 feet from a 50' cliff... Here's a shot of the Moab lights from the top:
We had been told about the "endless cave" up at the corner of the cliff on top of Moab Rim closest to the Colorado so I went on a hike looking for it. After doing some research the next day, I think I was really close to it, but I didn't want to get that close to the edge at night. We'll have to go searching for it again next year in the daylight.
There was much celebrating and drinking after we got back from the night run. It was the last night of Blazer Bash and we had finally gotten out on the trail, so everything was going great.
Amber had volunteered to be the trail boss for the Powder Puff run on Poison Spider Mesa for Sunday so that would be the only official Blazer Bash trail that we made it on. Luckily we had a relatively late start, so we weren't suffering too bad, I made sure to pack plenty of beer (since I wasn't driving) and we headed out to meet the rest of our group. We talked about the repairs with the other groups that were meeting in the same place and then made our way to the trail head. The doggies were excited to be getting back out on the trail after a few days of resting in the cabin:
We cruised out onto the trail and enjoyed a great day of hanging out with friends and enjoying the awesome Moab weather and scenery:
Brent 3 has been dying to see some pictures of his rig on a trail, so here he is screwing around in the v-notch on Poison Spider:
He got lost and had to back up to get back on the trail...
Amber had volunteered to be the trail boss for the Powder Puff run on Poison Spider Mesa for Sunday so that would be the only official Blazer Bash trail that we made it on. Luckily we had a relatively late start, so we weren't suffering too bad, I made sure to pack plenty of beer (since I wasn't driving) and we headed out to meet the rest of our group. We talked about the repairs with the other groups that were meeting in the same place and then made our way to the trail head. The doggies were excited to be getting back out on the trail after a few days of resting in the cabin:
We cruised out onto the trail and enjoyed a great day of hanging out with friends and enjoying the awesome Moab weather and scenery:
Brent 3 has been dying to see some pictures of his rig on a trail, so here he is screwing around in the v-notch on Poison Spider:
He got lost and had to back up to get back on the trail...
We stopped at Little Arch for lunch and a couple of us took our drones out:
I uploaded a short video from there. If you look on the other side of the Colorado from where we're at, you can see the Moab Rim trail. You start at the small parking lot (visible towards the end of the video) and cruise up right along the cliff to the top of the plateau. It's a cool trail, but seeing it from the other side of the Colorado gives you some perspective of what you're driving on.
I blaze new trails, I don't get lost 
All that talk I was hearing from others about twisting stuff up on V-notch sounded fun
All that talk I was hearing from others about twisting stuff up on V-notch sounded fun
That was the last day of Blazer Bash and the last day of our vacation. Now all we had to do was drive 500 miles home...
We got back to the cabin after the trail run and started packing. We hooked up the trailer, loaded the majority of our stuff (we still had to sleep in the cabin) and said our goodbyes to the people that were still there. We crashed for the night so we could get up early and head home.
We got up early, finished our packing and headed out. It was a long drive and we knew we'd have to stop frequently (17 gallon tank and ~10mpg on the highway). We stopped in Bluff to grab some caffeine and fuel, that's when we realized that wheeling on the already weakened frame caused it to twist again. The tailgate had popped open and my drone case was sitting on the tailgate inches from falling off onto the highway with memory cards and everything....
After fueling up we put everything back in the bed of the truck and threw a ratchet strap on to hold the tailgate shut and headed out again. We certainly lucked out on that one...
We stopped again in Kayenta for fuel and food and continued on our way. We decided to power through Bluff and continue on to Flagstaff (I had 10 gallons of fuel in the trailer if we miscalculated fuel mileage). About 20 minutes outside of Tuba City, I pushed in the clutch and tried to shift... It wouldn't go into gear, I pumped the clutch and tried again, nothing... another pump and I felt a "pop" and the clutch went to the floor, at least at this point I new I just had a hydraulic issue. I didn't even stop, I just matched revs and popped it in gear without disengaging the clutch. I told Amber what was going on and that we'd deal with it in Flag.
We stopped in Flag for fuel, I popped the hood and saw the lack of brake fluid so I sent Amber in to get more (and more caffeine). Unfortunately, they were out of brake fluid, but fortunately there was caffeine. I made the decision to power on to Payson (where we planned to stop for food anyways). At this point most people have asked me how I managed to drive without being able to disengage the clutch... If you don't know click here: http://bfy.tw/7xU5
We pulled into Payson and stopped for fuel again, when we pulled in I heard some screaming coming from the truck. We had heard it prior to this on the trail and I just figured it was an idler pully that was pissed off about all the mud and water, however it was much louder now. I decided I'd deal with it if it seized up on the now short journey home, but otherwise I was just going to keep on truckin'. We swung through the Autozone to pick up brake fluid since I was hoping it would be an easy fix so I could use the clutch tho help deal with rush hour traffic in Phoenix. Unfortunately after I added fluid and pumped the clutch, it just spit the fluid out the bellhousing...
We stopped for a late lunch at our favorite restaurant in Payson (Macky's Grill) and headed for home. Somehow, even dealing with rush hour on the 101, I managed to drive from Payson to my driveway while only shutting the truck off twice.
We got back to the cabin after the trail run and started packing. We hooked up the trailer, loaded the majority of our stuff (we still had to sleep in the cabin) and said our goodbyes to the people that were still there. We crashed for the night so we could get up early and head home.
We got up early, finished our packing and headed out. It was a long drive and we knew we'd have to stop frequently (17 gallon tank and ~10mpg on the highway). We stopped in Bluff to grab some caffeine and fuel, that's when we realized that wheeling on the already weakened frame caused it to twist again. The tailgate had popped open and my drone case was sitting on the tailgate inches from falling off onto the highway with memory cards and everything....
After fueling up we put everything back in the bed of the truck and threw a ratchet strap on to hold the tailgate shut and headed out again. We certainly lucked out on that one...
We stopped again in Kayenta for fuel and food and continued on our way. We decided to power through Bluff and continue on to Flagstaff (I had 10 gallons of fuel in the trailer if we miscalculated fuel mileage). About 20 minutes outside of Tuba City, I pushed in the clutch and tried to shift... It wouldn't go into gear, I pumped the clutch and tried again, nothing... another pump and I felt a "pop" and the clutch went to the floor, at least at this point I new I just had a hydraulic issue. I didn't even stop, I just matched revs and popped it in gear without disengaging the clutch. I told Amber what was going on and that we'd deal with it in Flag.
We stopped in Flag for fuel, I popped the hood and saw the lack of brake fluid so I sent Amber in to get more (and more caffeine). Unfortunately, they were out of brake fluid, but fortunately there was caffeine. I made the decision to power on to Payson (where we planned to stop for food anyways). At this point most people have asked me how I managed to drive without being able to disengage the clutch... If you don't know click here: http://bfy.tw/7xU5
We pulled into Payson and stopped for fuel again, when we pulled in I heard some screaming coming from the truck. We had heard it prior to this on the trail and I just figured it was an idler pully that was pissed off about all the mud and water, however it was much louder now. I decided I'd deal with it if it seized up on the now short journey home, but otherwise I was just going to keep on truckin'. We swung through the Autozone to pick up brake fluid since I was hoping it would be an easy fix so I could use the clutch tho help deal with rush hour traffic in Phoenix. Unfortunately after I added fluid and pumped the clutch, it just spit the fluid out the bellhousing...
We stopped for a late lunch at our favorite restaurant in Payson (Macky's Grill) and headed for home. Somehow, even dealing with rush hour on the 101, I managed to drive from Payson to my driveway while only shutting the truck off twice.
