We drove from Wilcox back to Phoenix via a dirt route and met our friend dizzyspots along the way. There was a return party scheduled in Gilbert at SDHQ. They do all kinds of stuff from sales and basic installations to high end custom work. A few FJ’s have gone through there and their work is obviously extremely good. What’s cool is that the owner, Ryan, opened up the place on his off day (Sunday) just for our party! Woohoo!

My birthday was a few days before and I was surprised with a super awesome cake of an FJ driving over a mountain or something. Here I am treating the cake FJ in the manner I do my own…

Just to change things up a big, I decided to pitch my ground tent for the night. Nathan and I found a small clearing and set things up. In the morning we awoke to find that I’d nearly slept on a cactus, and Nathan had in fact slept directly on top of a huge ant hill!! He was fine inside, but the whole thing was pretty funny.

Lance split off the group to explore one last possibility of an alternate route while I drove back to the muddy water crossing to see how it looked. In a bold and courageous sacrifice of his own body, Nathan ventured into the unknown depths to check the surface quality and depth.

The water was not very deep and the ground beneath the water generally hard packed. It was the mud that worried us. Getting down to the water would probably not be a problem because we could just hit it really fast, but getting out… likely not possible.

Lance was the first to give it a go… it went as we’d feared. He wildly slid down the slope, got across the water, and immediately sunk to the frame in mud and was severely stuck. Look at the depth he sunk even on the way down towards the water.

This episode lead to an unfortunate situation and a great learning experience. Michael had a pull-pal (basically a huge land anchor) that Lance was going to use to winch himself up with. I was happy to see another legitimate use of the winch! What wasn’t so good was the fact that Lance’s recovery gear and winch controller were in the back of the truck. Since he was already crazy muddy, Nathan was of course volunteered to go back and get everything.

My attempt to cross was nearly identical. I throttled down through the mud, crashed through the water, and then made it about a foot before sinking to the frame and becoming completely stuck. Later I found that I was in 4HI which saddened me greatly… I almost wanted to try it again the right way!

So much for mud tires…

Back on the road, there were tons of signs for a big arch so we went to check it out. It was in fact quite huge! It appeared we could hike up to it, but we were all sort of tired/lazy.

Next stop was Pie Town, New Mexico. Aptly named, of course. We’d planned to go here…

…but they were closed. Luckily there was another silly pie-themed cafe down the street that was open. The pie was insanely good and the folks working there were extremely nice and friendly. Lance told them about the trip and donated some Overland Journal copies for their magazine rack.

Image credit: 1leglance

We ran into some huge fields of flowers outside of town so I bust out my 55-200 and played with some aperture and color balance stuff on my camera. Puurty…

Ahhh!!!

Once it was light out I walked back up the trail to see what we’d done the night before. The amount of ‘construction’ we did was amazing, and you can see some of it in this pic. But like all things, pics do no justice…

Lance discovered an EXTREMELY bent sway bar link and given our situation we thought it best to repair it on the spot. Off came the skids and sway bar, a technically easy but strenuous and time consuming task. Throw in some bugs and it’s less fun.

Lance has the Rasta4x4 aluminum skid plates which are quite a bit lighter than their steel counterparts. Decide for yourself if this is a pic of light metal or an amazing display of strength and manliness… Personally I think it’s my All Pro shirt which gives me magical powers.

One of these links is normal, one of them is not. Hmmm…

It was only after a ton of time had passed wrenching that Lance and I realized that I had a complete sway bar sitting in the back of my truck from when I removed it at the Summit installing my suspension. Can you say d’oh? We certainly did, many times. None of what we did was necessary. We could have just zipped off my link and zipped it on his bar… the whole thing might have taken 15 minutes. Oops!

That mental failure aside, we continued on. There were a few more challenges on the way out, such as this – another smooth, but sloped section with a huge rut waiting for you to fall in…

Lance enters the rut and drives out, avoiding the sloped section.

Right after that, it finally happened… a rut that we would NOT be crossing. I don’t know what’s worse, the depth or the huge pipe across it.

That particular rut was probably a good 1/4 mile long. It must have been fairly old, since a new trail had been blazed a little ways over that itself seemed quite old and well worn.

We met up with Michael, who was having some trouble with the cool ‘flexible in every dimension’ hitch he uses. It was binding up and he was concerned about driving with it. We did some testing around the campground, with him driving erratically and me sitting on the trailer. This of course was massive fun and probably a bit odd to see for the other camp goers.

Image credit: 1leglance

This was an interesting thing I noticed with Michael’s trailer. Some people when they see huge chunks of mud on a truck, assume that this occurred because the driver was spinning the tires and churning up the ground. However, mud tires on their own scoop up mud and fling it everywhere regardless of the power supplied to the wheels. As evidence of this, I point to the obviously un-driven wheels of Michaels trailer which had MT tires on it. Mud is flung everywhere!

The scariness continued later in the day. After sloshing through a bunch of really long road-turned-river sections….

Image credit: 1leglance

…we came to a couple more worrisome/dangerous spots. There were some small river crossings where the road had been built across the water, with a big pipe to allow the water to flow through. Apparently due to recent storms, a few of these were partially destroyed and deeply undercut. The plan basically was to go fast and hope you the ground doesn’t collapse under you!

And then, just as the night before, it happened… a truly troublesome spot. The crossing was entirely destroyed. Short of building a ramp and going 100mph it wasn’t clear how we would get across this. All tire tracks on the road approached this section and then turned around.

We thought about descending into the mud next to the road and crossing the water. I started to walk down to see how bad the mud and water was… and didn’t make it to check the water for how bad the mud was! It seemed like we’d be able to drive down to the water, but it the other side was as goop-y as this one, there would be no way we could climb out.

To backtrack and take a different route would take hours and erase all progress for the day. So, once again we split up and (using the HAM to maintain comm) explored possible alternate routes on lesser trails. Nathan and I went one way that ended up being the greatest mudding I have ever participated in. There were sections of water a 1/4 mile long, and mud bogs that seemed endless. Several times we stopped, staring at a pit in front of us, and wondered if this was a good idea – alone, in the dark, holding the group together via radio… but rear locker and huge throttle, we made it through everything.

Not only were we having the time of our lives romping in the mud, but we were driving into a beautiful sunset which reflected in the water ahead… really a unique experience!

None of the routes worked and we met up to discuss our plan. It was becoming very late, so we drove back to where we were certain it was public land and set up camp for the night. The next day we would have to find a way to move forward.

At the BUGS campground in the BUGS morning there BUGS were lots of BUGS little things flying BUGS around in BUGS the air. I BUGS couldn’t be sure BUGS what they were, but BUGS they kept landing on me… maybe BUGS some kind of BUGS alien life form. I’ll never BUGS know for certain.

Once back on the road, it was only a few minutes before disaster struck yet again. Another tire gone! Fortunately this time it was actually caused by something and not just a random explosion like I’m used to… The tire appeared repairable!

Check out Lance’s writeup of the repair and our impressions of the ARB tire kit on the Disabled Explorers website.

The offending object turned out to be some kind of fishing implement!

The ARB kit works by basically stuffing a hot dog (brat if you prefer) into the tire and sealing it with some glue.

Lance rams it home! I should mention that the entire time this was going on, Nathan and I were dancing around talking like Charlie the Unicorn…

We reached El Rito which was to be a lunch and fuel stop. There was a gas station, but the door was closed and no one was around. A local helped us out and mentioned that the gas station guy was at the post office and would return soon. Gotta love small town USA! With gas out of the way we had to find a place for lunch. It was just our luck that across the street was the best restaurant in town!!

Despite outward appearances, it was extremely good. I had some seafood enchiladas which were inexpensive, large, made with fresh veges, and not very greasy. Highly recommended…

Back on the road, Lance had some pretty hilarious altercations with cows. Usually when we roll by they either stand motionless and watch us blankly (like you can imagine a cow would), or get up and trot away… this time, they stood up and stampeded down the road! It went on for some time… it was a bizarre kind of moving road block.

After a wrong or missed turn we were faced with the choice to either continue down dirt roads for likely several hours or try a 4×4 jeep trail that was a straight shot. The trail was marked with all kinds of warning signs, the best of which was something like ‘not passable when wet – do not attempt’ or something… it was VERY wet.

I remained silent since a) I didn’t want it to be my fault for suggesting the hardcore route if something bad happened and b) it’s pretty obvious if you know me at all that I wanted to go that way. After a while Lance decided (yay) that we would in fact try to conquer the trail of unknown difficulty/dangerousness.

It didn’t take long to find out that this was an exceptionally dangerous route. The trail surface was like sludge and so slippery it was difficult to walk on. The trucks would slide across slight angles. Add to this the fact that there were ruts easily deep enough to flip a truck over and… well it was everything I’d hoped for in an unknown remote and muddy 4×4 trail!

A note on technique… even though entering the rut is vastly more difficult and has a much higher potential for getting stuck, I prefer and recommend it against trying to ride the smooth, angled part of the trail and possibly falling into the rut and flipping over. In the rut, you’ve got nowhere to go. Up next to it, a little slip and you’re in BIG trouble. Its ironic, but here the more difficult lines were the safest.

Lance almost slipping to his doom near the beginning…

Here’s me at the same spot, intentionally driving in the rut. Unfortunately the lighting was really low (nightfall) or this would have been an epic flex shot! In this picture you can see the extreme angle or the smooth portion of the trail off to the right… it would be hairy enough trying to stick that when it’s dry. In the conditions we had, it just wasn’t possible.

After crossing a bunch of really hairy spots (not so difficult as they were dangerous due to slipping around) we came to an extreme challenge. There was talk of turning back, which I opposed not only in the spirit of conquering terrain and moving forward but also because some of the stuff we climbed to get there, would have been vastly more difficult and likely disastrous trying to descend.

The situation was this: A steep downhill section, about 30 yards long. On the right is a rut which begins about two feet deep and grows until it is at least six feet deep. The left side of the trail is smooth, but muddy and tipped at an extreme angle toward the rut. The rut is also filled with trees. Portions of the trail are apparently undercut as well.

I had a thought on how Lance could enter the rut and climb out around the middle of it and spotted him into it. His front tires were just getting to where the rut started when the ground completely gave way under his truck. He was able to back out, but it gave us an idea of how soft and likely to crumble the ground was.

My next brilliant idea was to bust out the tools and go at this chain gang style!! Shovels in hand, we started to knock down the soft edges of the rut, hoping to level out the trail and fill in the deepest parts of the rut (and the spaces in between the fallen trees!).

After a lot of work, Lance tried to give it another shot. As his truck entered the rut, nothing gave way and he was in a good position. All of the sudden, his front passenger wheel sank deep into the fallen trees and he started tipping over… in one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen, Lance then wildly gunned the truck and flew out of the rut to the where the smooth part of the trail was less sloped. Amazing (and lucky)!

I followed and did not have so much luck. After several attempts, I could not get my tires to cross the fallen trees. The angle was very shallow and my wheel would ‘walk’ along the log and towards the deep end of the rut.

We decided to bust out the winch.

There was no point of pulling me forward since that would only pull me across the log and to my doom. What I needed was basically to be rotated to the left, getting my front tires on the other side of the trees. This is what we rigged up:

It worked! With my wheel turned hard passenger and the winch connected to my front tow hook, my front end swung up to the left and over the trees. From there I was able to crawl out of the hole and down to safety.

The whole thing was great fun and one of the few times I’ve experience the appropriate and necessary use of a winch (I feel many people use winches where straps would be easier and safer, probably because the winch is an expensive toy and makes them cool). Immediately after this challenge was a clearing that would be our home for the night. We found Michael, who had gone a different route, on the HAM and told him we would have to meet up in the morning.

What was ahead of us in the morning, we had no idea…

Making breakfast I discovered something shocking that I’d grown to take for granted thoughout the trip. My fridge had died and was over 80F inside. This was especially a problem since any inspection of the fridge and its wiring required removing incredible amounts of crap due to the comical over-packing of my truck especially after the Summit where I gained a few huge boxes (i.e. complete suspension system). I had little choice, so I unpacked most everything to get to the back and sides of the fridge.

My first course of action was to see if the fridge itself was still operational. I suspected it was since they are pretty renowned for reliability, but best to check anyway. Plugged into the AC, it whirrrrrrred back to life instantly. Must be the DC juice that’s off. Plugging my cell phone into the DC outlet for the fridge… sure enough, it was dead.

I took the top off my Don Box and what had happened became clear. The cheap plastic battery box had broken on the bottom and the battery, though strapped to the floor, had enough room to wiggle about an inch forward. It was just my luck that the wires happen to be tangled in such a way that this movement pulled a crimp apart and opened up the circuit. An easy fix, but kind of annoying. Most of the contents of the fridge were OK after a night at high temperatures… but getting everything packed back into the truck resulted in even greater disorder and tightness.

As if a commentary on the state of my truck, we passed through Hell’s Gate at the beginning of the day… It was sort of creepy how the cloud seemed to point us into the gap in the rocks. Certainly, this is where our doom lies.

Lance noticed a ‘natural rock arch’ on the topo maps so we went to check it out. There was a brief trail that lead to the rocky base of the arch and from there it was not too difficult to climb up.

Though my fear of heights has been dramatically reduced due to therapy in the form of shelf roads and hiking along narrow ledges, it does return from time to time. This was one such time. We weren’t very high, but it was a pretty steep rocky wall to the top. I was motivated to press on, though… I couldn’t wimp out if it was going to be climbed by a ten year old boy and a guy with one leg!

I can’t remember if this was staged… funny, nonetheless.

We came around a bend to a beautiful lake and mountain. The water was calm and glass-like… one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

I spent some time at the water playing around with the camera. Of all the things I tried playing around with, I think the one that turned out best was just taking a picture with the camera turned upsidedown!

Pretend these are zebras and we’re totally in Africa at this point… OK, ignore the pine forest too, I guess. Damn.

One of our many stops along the way to take pics, chat, BS, stretch, etc.

Image credit: 1leglance

Flex shot! Well, kinda… at this point I am still very excited about my new suspension…

Image credit: 1leglance

As we got further into New Mexico, the road became much less road-y and lot more muddy. Soon we were driving either over or next to huge ruts and washouts. The surface was still soft, but not so much that we were sinking in and creating our own ruts. Playing in a huge ditch on the side of the road was just too much for me to resist, so I sort of fell into one on purpose. It was good testing to see how much that roof tent affects roll-over angle!

Image credit: 1leglance

Image credit: 1leglance

The mud subsided and the vegetation turned into a bit more of what we are used to at home as we came to lower elevations. Here Lance takes a picture of all the action in a scene that was not staged in any way. Nope, not at all… *whistles*

Among the signs that we were growing closer to home was the random occurrences of huge piles of trash in the middle of nowhere. This was a feature of Arizona that was a welcome absence from our trip through most other states.

One last weird thing for the day… I don’t even know what to say about this. Please fill in your own caption.

The day after the Summit was a bit uneventful. We left town late in the morning just looking to make any amount of distance. There was quite a bit of time to get through New Mexico and no set dates along the way, so the rest of the trip promised to be a bit more relaxed than our race to get to the Summit on time.

After an experience like the Summit, finding inspiring scenery for pictures is a bit more difficult… we did pass a cool lake with some sailboats on it, though.

As the others set up camp for the night, Nathan and I played around on some trails in the area. Believe it or not, this was a trail marked with a sign. Apparently not many people come out this way! At one point, an old wire of some kind (telegraph?) was too low and the truck wasn’t going to make it under. A random wire in the middle of nowhere had Nathan and I all spooked (what if had 100-million volts in it and it went to power Dr. Frankenstein’s lab or something?!?!)… Nathan boldly lifted it with a big stick to ensure my safe passage.