En Route to Moab...

[J.C.]

You're killing me GREAT pics.

Guess you can get the CA bracket welded somewhere out there?

 

[ghost]

You're killing me GREAT pics.

Guess you can get the CA bracket welded somewhere out there?

Read much?

Cmoore welded up my control arm mount this afternoon, so we are ready to rock and roll for the Behind the Rocks run in the orning. Now we just need this storm moving in to hold out for a few more hours....

 

[REDLYNER]

Long day on the trail yesterday, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep while my wife was uploading the pics from the camera. Then this morning was so crazy between packing up, re-welding my control arm mount (broke again on Behind the Rocks), and playing at the vendor show I am just now getting to updating the trip thread (at 420 miles down the road to home).

All week long everyone was talking about how Behind the Rocks was their favorite trail in Moab. We were scheduled to run it on Thursday, but I have been worried about the weather ruining it because of "severe unpredictable snow storms moving in" on what day? Yep, Thursday. We checked the weather everyday and as late as Wednesday evening it showed snow and rain with high winds on Thursday.

When we got up it was 26 degrees, but no snow! The sun was out so we loaded up our gear (and by gear I mean PB&Js, Pringles, and Gatorades) and headed out. We met up with the caravan and rolled out to the trail entrance..... all 43 rigs of us!

It was a very long 8 or 9 hour day, but with a small group, this would easily be my favorite public trail in Moab. Charles Wells rates it as the hardest trail out here and I would say it is a toss up between it and Pritchett. We made it through all of the obstacles without a scratch. A broken CA mount doesn't count as a scratch, right??

We did get blasted with white-out conditions in the middle of the day, but the crazy thing is that the snow storm moved in right before we stopped for lunch and passed an hour later. Since we stop for an hour for lunch, we basically avoided the whole storm. The sun came back out, dried off the rocks and we continued on!

Here are a couple of shots from the day-

The "Terra Cotta Warriors" on one of the canyon rims:

Here we are coming down High Dive:

A built CJ dropping off High Dive:

Next obstacle was Upchuck Hill, that pop I heard was the lower control arm mount ripping:

Stopped for lunch at Picture Frame Arch and the snow decided to fall. It was so bad that I70 was closed down on Friday morning:

Snowed cleared up and we headed over to White Knuckle Hill. Here is Melody and I in front the 8 foot vertical drop:

Getting ready to drop:

Right about now White Knuckle Hill is earning its name:

This was an epic adventure to say the least! I'll post up some more pics and some of the crazy things we saw a little later in our remaining 30 hours of driving (we just passed 8 hours).

 

[sammi_davis]

Behind the rocks is the only trail I havent run . I have been to the base of White Knuckle and pictures dont do it justice . Thanks for posting all the pics .

 

[J.C.]

And epic pics Counting down - 12 days

 

[REDLYNER]

I would be intrested in what you spent fuel wise once you get back if you dont mind sharing.

Just thought I would post a couple of interesting stats from the trip (travel times includes time spent filling up, eating, and site seeing)-

Drive out:
Day 1
Charlotte to Tupelo, MS with a 2 hour dinner brake with family. 11 hours
Day 2
Tupelo, MS to Amarillo, TX. 16 hours
Day 3
Amarillo, TX to Moab, UT. 13 hours

Total travel time was 40 hours and we made 16 stops for gas.
Gas total: $692


Drive back:
Day 9
Moab, UT to Tucumcari, NM (left Moab at 2:00pm MST). 9 hours
Day 10
Tucumcari, NM to West Memphis, AR. 12 hours
Day 11
West Memphis, AR to Charlotte, NC. 12 hours

Total travel time was 33 hours and we made 11 stops for gas.
Gas total: $458

So we were much more efficient driving home than driving out. We also went through Tennessee instead of MS/AL/GA/SC.

Since Moab is mostly trail driving, we filled up each night out there as well. Total gas fill-ups were 30 and total gas spend was $1,248.

Excluding Moab driving, we clocked roughly 4,200 miles and 73 hours of travel time round trip.

The crazy thing is it felt like we had more room in the H3 coming home vs driving out, yet we were 160+lbs heavier due to these 5 boxes :

We will start working on the video here shortly. Hopefully it came out as well as the pictures.

 

[chromerunner]

I Hate you...............Haha Very cool and Extremley FUN looking Trip! Cant wait to get out there one day. Nice pics.

 

[burrellsjeep]

x2 that, But in a good way

 

[Dylan W.]

Very cool trip! Thanks for taking us along