Category Archives: Off-Road

Bike Tour Recon

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I spent the day in the FJ doing a quick pre-run of some dirt routes for an upcoming bike tour with Steve of There and Back Bikes. In March he plans on leading a tour leaving Tucson, looping around the Santa Ritas (crossing them by dirt), and hitting Patagonia, Sonoita, and Elgin before returning.

The results of the dirt recon were discouraging… much of route which is ideal by map is basically unrideable. But, the purpose of the drive was to have a good time and learn about the route – done and done. My tires didn’t blow up and we had only one encounter with a gun-toting rancher (actually a nice guy), all in all a good day. Oh, and I lost my Losbetos virginity to a sweet, sweet breakfast burrito…

This area surrounding this ridiculously huge tree would have made an epic place to camp…

The sign read “EJ’s Summerhome.”

AZFJ Mod Party at homedad’s

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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.

AZFJ Elvis Run

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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.


Image credit: Chigoe

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.


Image credit: Chigoe

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.


Image credit: Chigoe

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.


Image credit: Chigoe

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. ;)

Willow Springs Road -> Box Canyon -> Martinez Cabin

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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.

The plan was to run Elvis in the morning, but running to the Martinez Cabins is always a good time so I suggested we camp there. Fortunately nobody was at the cabin so we set up camp in the small clearing under the trees.

We enjoyed a few beers and a big campfire and crawled into the tents to sleep. The temperatures were mild and the wind light, promising a good night of sleep…. until 1:00am when we were rudely awoken by the sounds of revving engines, loud music, and screaming! A group of people parked directly next to our obviously occupied tents and decided to have an hour-long party. This, of course, was rather annoying. Anyway, I’m not sure what three completely unarmed dudes in tents are supposed to do to confront a large group of rowdy drunkards in the middle of the night… luckily they moved on before toooo long.

Lake Pleasant for Lunch, Table Mesa for Wheeling, Gillette for Camping

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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).

Lunch consisted of watermelon and probably one of the most failed attempts at chicken I’ve ever experienced.

We wandered around that side of the lake, but could not get very far due to some locked gates and such. Defeated, we ran back the way we came to I-17.

At Table Mesa, Jeff and I with Miss R2 wandered around in search of Raw Deal – a trail I wasn’t satisfied I actually knew the location of. Soon we found it, but there was not much interest in a random run. With nothing else to do, we drove up to Rock Springs for dinner and PIE.

Later, back at Table Mesa, came the hilarity of me getting out of Jeff’s truck ‘to take pics.’ This was of course the code word for my escaping the terrifying doom that was Jeff’s attacking the obstacles! Chigoe put on quite the show as well on the big chalky step off the main road.

That evening on the trail also featured what was probably the funniest thing I’ve ever heard on the CB. Unfortunately it’s one of those ‘had to be there’ moments, but in the middle of a discussion about how we’re all kind of weird, Chigoe comes on the radio and declares, “Do you think we like chaddar dogs?!? It’s all we can afford!!!!”

Charouleau Gap Run (and Canadian Invasion of Tucson!)

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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…

I went for a different line because I thought it would be fun and it looked do-able. Plus Jake and Sonic are the spotting dream team, so there was nothing to worry about.


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1


Image credit: tmac


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

The last part was the classic ‘flop and slide’ move… dirty gas tank kisser.


Image credit: tmac

Soon we arrived at the Lost City. It was exactly as it had been described to me – some really nice homes that appeared as though one day the residents vanished, leaving everything behind.

All the doors were left wide open…

No one has any explanation for this place – how it got there, what happened to the people, etc. There was evidence to suggest that families lived there until the mid or late 90′s, but the whole thing is a huge mystery to me.

Lots of these critters lurking around…

Out back was a strange vehicle whose frame appeared to be a bunch of huge air tanks. The wash had certainly gotten the best of it!

We stopped for lunch down in the wash and Sonic set up a shooting gallery for some raucous entertainment. I was impressed by the whole thing. He established areas and rules and strung a line of caution tape to mark the range which was surrounded by rock walls.

Then it was time to unveil the arsenal.

Jake’s manliness could hardly be contained… I wanted him to bayonet me for a cool picture opportunity, but then I decided that would probably hurt a lot and perhaps lead to my death.

Cameron abandon his Canadian virtues regarding guns and pretty well F’d up a bowling ball with the Bushmaster…

I went at one of those sheets of paper with the targets on them at 25 yards using the gangster-style MAC and actually did pretty well, considering I’d never before fired a firearm of any kind. It was a ton of fun.

On the way out of the wash I tried to take the same line I came down on the single obstacle, but it was clear that wasn’t going to work easily. Once up the obstacle with the front wheels, the bottom of the truck was just completely laid out on the rocks. Who knows if I could have done it, but it would have taken too long so I went up the other way.


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

Tim, by chance, had some issues coming up… the dirty hitch licker he is…

By then it was well into the afternoon and we’d only cleared probably less than 10% of the Gap trail. So we pretty much blasted through that, largely skipping the most gruesome optionals.

TrAiLbUsTy1 did manage to get a voyeur upskirt of me, though…


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

Nearing the end of the trail finally around 9PM, I decided to go off on a line and nearly flop my rig. It was pretty funny. My wheel is up pretty high in this pic, but it was still a relatively stable spot. What was bad was the four foot ledge just in front of my passenger front tire. It would have been over for me for sure if I hadn’t stopped here. Was able to back up no problem and go the normal way…


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

Back at the gas station it was time for a staged group shot…


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

…and some dancing with karate!


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1


Image credit: TrAiLbUsTy1

Salt River Cleanup / HAM Radio Convention / Willow Springs Road / Rice Peak!!!!

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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
- Amateur radio convention in Pheonix
- Dirt route back to Tucson (Baja style!)
- Rice Peak solo night run and camping

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!

The cleanup itself was an interesting affair. We were stunned by an amazing lack of garbage – quite the opposite of what we were expecting. We walked the banks of the Salt River a ways and picked up very little debris. In some way it was a let down that we weren’t able to really make a difference in the area, but despite this we agreed our not being able to pick up anything was a good thing.

Back at the parking area, we made the rounds at all the organizations tables to spread the word on Disabled Explorers.

I stated to set up my tripod so the three of us could get a group shot in front of our trucks, but in the distance we spotted something that would make for a muuuuch better group shot. And like any good friend, when I got home I immediately cropped Lance and Heidi out and made it my facebook profile pic.

Next stop was the HAM radio convention. It was very clear what sort of meeting we were at just looking around the parking lot… this guy gets all the ladies with this thing…

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But nobody’s coolness could compare to that of the Arizona Radio Truck of DOOM!

A few people had ridiculous amounts of antennas drilled into the body panels of fairly new and often nice cars. Like this GMC Envoy, for example…

Inside, I had to pose with the most expensive HF radio I could find… Does your radio have its own monitor and a knob the size of a baseball?

After the convention and a brief stop at Lance’s house for official Disabled Explorer’s business, I hit the road and blasted down Willow Springs Road with the sun setting over the mountains…

I’ve done this 50ish miles of dirt literally a couple dozen times on suspension including stock, spacer lifts, and OME but this was the first time since I’d installed the FOX 2.5 system from All Pro… wow. Airborne, no problem… Big whoops, no problem… it was a ton of fun.

After that I head through Oracle and up towards Rice Peak. I would be meeting some folks in Oracle to run The Gap N->S the next morning, so I decided to camp near Oracle rather than drive the 30-some miles home only to return after the night.

I thought I would try to camp literally on the summit of Rice Peak since there is a nice clearing there, thinking I would get up with the sun rise and do some photography. When I reached the summit, it took about a half a minute to discover this was not going to happen since the ground is a huge pile of little rocks… my memory had it a bit grassier.

Up on the summit, I found this guy checking out the welds on my BajaRack…

I head back down the summit and went the ‘wrong way’ at the T-intersection before the summit which leads to the dead end. There is a very small clearing there, only large enough for one vehicle which I thought would work. But, it was the same thing… rocks galore. So, I backtracked a few miles back down the trail into the lower elevations were there is camping everywhere and found a good spot for the night.

Box Canyon Solo Night Run

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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.

Fun with Sushi in the Santa Rita Mountains

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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 4×4 outing!

We head out and stopped to air down on the dirt road leading to the mountains.

A few minutes in we heard cries to come look at a pile of cow poop… Beetles! This guy was carrying around a huge ball of poop.

The first stop was at Gunsight Pass, the most popular point in the area. The pass is named so for a rock formation which looks like a gun sight, but which can also be confused for certain parts of the female anatomy. Alternate titles for the pass will be left out here…. Whatever it’s called, the scenery is excellent.

View from the parking spot…

Those are looking West towards Green Valley and the like. Back East is more of the Santa Ritas.

After a brief sushi snack, we pressed on into Sycamore Canyon. There is a very cool spot I know in that area, reached by ridiculous shelf roads and featuring a great spot to have lunch.

Getting there was great fun. The trail is hard to find and generally not used very much. This time of year with all the rain, it was extremely overgrown. It was genuine African-safari style out there.

There is a small clearing on a summit where we parked. A few yards north are some rocks on a cliff’s edge which make nice sets of natural tables and chairs. It was time to bust out the sushi!

Jake is the sushi king…

Gratuitous AZFJ.org address placement!

Susan and I after sushi on the summit. I like taking pictures with her because she looks good and next to her I look like an ape.

We continued back West toward the ruins at Helvetia. Truly the ruins there are ruined; the area has been raped by visitors and little remains of the old buildings. Still we wanted to visit hoping to see some mines and perhaps the infamous hill climb in the area.

On the way over, I stopped to conquer all of nature.

Behind where I was subduing the earth were some cool rocks, colored by the copper in the area. I still have no idea why the copper should make things green, but that’s what I’ve heard.

Stopped at the top of the big hill climb near Helvetia…

Near the ruins was a small obstacle that we looped around to tackle. Microbe crosses with style, check out the rear flex…

Up, up, and away!

Charouleau Gap / Rice Peak Run

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Impromptu run to The Gap!!!! I tried my hand at steeper sections of the granite wall. After making it steeper than I had the last time, and watching the others conquer similarly huge spots I decided I had to go for the steepest possible line.

It was a lot more than the front could clear. I had to take it at an angle, and grind the front end up the wall.


Image credit: CactusCruzer


Image credit: CactusCruzer

Once I was lined up against the wall I just backed off. This would have to wait until another day with some more people and trucks around. I wouldn’t mind a strap on the front for the first go, don’t really know what to expect… unlike a few folks on some of the forums, wheeling is NOT a machismo game for us and backing off an obstacle to save for another day is not a big deal.


Image credit: CactusCruzer

Running the trail at the same time as us was this guy in a monstrously built Jeep. They entered the wash long before we did and wheeled some pretty ridiculous stuff. Unfortunately, he bit off a little more than he could chew in this deep water here…

The engine stopped and he winched himself out. After poking around under the hood for a few minutes, he discovered that he’s blown a HOLE in the block of the Corvette engine he had in there…. ouch!!

While this was going on, Cayce’s dog decided my truck was its new home. It took quite some coercion to him out…

I gave The Step another go… without success today. Tried a few different lines, but couldn’t get over. :(

Here’s what the looks like from the approach… :lol:

Hung up on slider here, had to back off…

Tried it over to the left, made it about half way and had to back off…

Bad day for The Step! Failure!!! :oops:

Once we were done with The Gap, cactus and I decided to run Rice Peak really quick… that’s how we roll! It was a great time, and it was really interesting to see how my impressions of wheeling have changed since I last did this about a year ago (one of the first times I’d ever wheeled).

Jeff on the way up…

At the top there was a little party going on… the first thing that happened was a guy came up to my truck and yells “Hey, where’s Trail Bus!??!!”

Turns out they’d seen my rig on the net and knew Jake. Funny thing to happen on a random mountain summit!

Interesting rig to see up there…