Archived Mbryson EJS 2016 report

[mbryson]

Wow, I'm home. Whirlwind week of 5 RR4W trails as a gunner and one participant trail. Met a BUNCH of cool people (as normal for any wheeling event), reacquainted with some old friends and missed out meeting a few others (but we'll catch them next year or something?). It was pretty weird not having my kids down there with me. It's the last week of their terms for school and we knew there would be some missed tests and such. They decided to stay home and be responsible students. Probably easiest to just split this out by days. I deliberated a lot about which Jeep to take. I LOVE taking the older Jeep down but it's March so I want a heater. I decided to take the JKU and it's reliability, heater and overall comfort.

BIG thanks to Teraflex, Utah 4 Wheel Drive Association, CruiserOutfitters, Red Rock 4 wheelers, Moab Friends For Wheeling, Moab 4x4 Outpost, OReilly's and ALL the volunteers, participants and employees that interacted with all of us through the week. An event of this scale in this size of town is something that takes ALL people working together to make work.

I LOVE the way the waiters/waitresses take care of us everywhere around town. The helpfulness of parts people, work of those that TRULY keep the trails open, the planning and execution of the event is really amazing.

I LOVED having the ARB fridge to keep my drinks cold. They are awesome. If you haven't checked out the ARB fridge rental program at CruiserOutfitters you should. You can test drive different fridges before you buy. Can't go wrong with that!

Moab 4x4 Outpost could have really stuck it to me with charges for an axle. The pricing I got was pretty dang competitive and service was pretty good also.

I can't thank Teraflex enough. The tire carrier and cargo rack really made the trip worthwhile. Supporting the "Where's mbryson" event was a bit of a leap of faith but that gave it a very slight bit of credibility. If you have a JK, you REALLY should take a hard look at the carrier hinge thingy. I marveled all week about how awesome it is to access the rear cargo area in a factory manner.

The total tally for the "reliable" JKU was both front axle shafts, a bolt for the sway bar connection (rear) and a starter in 6 trail days.
The "Where's mbryson" thing was a little tough to do but we had some fun with some of the people tracking me down. I have a couple other ideas if we decide to do it next year (why I think of them after the fact, I don't know).

Hopefully you had an awesome Safari experience like I did. I'm EXHAUSTED, clean (well, except my Jeep) and satisfied with my experience. 5 RR4W trail days is a lot for me. Might have been better if I took the Wednesday off? Can't wait until the 51st EJS as I LOVED the event and had a great time

#teraflex #cruiseroutfitters #ARB #ejs2016

 

[Jinx]

Awesome report Marc!

 

[mbryson]

Friday, March 18: Planned to leave around 10-11 am and wander southward grabbing a burger at Groggs or something on the way down. I was just having concrete poured at the house earlier this week and for some reason, Friday was "pour" day. I definitely wanted to hang around to see how that investment turned out (a wee bit of cash) and pay the guys. I ended up leaving about 4-5 pm? I towed the U4 trailer for Sarge. While the guys were pouring/working cement, I finished up a Teraflex cargo tray install (using a soft top---not officially supported by Teraflex), a Teraflex tire carrier/hinge install and redid some CB wiring (thanks again, GIJohn!---CB worked awesome all week). With all of the scrambled activity (installs and helping/verifying requirements for the concrete) I missed packing a few things. Nothing serious but stuff I would have liked to have (say EJS giveaway Jeep tickets?).
The Teraflex cargo shelf is fantastic. Did EXACTLY what I wanted it to do. My chairs and some other stuff are out of the bottom of the cargo area and stuff is available where I want it to be.

Here's my delay in getting down to Moab on Friday. Very welcome sight but not exactly ideal timing. However, I was able to get a bunch of stuff done while these guys were working.

While they were concreting and such, I setup the CB antenna on my Teraflex hinge. Drilled and tapped two holes in the hinge piece.

Here I am with a quick fill-up before hitting the road.

.....and a very interesting load.

 

[mbryson]

Sat, March 19: My "normal" first day with Bart Jacobs, Matt Hornback, Brett Davis, Dave Laws etc.... FUN group and a great way to start off the weekend. It was kind of a pain not having the kids with me. My daughter, Matt's daughter and Bart's daughter basically run the trail paperwork for us. I really felt like a third wheel but the girls kept my paperwork straight for me and we got through (I think ). We didn't have any real incidents but my '12 JKU decided to kill it's axle joint needle bearings out near Hells Gate. I had to drive pretty gingerly out of the trail with the noise that axle shaft was making. Moab 4x4 Outpost had a pretty square deal on a long side shaft, joint and stub shaft so I just snagged that to ensure I wouldn't continue to have issues for the rest of the week.

Here's a cool shot as we leave the overlook at Hells Revenge. I noticed all the license plates and thought that would be interesting photos

A little closeup. No license plate from the same state

One of the reasons I come to Moab is the food. I'm fairly confident this is a Chile Verde Burrito from the Brewery. Good stuff

 

[mbryson]

Sunday pics-Chicken Corners


Sun, March 20: This year I got moved from Escalator to Hell to the First Timers Package. Trail would be Chicken Corners..... uhhh.... I've never ran that one until Friday, March 11. Not exactly my favorite way to be a gunner as I do like to know the trail but this is a bit of a special circumstance and I'm gunning with Misty Adams and Mike Cobia. What can go wrong? Honestly, not to much. Pretty easy trail but kind of fun. Trail takes you out to Chicken Corners which is immediately across from Dead Horse Point. It's not even really much of a 4x4 trail (proved by a Jeep Compass that came up on the group ) but has some pretty awesome scenery and the road at the end has a bit of a "pucker" factor as it pinches down a little.

That is an M715. DRIVEN from Boise by a guy and his wife in my "First Timers Group". Has a swapped in TPI 305 but other than that, it's pretty stock.

This is the "chicken corner" driving spot. About 1/2-3/4 of a mile from there is the hiking spot.

Hey, it's mbryson in an un-Belizeable shirt.


Misty had me lead the trail and wanted to lunch at the Wind Caves along the way. I "think" I knew where those are but with my vast knowledge of the trail, I'm not really 100% sure. She had me lead with the idea that I'd lead Sunday, she'd lead Monday and Mike would lead on Tues. We did have the Jeep media team with us and filming with them is kind of fun. It's a bit of work (they REALLY try to not hold anything up at all and do a good job at that) but worth it to me to see my Jeep on official Jeep media . Kind of fun and worth the very slight "hassle" to me. Anyway, that trail went fairly well. I like to hustle a little down the trail and it was a bit of a challenge to find a good pace for everyone. About the time we got out to the Chicken Corner, I felt like I had found a good pace. Oh well, the trail back should work out pretty well? We ran a group of 10 back to the Chicken Corners hike and took about 20-30 minutes to drive out, do the short hike and then come back to the main group. We had 17 left and I was pretty sure I could fit all of them in the small parking lot. I was BARELY correct. As we fired up after the short hike, a TPI CJ7 fired and then died after about 20-30 cycles. He looked at me and said, "that didn't sound good". We spent about 10-15 min trying to figure out what was the issue and I just pulled out the tow strap and was preparing to tow him out.

I ended up towing the CJ7 out to O'Reilly. I think we got back about 5:30? He killed an ignition control module and got his Jeep back together for the Tuesday run. I didn't break anything so that's a good day.

 

[mbryson]

Monday Pics-Secret Spire

Mon, March 21: Our next trail was Secret Spire. I've never run it but Misty should get us through. Dave had a bit of a health emergency that morning and we had to find a substitute leader. Enter Roger Peck---Older CJ7 and a fun guy. We really hit it off and had a good day. We'd lost a few people from the day before and had picked up a couple more. Overall, there were about 15-18 folks from the day before. Kind of fun and unique for EJS. Just as we pulled into Secret Spire I turned full lock and heard a similar sound that I heard on Hells Revenge on Sat... whee Well, we know a parts source and can probably change the shaft in about 30-45 minutes. This one I could have probably gotten away with just replacing the joint itself but in the interest of consistency, I swapped the shaft same as the other side.

Flatties were everywhere. I REALLY dig this one.






Lining everyone up at the rest area on 313 and Dubinky Well road.

 

[mbryson]

Tuesday pics-Copper Ridge


Tues, March 22: Roger is again leading us along the Copper Ridge trail. This was kind of my favorite as some of the group were really getting into the whole wheeling thing. Asking for harder lines and obstacles and such. We picked up a '50s Willys Wagon and he stuck by me. I loved seeing that thing putt around. It was pretty cool. About 30-40 min into the trail, Roger stopped us so we could group back up and do a 10-100 break. I had heard another noise in the rear suspension and started checking things out. Turns out I'd lost a bolt on the sway bar link and the sway bar link was bouncing around the rear suspension area. There's a brake line there so I decided to quickly pull that link off. Sucker was STUCK on there pretty good and I ended up getting a little help with tools and such from the group. We continued on the trail almost without incident. We had an M715 with us and he obviously wasn't real flexy. We were in a little sandy wash that crossed up the axles and he found a way to be on two wheels. He was about 4-5 rigs up from me when that happened but had himself extracted before I could get a good look at this predicament. Roger cleared that all was well and we continued to the dinosaur footprints.

This was our last day with the group and it was kind of fun chatting with people as they left. Good folk come to Jeep Safari

Group photo from afar. I was tail gunning and still sitting in my Jeep for this one.


Group photo with proof my Jeep worked that day.



myself, Roger Peck and Bill & Annette from BC. I kept running into them all over town.




That is a stock appearing '50s Willys Wagon second from the end there. That was fun to see out on the trails

 

[mbryson]

Wednesday pics-Metal Masher


Wed, March 23: I ran Metal Masher with Perry Reed leading. Hadn't run that trail in about 6-7 years and never in my JKU. I like Metal Masher. It's kind of longish but not horrible and has enough stuff going on that it's fun. Bart and a few other folks I knew were on this trail with me. We ran that trail past the overlook and Perry pointed out that he'd be headed out the bypass of WidowMaker (likely a sound strategy for EJS) and had the option of just running out to Gemini Bridges road to 313 or back to 191. I chose that. I was pretty tired for some reason and that sounded like a good strategy. Nothing broke on my JKU that day.

Cool looking storm on the La Sals while I have my windows down and some tunes going.

Little climb just before RockChucker

Mirror Gulch is my favorite for some dumb reason. Cool little spot with some ledges at the end that climb to the overlook.

just a REALLY nice day out there

Looking north and east from the overlook

looking south and east from the overlook

You forget how close to the edge you are on this trail sometimes. Good stuff!

 

[mbryson]

Thursday pics-Cliffhanger
Thurs, March 24: This day proved MOST interesting. I fired up the Jeep and hit the Maverick for some fuel. Fueled up, went to move my Jeep away from the pumps and the starter kept running after the engine was started.... Wow. Fortunate that it happened NOT at the overlook from Cliffhanger or something similar. Jonny Cobia happened to be wandering into Maverick and noticed me grabbing a hammer (to hit my starter) out of my Jeep. The hammer trick didn't work and we decided I needed a starter. Jonny would run and grab Dave's leader packet (Dave was still under the weather and wouldn't be able to make the trail) while I changed the starter and got caught up around 8:30-8:45 for a 9:00 am departure. Mike Cobia ran over to OReillys' to see if there was a starter and bring it back. He came back with some some bad news. They didn't have one and wouldn't until Friday at the earliest. My mind raced about how to handle this situation. I didn't feel like I could bail on the trail responsibility but wasn't sure what to do.

I did know I needed a tow back to where I was staying and I knew Brett Davis had the day off. He had some other business going and his phone was exploding between about 8:00-8:20 am. He got over and towed me back to the house and I volunteered him as my chauffeur and off we go to Cliffhanger. Brett not being a fan of heights had never done this trail. Me not being a fan of heights hadn't run this trail a lot but knew my way around it ok. We grabbed crap out of my Jeep so I could stave off starvation and most importantly thirst and hit the road to the trail. We caught up to the group at the trailhead where Nena Barlow was leading for David Adams. It really turned out to be a fun day. Using my cute little handheld CB proved kind of nice with the spacing of some of the obstacles.


Well, today isn't starting well. (starter issues) Thanks again Brett!!!!








This is the first climb out of the creek. If a short wheelbase is willing, I'd rather them go up to the right. It's an intimidating ledge but a reasonably easy climb with a sharp drivers side turn at the top. If not willing, the left is doable by almost any rig with 35" or greater tires. I had a JKUR with 285 with us that I had to throw a few rocks for to get through here. I would not recommend less than 35" tires on this trail in it's current condition.





Manual trans, short wheelbase cool old-schoolish TJ (is that really a thing?---JKs have been out since 2007 but is a TJ "old school"?). PitBulls grabbed rocks pretty well. Good driver with the Nebraska binary license plate. He was fun to watch and a good conversationalist.





2 door JK on same obstacle. These guys were having fun and taking good lines all day. The 2 door and the 4 door behind it were setup pretty similarly. Fun to see what worked with which wheelbase.

 

[mbryson]

Friday pics---Moab stuff

Friday my starter had arrived by about 7:30 and I walked down to OReilly to get it. Had it installed in about 45 minutes and it's been good since.

Jeep concept vehicles from #ejs2016 #jeep

Some people aren't to into this rig. I quite like it. I bet it is WAY capable and kind of a cool tribute to a CJ5




Aside from the wrap, I like this #Trailstorm quite a bit as well.



I LOVE this rig. I'd buy it (selling my JKU and trail rig and possibly my 7.3L truck if this thing comes with a 5.7L or something) and drive it for a LONG time. Locking hubs, burly axles, and a pretty livable interior. Hopefully they make this with a removable hard and soft top (skip those stupid Freedom tops ) for their concept truck.



.....and we have a stick shift, high HP, built axles trail rig here. VERY COOL rig. I'm not sure I'm responsible enough to own something like this?



U4 raffle at the vendor show. AMAZING prizes given away

 

[Spork]

Nice report. :greg:


Just a tangent, do JK's have starter issues? My sister's jeep had issues where her starter either wouldn't turn or would get stuck on after the engine was going and key released. We also found the 3-5 days to get a starter to Moab problem.

 

[Chicken Corners]

Nice report, would have been nice to meet you, stayed off the interweb the 5 days I was in Moab. Strange for me also, no kids or wife, next year will be the whole family, already made hotel reservations.

 

[mbryson]

Nice report. :greg:


Just a tangent, do JK's have starter issues? My sister's jeep had issues where her starter either wouldn't turn or would get stuck on after the engine was going and key released. We also found the 3-5 days to get a starter to Moab problem.

I'm not aware of any starter issues? Mine's a 3.6L with 66k miles. I was REALLY surprised I needed a starter.

Nice report, would have been nice to meet you, stayed off the interweb the 5 days I was in Moab. Strange for me also, no kids or wife, next year will be the whole family, already made hotel reservations.

We'll catch you next year?

 

[Herzog]

Thanks for the report!

 

[Thursty]

Great trip and report! Thanks.

 

[Bart]

Great report Marc. Bummer about the problems you had on the JK, but it was doing great every time I saw it.

 

[mbryson]

Great report Marc. Bummer about the problems you had on the JK, but it was doing great every time I saw it.

It got me off the trail every day and conveniently decided to malfunction BEFORE I got on the trail. I do feel lucky even if I had a few issues.

 

[smfulle]

"Flatties were everywhere"

Here's why. http://www.fourwheeler.com/moab-exp...115336290&adbpl=fb&adbpr=22256451289#photo-01

There were over 40 flat fenders on the Friday Flat Fender Fun Run.

Here's me going up Wipeout Hill.

<span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">[video=youtube;S89u30vfHVc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S89u30vfHVc[/video]

 

[UT410]

So cool! I would love a Flatty.

 

[mbryson]

"Flatties were everywhere"

Here's why. http://www.fourwheeler.com/moab-exp...115336290&adbpl=fb&adbpr=22256451289#photo-01

There were over 40 flat fenders on the Friday Flat Fender Fun Run.

Here's me going up Wipeout Hill.

<span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">[video=youtube;S89u30vfHVc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S89u30vfHVc[/video]

It was great to see all of them. Wish I had brought my "flattie" (good driving btw )