- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
With SoCal finally starting to cool down, Catherine and I thought it would be a good time for us to visit Joshua Tree National Park. Neither of us had ever been there before and with today being in the mid-80's, we decided it would be a great day to take the Cherokee on it's first offroad trip. We wanted to see how well the 33's fit, which we just put on a few days ago. We bought them from Todd (TK1), thanks again Todd!
This was also Catherines first time driving offroad, so we took our time and just played around with picking lines, how far you can push a vehicle with opened diffs, etc. She did quite well and probably could have taken a few harder lines if we had aired the tires down.
I read online that there were a handful of backroad routes that wandered thru the park, a couple of them were considered 'auto-tours', self guided trails past places of intrest. We decided to start with the Geology Tour road, then connected to the Berdoo Canyon Road.
From the NP web site-
One of the bigger Joshua Trees we saw-
At first, the road was graded so we took every chance to twist up the XJ-
The canyon narrows-
Obligatory headshot-
The Joshua Trees are amazing, in some areas they streched out as far as you could see! We enjoyed the trip in the park, saw a few rock climbers and another group heading out for a overnight backpacking trip.
As we got further away from the crowded side of the park, the roads weren't maintained. The trail took us out the back end of the park and it became more difficult as the miles went by. There were large granite boulders on the trail, lots of sand and plenty of washouts. We dropped alot of elevation, I'd guess around 2000 feet as we made our way down the long canyon.
In the end, we drove over 50 miles offroad. After that much time offroad, we decided the XJ needs some desperate suspension improvements. New springs and shocks all around and a set of long-arms are in the works, as the current Skyjacker components are stiff and make for a jaring ride.
This was also Catherines first time driving offroad, so we took our time and just played around with picking lines, how far you can push a vehicle with opened diffs, etc. She did quite well and probably could have taken a few harder lines if we had aired the tires down.
I read online that there were a handful of backroad routes that wandered thru the park, a couple of them were considered 'auto-tours', self guided trails past places of intrest. We decided to start with the Geology Tour road, then connected to the Berdoo Canyon Road.
From the NP web site-
One of the bigger Joshua Trees we saw-
At first, the road was graded so we took every chance to twist up the XJ-
The canyon narrows-
Obligatory headshot-
The Joshua Trees are amazing, in some areas they streched out as far as you could see! We enjoyed the trip in the park, saw a few rock climbers and another group heading out for a overnight backpacking trip.
As we got further away from the crowded side of the park, the roads weren't maintained. The trail took us out the back end of the park and it became more difficult as the miles went by. There were large granite boulders on the trail, lots of sand and plenty of washouts. We dropped alot of elevation, I'd guess around 2000 feet as we made our way down the long canyon.
In the end, we drove over 50 miles offroad. After that much time offroad, we decided the XJ needs some desperate suspension improvements. New springs and shocks all around and a set of long-arms are in the works, as the current Skyjacker components are stiff and make for a jaring ride.
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i've never seen anything like that in person.
