jeepin.jason

Today was our first day of trails, and we started out by hoping in on the trail that Rick and Tom (two of our friends from Dallas we came with) were on, even though it wasn’t one of the trails they’d assigned us at registration. Our trail leader, Rob, was cool and said it was fine it we joined in with their group. Including our leader, there were 25 vehicles total in the group. Clifton Slay from Poison Spyder Customs was also in the group, driving the PSC Unlimited Adventure rig sporting a set of Rocker Knockers with a new Slider bar design. We got the opportunity to chat with him and his fiance throughout the day and they were really nice folks.

By the time we made it to the trailhead and got everyone aired down and disconnected it was about 10AM. The majority of the trail was relatively tame, with a few challenging spots, but the highlight of the day was an obstacle aptly named ‘the V-rock’. It’s an obstacle composed of two huge chunks of rock that lay across the trail, forming a big v-notch you’ve got to go over. There were two approach routes to the v-notch, one coming in from the lower right that required you to get up on the v-notch and pivot to the right to get straightened up, and the other was an offcamber turn-in to the left which would get you lined up to hit the notch straight on. With excellent spotting from our trail leader, nearly everyone in the group made it through the notch without needing to get strapped. That’s definitely not saying that everyone had an easy time, just that most didn’t have to get strapped.

After getting everyone through the V-Rock, we headed back up out of the ravines and took a break along the crest of a tall ridgeline to enjoy the views before heading back out to the trailhead staging point.

The carnage list for the day included a Warn stub shaft on a Bronco, a stock tierod on a TJ, and the rear u-joint on an XJ (not ours).

150 new pics have been uploaded to flickr.