Dominic
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Salt Lake City
Grand start to Jeep season:
As the weather gets warmer and days get longer the spring fever itch sets in. Staring out the windows at work longing to be outside quitting time cannot come fast enough. For the friends of the four wheel drive community that also means time to finish our winter projects and gear up for another four wheeling season.
I decided to kick off my four wheeling season with the weekend run to Moab. My girlfriend Mindy and I had originally been planning on flying solo but at the last minute were able to add Tyler Anderson from CrawlerReady.com and his better half to our mix.
Friday March 20th, we pulled into Moab from Salt Lake City around 7:00 pm Mindy and I headed to Motel six and got ourselves situated and prepped the Jeep for a weekend of fun. Tyler and Hailey headed up Kane Creek to set up camp. It was a pretty busy weekend in town, the Moab half Marathon was taking place on Saturday so everything was a little busy. We shot up to help Tyler set up camp and have a little bbq before departing on a night run. After a most delicious Hawaiian burger courtesy of Tyler we awoke his Grand Cherokee from its slumber and backed it off the trailer.
It seemed like a good idea at the time…. We headed out on a night run up Hell’s revenge around midnight. Everything went about as smooth as it could however as the evening wore on our good spirits began to drift as a full workday, 4 hour drive and the end of a long week set in. Tyler was having some issues with his rear coil springs, at full flex his bump stop wasn’t quite long enough to hold the spring in so after popping it in for him three or four times he started to choose lines that would keep it in place.
It’s pretty easy to lose your way in the darkness of the night on Hell’s as many of us know, although we never became lost we missed a few turns here and there. We began to push a little harder trying to get to the exit as 2 a.m. drew closer. We made it out safe however Tyler’s co-pilot was having a little trouble with some motion sickness. I suppose first time rock crawling in the night will do that to you.
Saturday March 21, we chose to sleep in a little since its spring and Moab doesn’t get to hot there was no urgency to start out super early. We met at City Market at 10 a.m. grabbed some goodies for the cooler and headed out to Gemini bridges for some quick sight seeing and then onto Metal Masher. As if it knew the abuse it was about to endure Tyler’s rig blew a hydro assist line out of terror. Or perhaps it was just a cracked fitting; it’s still up for debate. We replaced the line and bled the steering and set in to a fantastic day on Metal Masher. Just around the first bend we discovered that steering lines hold fluid a lot better when they are tightened down. So again Tyler dove out of his Jeep to correct the problem. So now we were finally on our way.
We picked our way through the trail no problem we took the proper detours to have some fun on Rock Chucker before stopping at the overlook to have lunch. Tyler and I both made the mistake of giving up our driver’s seats to the girls only to find out that they were both naturals and handled the rigs fantastically. The challenge for the rest of the weekend would be talking them into letting us drive. The girls drove up to the base of widow maker’s entrance and they let Tyler and I take the wheel so we could have some fun on Widow Maker.
It seems like every year the road up to Widow Maker becomes more traitorous, the off camber section towards the top as you teeter on the chicken wire, steal gate, and rocks shoved into the crevasse below is in my opinion scarier than widow Maker its self. Widow Maker also is getting steeper every year as it becomes more and more dug out at the bottom. Despite the extreme angles both ZJ’s walked right up it with no problems and limited tire chirping. The girls took us the rest of the way out and stopped to play on Mother in law hill before we headed out to highway 313 to put a cap on a fantastic Saturday in Moab.
After a short nap and discovering we all got a lot more sun than we thought we met for dinner at La Hacienda and went our separate ways to catch up on some sleep.
Sunday March 4, it’s sort of a tradition to start Sunday’s with breakfast at The Jailhouse with a plate of Soul food bacon and a tall glass of fresh squeezed Juice. We ended up waiting and hour but it was worth it.
With our bellies full we decided on a quick run up Poison Spider. Tyler and I did almost nothing cool all day as our girlfriends both commandeered our vehicles and handled the big obstacles on Poison spider. Once they got us up to the overlook we were greeted by massive wind gusts that claimed the life of Tyler’s new hat and just about swept us away as well. Although it was a great day on the trail we tried to rush our before the rain clouds and dust storms got any worse. We stopped to play on some big walls for a bit and continued down the trail to load up and break camp.
Mindy and I parted ways with Tyler and Hailey and set off for home. We made the ever important stop for some dinner at Ray’s tavern in Green River which was fantastic as always. We motored home with looming clouds over head we had some pretty bad snow over the top of Soldier summit and on down Spanish fork canyon. At times the crawl of 40 mph wasn’t enough to see the road in front of me. The highway was fairly desolate and as passing cars would fade into the darkness beyond me my headlights would only illuminate the giant snowflakes making seeing anything impossible. We finally made it out of the dark abyss and into Happy Valley and on our way home.
A great time was had by all and we have the pictures to prove it. Who is down for another trip in two weeks?
As the weather gets warmer and days get longer the spring fever itch sets in. Staring out the windows at work longing to be outside quitting time cannot come fast enough. For the friends of the four wheel drive community that also means time to finish our winter projects and gear up for another four wheeling season.
I decided to kick off my four wheeling season with the weekend run to Moab. My girlfriend Mindy and I had originally been planning on flying solo but at the last minute were able to add Tyler Anderson from CrawlerReady.com and his better half to our mix.
Friday March 20th, we pulled into Moab from Salt Lake City around 7:00 pm Mindy and I headed to Motel six and got ourselves situated and prepped the Jeep for a weekend of fun. Tyler and Hailey headed up Kane Creek to set up camp. It was a pretty busy weekend in town, the Moab half Marathon was taking place on Saturday so everything was a little busy. We shot up to help Tyler set up camp and have a little bbq before departing on a night run. After a most delicious Hawaiian burger courtesy of Tyler we awoke his Grand Cherokee from its slumber and backed it off the trailer.
It seemed like a good idea at the time…. We headed out on a night run up Hell’s revenge around midnight. Everything went about as smooth as it could however as the evening wore on our good spirits began to drift as a full workday, 4 hour drive and the end of a long week set in. Tyler was having some issues with his rear coil springs, at full flex his bump stop wasn’t quite long enough to hold the spring in so after popping it in for him three or four times he started to choose lines that would keep it in place.
It’s pretty easy to lose your way in the darkness of the night on Hell’s as many of us know, although we never became lost we missed a few turns here and there. We began to push a little harder trying to get to the exit as 2 a.m. drew closer. We made it out safe however Tyler’s co-pilot was having a little trouble with some motion sickness. I suppose first time rock crawling in the night will do that to you.
Saturday March 21, we chose to sleep in a little since its spring and Moab doesn’t get to hot there was no urgency to start out super early. We met at City Market at 10 a.m. grabbed some goodies for the cooler and headed out to Gemini bridges for some quick sight seeing and then onto Metal Masher. As if it knew the abuse it was about to endure Tyler’s rig blew a hydro assist line out of terror. Or perhaps it was just a cracked fitting; it’s still up for debate. We replaced the line and bled the steering and set in to a fantastic day on Metal Masher. Just around the first bend we discovered that steering lines hold fluid a lot better when they are tightened down. So again Tyler dove out of his Jeep to correct the problem. So now we were finally on our way.
We picked our way through the trail no problem we took the proper detours to have some fun on Rock Chucker before stopping at the overlook to have lunch. Tyler and I both made the mistake of giving up our driver’s seats to the girls only to find out that they were both naturals and handled the rigs fantastically. The challenge for the rest of the weekend would be talking them into letting us drive. The girls drove up to the base of widow maker’s entrance and they let Tyler and I take the wheel so we could have some fun on Widow Maker.
It seems like every year the road up to Widow Maker becomes more traitorous, the off camber section towards the top as you teeter on the chicken wire, steal gate, and rocks shoved into the crevasse below is in my opinion scarier than widow Maker its self. Widow Maker also is getting steeper every year as it becomes more and more dug out at the bottom. Despite the extreme angles both ZJ’s walked right up it with no problems and limited tire chirping. The girls took us the rest of the way out and stopped to play on Mother in law hill before we headed out to highway 313 to put a cap on a fantastic Saturday in Moab.
After a short nap and discovering we all got a lot more sun than we thought we met for dinner at La Hacienda and went our separate ways to catch up on some sleep.
Sunday March 4, it’s sort of a tradition to start Sunday’s with breakfast at The Jailhouse with a plate of Soul food bacon and a tall glass of fresh squeezed Juice. We ended up waiting and hour but it was worth it.
With our bellies full we decided on a quick run up Poison Spider. Tyler and I did almost nothing cool all day as our girlfriends both commandeered our vehicles and handled the big obstacles on Poison spider. Once they got us up to the overlook we were greeted by massive wind gusts that claimed the life of Tyler’s new hat and just about swept us away as well. Although it was a great day on the trail we tried to rush our before the rain clouds and dust storms got any worse. We stopped to play on some big walls for a bit and continued down the trail to load up and break camp.
Mindy and I parted ways with Tyler and Hailey and set off for home. We made the ever important stop for some dinner at Ray’s tavern in Green River which was fantastic as always. We motored home with looming clouds over head we had some pretty bad snow over the top of Soldier summit and on down Spanish fork canyon. At times the crawl of 40 mph wasn’t enough to see the road in front of me. The highway was fairly desolate and as passing cars would fade into the darkness beyond me my headlights would only illuminate the giant snowflakes making seeing anything impossible. We finally made it out of the dark abyss and into Happy Valley and on our way home.
A great time was had by all and we have the pictures to prove it. Who is down for another trip in two weeks?
Last edited:
But it didn't happen without pics 
