If you need me to I could bring my sxs down and keep trying to pass you on slow obstacles so you get the true Moab experience?
So Friday... haven’t seen ANYONE on trails but a few tow rigs at the parking lot with cool exhaust tips and lots of big rear window stickers. Alan Taylor and I left the north Moab Maverick at 12:45. Ran all the way out to Kane Creek trailhead and run into three sxs. I gesture to them to mosey ahead and they did.
We mosey along and keep catching up to them and they tear off like we are the law chasing after them when we get 50-100 yards away. We finally catch up to them at the stock fence gate that crosses the trail and they actually leave it open for us and wave us through. Mind you, my Jeep is doing 5-10 mph max on a trail like this. My Rocklogic odd inventory front shocks are so gassed it doesn’t seem like I have much damping left at all. They’ve definitely served their time.
We exchange pleasantries as we pass and get comments that they’re not sure how we are keeping up with them. We explain we are just pre-running for EJS and move on past.
Kane is a pretty long trail and just keeps on beating on you and your rig as you run it. After the creek crossings it always seemed to me you basically jumped right to hamburger hill. This is not so. There’s likely a mile plus between the last creek crossing and hamburger hill. Just as we start climbing out of the canyon bottom my engine shuts off. Fires right back up but this stalling is pretty unusual for the normally reliable TBI. I had it so that to me a couple times two weeks before when I started down a hill without any throttle at all. I thought I had bad gas (I ate at Fiesta Mexicana the night before) or something. I have fresh gas and am now a little concerned but press on. Alan’s Brute is reliable as a brick and we just keep pressing on.
I’m literally at the corner of hamburger hill and my Jeep stalls again. This time it won’t restart. I shut off my cooling fan and listen for fuel from the pump circulating through the system. Nothing circulating. We have about 8-10 motorcycles come down the canyon and pass us as I am starting to take off my false floor above my fuel tank. I jiggle the wiring harness at the tank and hear the fuel start pumping... Found the issue. I find a 16 year old hack trail fix where the harness passes close to the body (silicone insulation/glue) from my first trip ever to Moab in the rig 16 years ago. Thinking I’ve found and “fixed” the issue with newer electrical tape I resolve to look carefully at that harness once I get back to town. Good deal, let's complete the trail and fix the issue in comfort later.
I fire the Jeep up and drive about 8-10’ and it shuts down again. Hrrrmmmm. Back to the harness. I’m just poking around on the harness and find a black wire that’s mostly loose. Just hanging onto a screw into the top of the frame by one or two strands still connected to a cheap, shitty electrical ring connector. I now remember putting this connector in place and screwing the ring to the frame 16+ years ago when my kids and I got the TBI engine running. I might have even let one of the boys crimp the connection?
I fumbled around in my daughter organized Jeep for an electrical bag that would have a new ring terminal. I have no idea where that cute little bag for organized to but I can’t find it.
By this time, the SXS guys have caught back up to us and are helping. The one guy strips my wire a bit and tells me he’s fixed me up. He’s strung the wire remnant to the remaining ring terminal through the loop. His fix will work and I just screw the ring terminal back into frame. Jeep fires up and we head up the hill.
The first real obstacle on Hamburger Hill is actually more difficult than it looks. There’s a rock fin that sticks out into a wall that looks climbable but the wall itself is just full of black rubber marks. My son and flopped my Jeep there about 5-6 years ago by not following my instructions. There’s an easier line to the far left but it’s about 1-2’ from the edge of the trail and a very uncomfortable situation if that’s poorly navigated.
Rather than try the wall I choose the line I’ll likely help people through on the far left. My Jeep just putts through that like I expect it to and I climb the series of successive walls and obstacles that aren’t difficult but definitely deserve respect and a bit of momentum as you go up the next 200 yards. This is the first time I've really tested the BFG Baja comptires. They actually work pretty well. I'd say better in loose dirt than my Kevlars and almost as good on the rocks? I turn to see how Alan (
@allterrain ) is doing. He chose the wall line and is in a bit of a pickle where he’s angling into the wall at a 90* but can’t really back up to climb due to a half Jeep sized rock behind him.
From there I don’t think he can climb the wall. He can't back up due to a pretty large rock he's backing into. He could move about 3-4' at a time. I built a bit of a road to where we could get the rear axle higher and get the bumper over the rear rock behind him. We could then move his 117" Brute around a bit with some Austin Powers moves and get him past the obstacle on the far left.
The rest of the trail went without incident and we were back to town by 5:15. Grabbed some El Churro Loco and went back to our lovely Motel 6. The light was on for us.
Brett Davis (
@Maverick ) gets into town about 10 pm and we agree to meet at Moab Diner between 7-8 am. We made it at about 8:30 or so? I guess we are old guys but none of us are in a rush. Metal Masher is the trail of the day. We decide to burn home after the trail so I decide to throw my Jeep on the trailer and leave my trailer/truck at the Gemini Bridges parking lot then bail from there rather than swing back to Moab then burn. As I'm putting my Jeep on the trailer my alternator starts making all kinds of howling noises. Between that and the shocks, I'm not sure I want to do anything with my Jeep on Metal Masher. I just jump in Brett's JKU Rubicon (2" lift and 35" tires) and off we go to Metal Masher. Our biggest objective is to find places for a 10 am departing trail to have lunch and see how long it takes us to get back to the road/Moab. Official Jeep Safari trail doesn't appear to include WidowMaker (which is actually somewhat difficult and winching 30 rigs up is a bit of a chore) so we want to see how to handle that and some of the other items to make a good trail day. We were showed a cool overlook that I think we'll use that's just a quick walk from the main trail and then you get to RockChucker-Mirror Gulch stuff. To me, Mirror Gulch is the highlight of this trail and then you are at the rim. I think (?) we'll make this by lunch. Leaving the trail head right at 10 am puts us to the top of Mirror Gulch (granted it's just two rigs and we aren't guiding 25 of our closest friends that day) at about 12:45 pm. Not to shabby. With people we should add at least an hour ?
We leisurely bump our way along the rim towards WidowMaker and are out to the road by 3:00 pm. Loaded up and headed home by 3:15. We get all the way to Floy and Brett hears of a friend not trailered with a broken in half rear axle housing at the Poison Spider trailhead. Brett being the good guy that he is calls us on the HAM and we decide to send Alan home driving his Brute (it can cruise at 80 mph) and we'll head back to Moab with a space on my gooseneck for the broken rig. Somehow it's negotiated that I'll take a very nice 2 door home instead of the broken JKUR and we get back to the Floy exit and thereby to Green River at 6:30pm.
Sweaty Betty is very thirsty at this point and needs some grub along with the middle aged operators that haven't eaten anything of substance since 9am. We decide the legendary Ray's Tavern is the place. It's my first time (be gentle) and I'm kind of an appreciator of food. I decided to get a bacon burger as that would hit the spot and then we'll burn home from there. It wasn't a bad burger but it wasn't uber fantastic. I'd eat there again but would be open to other suggestions as well. Maybe I got the wrong thing? I would have waited for Grogg's in Helper to be honest.
We hit the road after dinner with gravel flying and rubber squealing... wait... sorry for the tangent. We hit the road and I'm guessing I'll need fuel in Spanish. I guessed correctly and grabbed some fuel at the Holiday as you come out of the canyon. No incidents UNTIL we cross over the Point of the Mountain and as we start descending Brett mentions on the radio that there are sparks coming from one of my tires on the trailer... That's never good. We pull off and head to the Maverick there at 143 or whatever that exit is and change a trailer tire. Hit Draper and drop the kewl JK 3.8 2 door at it's owner's house and I get home about 11:00pm.
