Off-Road |
I jumped at the news of a mod party since my truck is in pretty bad shape these days. One of my rear FOX 2.0 shocks is completely blown, the other is leaking, one of the front FOX 2.5's is blown making the truck sit with a hilarious lean, my HID's aren't installed or hooked up, dual battery system is damaged, no radios hooked up, etc. I also picked up a bike rack off CraigsList that, while intended to be mounted in the bed of a pickup truck, would work great on my roof. I figured if I could mount the rack somehow and swap out my suspension for whatever crap I have laying around, it would be a good day. Luckily I've got a few different suspensions laying around the shed for a rainy day, be it my rainy day or somebody else's. Thanks to the quick thinking resourcefulness of 'clutch burner' we got the bike rack on no problem!
The suspension was a bit of a pain since the FOX stuff has been on there for about 18 months. My preferred method for disassembling the front is to undo the upper control arm ball joints, but they would have none of it. After wasting some time, I just unbolted the lowers like everybody else wanted to do in the first place. Ah well, it was done quick after that. Somehow I drove away with Kurt's brand new sway bar installed - an added bonus! With the frequency of my wheeling taking a massive downturn lately, I've been slowly reinstalling practical things like the sway bars and rear seats since there's currently no reason not to have them.
It looks it's going to cost me a good few hundred bucks to rebuild the FOX stuff... Considering I haven't been wheeling much and secretly want a long travel setup anyway, I'm strongly considering selling them. Pocketing their value would be pretty nice. |
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We left Martinez Cabins and headed out towards Elvis using the GPS tracks I had from Yetti (on AZFJ, not THE yeti). The wash was easy to find, in fact right off one of the main roads. Once in the wash, you drive... and drive. and drive. then you drive some more. I was starting to think something was up (even though we were clearly following the GPS track exactly), when we came around a corner and BAM we see this! Definitely the right place.
There were many lines to choose from, including a bypass on the far left not visible in the above pic. I figured the ledges on the far right side were doable, and gave them a shot. The approach was a bit of a balancing act (note the flying passenger wheel), but easily cleared.
As expected, it was the rear that was difficult to get up... it was either the link mounts or the gas tank getting hung up, but eventually I found the right angle and was able to crawl over.
The second ledge is about the same as the first, but with the added complication of having less room to maneuver less you drive off the first ledge! A few attempts at different angles and I was over.
Soon we were at the second major obstacle...
I really wanted to try something I'd seen in pictures called The Bowl, a ledge that must be approached with a sharp left turn, but upon viewing it in real life there is obviously no way it can be done in my truck. The ledge wasn't too crazy, it was the massive sink hole right before it. I guess that's why it's called The Bowl, duh... We all took the notch on the left side without too much difficulty.
The third major obstacle was a choice between The Squeeze and 'Up and Over'... I attempted the squeeze first, but there was no way to make it through (and keep the doors on the truck) without sliders installed. I think it could be done if you drove up the wall on the right side, maybe next time I'll have my sliders on (it's getting kind of old stepping over them in my living room).
Just for fun and with NO expectation of even remotely being able to get over it, I tried the Up and Over... clearing the front end was a challenge, and once on the wall all that happened was the rear of the frame stuck into the ground. My rear wheels never quite made it onto the rock, there just isn't enough departure angle on the FJ.
Fortunately there was a clear bypass over the hill around this obstacle, but unfortunately it also bypassed the really fun looking stuff immediately after that area. The bypass itself was a bit of fun... here's Jeff coming down:
From that point on there were a few minor obstacles, good fun all around. Jeff and Tim on one such section:
It was a great day! Awesome trail, possibly my new favorite. The obstacles were just the perfect size to be quite challenging but definitely possible in the FJ. There are many lines I'd like to explore on a future outing, particularly on the first obstacle. This is the only carnage I suffered... not bad for no sliders. But honestly, not having sliders was a massive advantage in terms of the extra clearance. Just gotta be careful. ;)
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Unsure of whether to take AZ-79 or Willow Springs road up to Florence, I happen to run into Angry_Tim as he pulled out of a gas station on Oracle. Perfect! It was debatable whether we could take the dirt route and be in Florence in time to meet CactusCruzer (Jeff), but we went for it anyway. After a mad high speed dash, we were early! :D We met Jeff and ran into Box Canyon from the North. Spooky place at night, the walls of the canyon are higher than the reach of the headlights so the rocks sort of fade away into... spookiness.
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Here are some random pics I took of interesting things at the SEMA show...
***WARNING - THIS IS A HUGE (about 100) BARF OF PICTURES*** |
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I was fortunate to be invited by Lance to help him represent Disabled Explorers the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. I've seen pictures of past shows, and it is an outrageous and massive event despite being closed to the general public. Our hope was to get the word out about Disabled Explorers and hopefully make contact in person with sponsors! Our booth...
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Due to what I believed to be a broken motor mount, I parked the FJ and hopped in with Jeff (CactusCruzer) for a day of wheeling and generally taking it easy. First stop was Lake Pleasent for lunch where we met SealClubber, Miss R2, Remcon, TRIPHX and FJFEVER. Unfortunately the entire day passed before I realized I had the exposure comp on my camera set waaay down (just in case you're wondering why it's so dark).
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Waking up was difficult as the night could not have been more perfect. My tent was in a rocky cove that blocked all wind, the temperature was perfect for sleeping with no bag or covers, and there was nothing directly above me to block my view of the bright stars. It was one of the most satisfying nights of sleep I've had in a long time (and that speaks volumes since I am a lazy ass who frequently sleeps too much). I'd been looking forward to this run for a few reasons. First, The Gap is epic and always a good time. Second, we were running it North to South which I have never done. Furthermore, we planned to wheel down the wash to the 'Lost City,' a rumored collection of buildings and homes that were abandon mysteriously (I was told the people left all their stuff behind). And lastly, we were being invaded by our FJC-Central friend Cameron who was visiting from Canada! The wash to the Lost City was fun. It had that 'raw' feeling that washes sometimes do. Rocks were just sort of thrown everywhere and the path to take wasn't always well defined as it typically is on a more established trail. (It's worth noting that this wash is a marked trail - randomly blazing through washes is not cool!) There was one major obstacle along the way. The best way down it was across a sort of bridge of rocks, very interesting stuff. Sonic hits it and Jake follows...
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Call this the mega-day! What an outstanding amount of action, planned and unplanned. The day consisted of: - AZFJ and Disabled Explorers at the Tonto National Forest Salt River Cleanup I arrived at the cleanup to find Lance and Heidi ready to go. The national forest people had set up some tents and free lunch awaited us after picking up some trash!
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It was Friday night and I was supposed to be in NE of Phoenix the next morning. It seemed like there were two options: get up early and drive up there, or spend the night wheeling and camp on a trail somewhere along the way. Hmmm.... which sounds like more fun... I decided to camp along Box Canyon in Florence. It's a pretty easy trail that I know very well and camping is plentiful. Running it at night alone was sort of, well scary I guess. My HID's are still off the truck so I had only the headlights to show the way. The light reflecting off the tall, narrow canyon walls and fading off both in the distance and vertically was a spooky. Then there's that whole monsoon season flash flood thing.... I never did see the Boogie Man, though.
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The TrAiLbUs's, SonicFJ and family, microbe, and I met for a day of fun in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. The day promised to be awesome with a few 'firsts' for me including bringing fresh sushi along for munching in the mountains, and having my girlfriend along for her first group 4x4 outing! We head out and stopped to air down on the dirt road leading to the mountains.
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