Author Topic: Moab - March 22 thru 27 (Read 7089 times)

blackdiamond · « **on:** Feb 16, 2015, 12:25:28 PM »

I have a trip planned to Moab in March and the second truck was forced to cancel. I am currently working on plan B and am interested to know if anyone else is planning to be in Moab that week. Admittedly, I am a bit of a wheeling snob and generally work to avoid wheeling with people that keep throttle and beer high on their list of priorities when wheeling. I also want reliable rigs to minimize the risk of trail repairs. I don't drive from Washington State to work on broken rigs. I build tough and wheel smart to maximize my wheeling time. Let me know if you are going to be in town if you think we could have fun wheeling together.

SqWADoosh · « **Reply #1 on:** Feb 17, 2015, 06:51:17 PM »

Quote from: blackdiamond on Feb 16, 2015, 12:25:28 PM

I have a trip planned to Moab in March and the second truck was forced to cancel. I am currently working on plan B and am interested to know if anyone else is planning to be in Moab that week. Admittedly, I am a bit of a wheeling snob and generally work to avoid wheeling with people that keep throttle and beer high on their list of priorities when wheeling. I also want reliable rigs to minimize the risk of trail repairs. I don't drive from Washington State to work on broken rigs. I build tough and wheel smart to maximize my wheeling time. Let me know if you are going to be in town if you think we could have fun wheeling together.

I'm taking my club out of Washington to Moab in September if you would like to come with us then.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #2 on:** Feb 18, 2015, 11:38:44 AM »

Quote from: SqWADoosh on Feb 17, 2015, 06:51:17 PM

I'm taking my club out of Washington to Moab in September if you would like to come with us then.

SqWADoosh - I appreciate the offer. My opportunities to get to Moab are very limited these days. This trip is scheduled to overlap with my in-laws spring break (they are teachers) so that my wife will have help with the kids while I'm gone. I used to go every year, then it was every other year, and now with kids it's a rare event. We wanted to do a family trip this year, but after looking at the logistics and cost it isn't worth it yet with a 3 year old and 2-1/2 year old that really wouldn't enjoy the trip yet. Both kids would love the wheeling in short bursts, but a week in Moab would be asking a lot.

SqWADoosh · « **Reply #3 on:** Feb 18, 2015, 11:42:48 AM »

Quote from: blackdiamond on Feb 18, 2015, 11:38:44 AM

SqWADoosh - I appreciate the offer. My opportunities to get to Moab are very limited these days. This trip is scheduled to overlap with my in-laws spring break (they are teachers) so that my wife will have help with the kids while I'm gone. I used to go every year, then it was every other year, and now with kids it's a rare event. We wanted to do a family trip this year, but after looking at the logistics and cost it isn't worth it yet with a 3 year old and 2-1/2 year old that really wouldn't enjoy the trip yet. Both kids would love the wheeling in short bursts, but a week in Moab would be asking a lot.

I understand man. Well hey I don't know if you are part of a club locally but we'd love to have you come to a local run. Check us out:

www.facebook.com/washingtonwetwheelers

blackdiamond · « **Reply #4 on:** Feb 18, 2015, 11:45:10 AM »

Where is your club based out of? I may be interested in a year or two when my son is old enough to really have fun wheeling. He's been wheeling for a full day once and had a great time even though we were stuck fixing a Jeep for several hours and he was confined to the 4Runner because the terrain wasn't a great place for a little guy to be running around.

It appears that you have answered my question already...

blackdiamond · « **Reply #5 on:** Feb 21, 2015, 04:38:25 PM »

Looks like Cranky Crawler is back in for most of this trip!

CrankyCrawler · « **Reply #6 on:** Feb 22, 2015, 07:19:34 AM »

Im back in!

blackdiamond · « **Reply #7 on:** Feb 22, 2015, 07:47:51 PM »

It appears that that we are suddenly back up to three trucks for this trip. We might even have four for Sunday and Monday and then three trucks on Tuesday and then two on Wednesday and Thursday. I will try to post our trail list on this thread in case anyone else has interest in crossing paths on the trails or avoiding us!

blackdiamond · « **Reply #8 on:** Mar 14, 2015, 01:00:18 PM »

This trip is about to get real. This tomorrow is my last day to get everything packed and ready. Only four more days of work.

I got an iPhone from my sister-in-law that has a camera in it so I should be able to post some pictures while on the trip. I can't have a camera at work so my iPhone is blind.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #9 on:** Mar 19, 2015, 11:19:23 AM »

I am off of work officially in less than 30 minutes (sick kid at home that needs me so mommy can go to work) and I head out tomorrow afternoon. I will try to update this thread throughout the week if postig pictures from my iPhone works smoothly. I don't know if it will resize them automatically or not. Will test it later today.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #10 on:** Mar 21, 2015, 09:46:48 PM »

About 19.5 hours on the road over two days is all it took to be in Moab tonight. The fun starts tomorrow.

The 4Runner ran great and we managed to roll between 70 and 80 mph for a lot of the trip.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #11 on:** Mar 30, 2015, 07:35:15 PM »

Today was back to work for me. While in Moab I ran the first and last sections of Fins & Things on Sunday morning and then the Moab Rim (to the rim only) in the afternoon. On Monday we did Sevenmile Rim and then the Pickle. Tuesday was the majority of Poison Spider and then the Golden Spike to just past Skyline Drive to Where Eagles Dare intersects. We did the South section of Where Eagles Dare before returning via the Spike. On Wednesday we did the Rusty Nail and the. Returned via the Spike and Gold Bar Rim. Thursday was a portion of Behind the Rocks. We skipped White Knuckle.

I am working to get the collection of pictures and will then post them.

SqWADoosh · « **Reply #12 on:** Mar 30, 2015, 07:51:48 PM »

Quote from: blackdiamond on Mar 30, 2015, 07:35:15 PM

Today was back to work for me. While in Moab I ran the first and last sections of Fins & Things on Sunday morning and then the Moab Rim (to the rim only) in the afternoon. On Monday we did Sevenmile Rim and then the Pickle. Tuesday was the majority of Poison Spider and then the Golden Spike to just past Skyline Drive to Where Eagles Dare intersects. We did the South section of Where Eagles Dare before returning via the Spike. On Wednesday we did the Rusty Nail and the. Returned via the Spike and Gold Bar Rim. Thursday was a portion of Behind the Rocks. We skipped White Knuckle.

I am working to get the collection of pictures and will then post them.

I enjoyed following the trip on Facebook. Hopefully some of those videos you have you can get uploaded in non potato quality!

blackdiamond · « **Reply #13 on:** Mar 31, 2015, 09:02:15 AM »

Quote from: SqWADoosh on Mar 30, 2015, 07:51:48 PM

I enjoyed following the trip on Facebook. Hopefully some of those videos you have you can get uploaded in non potato quality!

I think it should be possible. Everything in Moab was being done via iPhone transfer and the files are now being passed using OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. I think some of the issues may be because my 4s doesn't play well with the HD capability of the 5 and 6 models.

I didn't take nearly ss many notes for you as I wanted, but when I was out of service it made FB difficult and using other methods wasn't motivational.

I did look at trails a little bit differently with your group in mind. You are going to have so much fun even if you only wheel the easier trails. It is all just great!

SqWADoosh · « **Reply #14 on:** Mar 31, 2015, 09:37:38 AM »

Currently thinking this:

1st Day: Finns & Things followed by Hells Revenge
2nd Day: PSM + Golden Spike + Gold Bar Rim
3rd Day: Kane Creek
4th Day: Moab Rim
5th Day: Non/light wheeling day with a trip to either Arches or Canyonlands
6th Day: Elephant Hill
7th Day: Pack up and head home

blackdiamond · « **Reply #15 on:** Apr 16, 2015, 08:34:11 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXPy6OEL-uI

Here is a link to a video done on the Pickle Trail during the 2015 Jeep Safari that was a week after we ran the trail. I'm working on uploading a couple of videos from our trip to YouTube as well for comparison. I know that during the Jeep Safari they have very limited time to play around because of the number of Jeeps and they are quick to use the strap, but from the many videos that I have watched it sure looks like most Jeep drivers take a careful approach and then when they don't make it the first time they use the throttle and try to bounce their way up. This video is a great example of that. It's 37 minutes long so feel free to watch it all or just sample it.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #16 on:** Apr 16, 2015, 08:36:36 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zTPLI5KevY

Here is CrankyCrawler finding his line. You'll notice that we took a line that was quite a bit farther right than most of the Jeeps and went over the highest ledge. This was sort of counterintuitive and wasn't our first approach, but it worked great for all three of us.

blackdiamond · « **Reply #17 on:** Apr 16, 2015, 08:56:44 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IbMAL2GV84

Here is my going out the exit. I had the advantage of spotting for Rob and Bill ahead of me so I knew exactly what I needed to do. The right side of the bottom ledge looks easy but neither Bill nor I made it up that line. Rob's longer long bed wheelbase went right up. I had to try it for myself. I paused briefly before going up the second ledge to shift from 1st Ultimate to 1st 4.70:1 because a little momentum was required. You'll see in the Jeep Safari video that I posted previously how hard a few of them hit it, yikes.

For the record, I'm not intending to bash Jeeps or Jeep owners. There are a lot of nice rigs in the video and obviously different levels of experience at the wheel. Because they don't have the really low gears it seems that a lot of Jeep owners give up on crawling pretty quickly and go for the throttle. Several of the Jeeps have really short wheelbases and bouncy suspension which would scare the pants off of me!

jangelfire · « **Reply #18 on:** Apr 16, 2015, 09:18:39 PM »

Love those vids! SLOW MOTION FO MEH!! thats awesome!

jangelfire · « **Reply #19 on:** Apr 16, 2015, 09:20:36 PM »

Dual cases ROCK!

blackdiamond · « **Reply #20 on:** Apr 25, 2015, 09:46:54 AM »

Here is an old video of me on a little hill on Hells Revenge. I don't often push my rigs this hard just to make it up something, but this one got under my skin a bit so I just relied on my heavy duty parts to survive the bouncing. It is steep enough that my rear number would hit when I bounced back down and a few things bounced out the back. This was my successful climb.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2NHTwd6NDU0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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