Marc Bryson lazy "build" -JT Gladiator Rubicon

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Trail Day 43 was a long one.

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Left my house in the late morning, arrived on the shores of Bear Lake about 3:30 after airing up in a little town I was not familiar with. My kind of place with dirt roads leading to it. As expected, there were many deviations from my planned route.

I was invited to get stuck and be a "victim" by the Utah Off Road Recovery Team group that was training in Knolls. I thought that was Delle in my head and it turns out that was at 6:00pm. That's about a 50-60 mile mistake on a taxed fuel tank that I filled in Hyrum before heading up the canyon. I got back to Laketown but not without a little sweating. Looks like Delle has an actual truck stop going out there now? I could have stopped there?

I had about 60% DEF when I started the day. I now have a 450 mile warning so I must have done more than a few regens on this trip?

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Pretty cool little spot that's typical of the Blacksmith/Logan Canyon area. Almost all 2wd for the day except for a couple little spots.

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It was the 24th of July weekend and Ephriam's Grave was kind of busy. No surprise at all.

Last time I was at Ephriam's Grave was in 2012 with my boys.
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Aren't they cute buggers?
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That trip in the Trail Jeep was on July 21, 2012. Image taken with an iPhone 4


Overall, a nice day interacting with respectful sxs folks, a cool group of 3 guys on their "Leave the wife" ATV weekend just as I turned down Mill Hollow. It's an "unmaintained" trail open to Jeeps by the sign off of the 007 road. I used ALL of my wheelbase and some tricks I didn't know I had to navigate the JT length through some tight trees on the descent from the summit. No pics unfortunately as I was getting rained on pretty good at that point in the day.

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I got down from there and kind of flipped a coin about heading back down Blacksmith Fork through Hardware Ranch again or heading out my original plan over to Bear Lake and grabbing a raspberry shake. The shake won the battle. I backtracked and renavigated a few times running into areas that haven't had roads for over a couple decades or Private Property signs. I ended up coming down Temple Canyon Rd immediately west of Rendezvous Beach on Bear Lake in a town called Meadowville.

Reported in to my wife via SMS text that I was out of the mountains and was headed to get the aforementioned shake. I pulled up to the lake from Meadowville and was greeted with at least 1/5 of the Wasatch Front population on the beaches and parked along the highway of a VERY full Bear Lake. Beaches were only tens of yards long, not hundreds of yards like the past years. I was AMAZED how many people were at Bear Lake.

Anyway, let's get that shake a LaBeau's that I haven't had since probably about 1990 or something? Pulled up to LaBeau's (now 2 locations) and people were standing in line at least 40-50 people deep. Nevermind... on the shake.

I contacted Utah Off Road Recovery Team and was assured it wouldn't be an issue if I showed up late. I called @ebryson and we decided to head out to the team in Knolls. I've never been to Knolls.

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Arrived at Knolls about 7:15 pm and took this pic at 8:51pm.

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We went out with some recovery teams and did recovery stuff until about 10:00 or so. Arriving home about 12:15 with Logan Canyon area type mud on the truck along with crappy stuff from Knolls on it. Pretty epic day. I was pretty gassed after a taxing week and had to pass on watching a movie with the recovery team knowing driving home at 1:30ish am wouldn't be awesome for my health.



Observations of the day:
-A modern Jeep (or whatever) is amazingly comfortable in July heat
-technical tree dodging trails are WAY more doable in a JT than I expected. Some care was exercised not to incur damage but the JT is wide at the base and narrow in the body, a lot like my trail Jeep on full side Chev axles. Wheelbase is LONG for tree dodging so it's not invincible, just more capable than expected.
-people going slower than the speed limit in Logan Canyon is just as annoying to a 53 yr old Marc Bryson as it was to a 19 year old Marc Bryson. 53 year old Marc Bryson doesn't make the same stupid "solutions" as the 19 yr old. At least I've matured that far
-Knolls is WAY further out than Delle (not WAY but if you've been running your truck all day on the same tank of fuel, it's out there)
-Utah is DIVERSE in landscape--I was in Logan Canyon that likely rivals anywhere for alpine type views and then out on the dirt hell of Knolls. We all know about the red rock areas in the south as well
-I LOVE small towns (my wife does not), Meadowville is my kind of place. Delle, not so much ;)
-a modern Jeep is pretty bad ass. Running down the road at 85 mph and still able to crawl to an 8200' peak in low range dodging trees on the way down. Only change is tire pressure. Pretty cool rig
 
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UPNO4

Addicted
Location
Lindon, Ut
I hope you left it full of fuel with a note I just filled it up so it better be full when I pick it up.
I hated when people did that to me when I was doing the fuel tank recall on the Minivans ages and ages ago
 

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
I hope you left it full of fuel with a note I just filled it up so it better be full when I pick it up.
I hated when people did that to me when I was doing the fuel tank recall on the Minivans ages and ages ago


I did just return from getting it back. I think it was at half a tank? Whatever it was when I got home from Moab on Sunday. They shouldn't have to drop the tank. This is the CP4 pump (which I think your truck has as well?) that's in the engine bay.
 
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