Moab 1!

Once again, I am updating this way after I should have. Oh well! This year, with 7 rigs up from Oregon arriving on Saturday, we were ready to haul off to Moab first thing Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning we packed up our backyard camp and headed south from SLC. We got to Moab in the early afternoon, so we quickly unloaded everything, set up the Jeeps, and met up with the group. In order to accommodate the Moab 1st timers in the group, we made Fins-N-Things our first trail. We all had a great time, learned that a new long arm suspension kit needs spring keepers, and headed back for dinner.

Monday was a whole new experience. We began the day on Hells Revenge. Not only is HR without a doubt my favorite trail, but it was also a treat for me to watch one of our guys in his FJ Cruiser. I have never really had any respect for the FJ's, but after this trip I can definitely see why people love them. They're expensive, but really can perform pretty well.

Back to the trail - The highlight of our Hells Revenge run was without a doubt "Hells Gate". I had not done "Hells Gate" before this trip, and loved watching everyone do it. The problem was that I was watching from from the bottom where I was already committed. The line I took really made it feel easy, but it was clear that a slight variation from that line would cause fear and screaming! The trick is definitely to straddle the crack all the way up, hugging the right side a bit, and then pulling left just as it plateaus before the top. All in all, it was a great run with plenty of challenges for all. The only issue we had was a broken leaf spring on a YJ.

We topped off Monday night with a little night trip to "Baby Lions Back" and the back half of "Fins-N-Things". We surprisingly had a break down about halfway through "Fins-N-Things". One of our CJ's ended up blowing a u-joint in his front axle, and because that issue had been around so long it actually broke the inner and outer axles.

Fixes:
For the broken spring, we simply welded it back together, welded a small piece of a spring to the top of it, and made new spring keeping brackets to hold the whole assembly together. Our little trail fix seemed to hold real well. We were able to wheel the rest of the trip with this fix, and then when he got it home the driver was able to order some military wrap springs .
As for the broken front axle on out CJ, there really wasn't anything we could do other than replace the inner and outer axles, and then replace the u-joint with a stronger one. Oh the joys of bigger tires and adrenaline pumping trails.

Moab Bound

Every Jeeper has to go to Moab sometime in their life. Well, It's only a couple of weeks after Easter Jeep Safari and the going is good for a trip to Moab. The trails are clean and dry, the huge crowds have left, and there's nothing left but great proving grounds. Every year we get a good sized group down to Moab for the last week in April, and that week is coming up fast.

I've wheeled all over Utah and Oregon and without a doubt, Moab has the challenge, scenery and fun to beat out any other series of trails I have found. Anyone with the time off and desire should meet me in Moab. We're running our first trail on monday morning. We'll be at the 'Hells Revenge' trailhead by 9:00. Hope to see you there. After the trip I'll post more about each trail and how the week went.