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Moab April 2005

Every year the organizers of Grand Slam West try to get together in Moab a month or two before the actual event to do a "pre-run" before the big event. The typical purpose of this "pre-run" is to scout new trails, check conditions on trails, things like that. In reality, it's just another excuse to go to MOAB!!!

Every trip to Moab is always an experience, and this year was certainly no different. I was going to tow the ZJ out to Moab for the trip, rather than drive it. I had borrowed an F350 from a MallCrawlin.com member, and a trailer from another member. The F350 is quite accustomed to towing my ZJ, as it has done so on several occasions, including back from Moab on last year's pre-run. But let's not talk about that . . . . .

The day before we were set to leave I was finishing all the final preparations for the trip, getting the trailer squared away and such. Also had to go pick up Matt (OverkillZJ) at the airport since he was flying in from PGH to join us for the trip. So jumped in the truck and got Matt from the airport. From DIA we travelled to the People's Republic of Boulder to pickup the trailer from Mack (tenmile) and have lunch at Illegal Pete's while we made fun of hippies with Jenn (JeepGirl). Get back down to The Rock and throw the ZJ on the trailer and strap her down. We jumped in the Toy (my DD) and headed north to get Pam (Bustin' Loose) from work and head up to Mark's (karstman) for some sweet dinner. As Pam and I were heading back home from Mark's it was starting to snow a bit, then a lot, then I was pissed.

We cleaned out as much of the snow as we could, and say fawk it. Luckily most of the snow melted and dried off on the drive to Moab.

Soon as we got to Moab we headed to the brewery. John (JohnBoulderCO) had caught up to me and Mark by this point, but Keith (Mtn WJ) was just leaving Denver, so he had a ways to go. We had no idea where Cody (umm, Cody is his username too) was at, but figured he could handle it on his own.

Next morning we all get up with the intention of busting out Cliffhanger and Poison Spider Mesa in record time. We had over to City Market and find Cody there, mainly where we had expected him to be. Only issue was he snapped an axle on his trailer! So while we went to run Cliffhanger, he headed back towards SLC to meet a buddy with another trailer axle for him.

Cliffhanger is now well, neutered. Apparently one of the local companies got contracted to go bury a gas line that you had to drive over right after leaving the cliff's edge. Well, to get their equipment in there they basically paved the entire trail. We were QUITE disappointed in how it turned out (the pipe was still above ground on April 1, 2005 BTW) as the trail is NOTHING like it used to be. The only portion of the trail that really retained any of what it used to be is the stairs. Here's Pam coming down them in my ZJ.

We headed across the creek and all up the trail encountering no obstacles of any significance. I was in quite a mood seeing firsthand how bad one of my favorite trails had been destroyed.

This is the obstacle on the cliff in its current state:

And before it was paved:

QUITE the difference in the obstacle, eh?

We had lunch by the cliff and just kinda hung out, remembered back when Cliffhanger really earned its 4 rating, now we were thinking about taking our daily drivers through the trail.

We headed back and I noticed a clunky clanky sound I had was getting progressively worse. I knew the potential source already, just didn't want to admit it to myself. Before we left on our trip, I noticed that the driver side UCA frame mount was starting to separate from the unibody. Well, now it had completely separated and was starting to pull the bolt through the "frame" rail. Oops. Should probably get that fixed. So out came the on board welders, power inverters, all sorts of fun stuff to fix my busted ass Jeep. We pulled the arm and bracket off, cleaned it up as much as we could and then Keith welded it back on. Then came the words that nobody ever wants to hear:

Keith: "Umm, Dave, I just welded your tranny line."

Me: "Haha, very funny. Finish up so we can go."

Keith: "No, seriously, my finger is plugging the hole right now."

Me: "Ohhhhhhhhhh FUCK!!!"

So everyone's minds go into MacGyver mode trying to figure out how to solve this problem. Earlier in the trail I had noticed about a 1ft section of high pressure fuel line laying on the trail, so I picked it up and threw it in the Jeep with the other trash we had found that day. But like they say, one man's junk is another man's treasure!! Cut the hose down in size a bit, cut the tranny line, sleaved it with the hose, and put a couple hose clamps on there and she's as good as new! We finished up the control arm mount, and welded a washer to the frame to keep the bolt from pulling through.

We got off the rest of Cliffhanger pretty quickly, no problems at all and got back to town.

We go to meet Cody at City Market and find him there with his new trailer axle trying to install it. That was kinda funny to watch for a minute! We got the old axle out, spring perches welded on the new axle, and were about to put the new axle in when someone noticed the bolt patterns were different between the two axles, so now his wheels won't fit. Cody's starting to get a little mad at this point. We can't find any hubs in town, so Cody ends up going down to Big O and gets new wheels. It sucked, but it got him up and running. It's getting close to dark by now, so we all inhale some Subway and then head for a night run on Poison Spider.

Don't have any pictures from PSM, since well, it was dark and the flash on my camera sucks, but it was a good time. I had to show off to Pam a little bit how nice the longer wheelbase is on some of the steep climbs. Had her try the wall on the left right before you enter the canyon with the waterfall, she pulled the front left about 2 ft in the air, but she made it up! We went to just past the Wedgie and hung out and watched the stars for a while and then headed back. No major happenings out there really, but it was a great time.

Saturday we were going to try and knock out Hell's Revenge and maybe another quick trail. We head out to the trail and played around a bit on Dump Bump. Mark got scared with his SWB and let us LWB guys play, so we did. Cody found some new friends too in the way of some random teenage girls that wanted to go for a ride.

We took off from there and made pretty good time to Hell's Gate. We all made it up Hell's Gate with no major issues. Keith pulled a tire about 3 ft in the air and John got some sweet flex.

My turn!

From there we headed over to the hot tubs. Cody gave Mickey's a try, and well, it didn't work so well. If I remember right, total carnage was both front shafts, a front hub, AND a rear disc brake caliper bracket. Needless to say he didn't make it up, and had to be strapped out. What's that? The almighty King Strapmaster having to get strapped???

Cody took off after this and tried to baja the trail in 2WD with 3 brakes. As I get ready to go, I fire up the ZJ and the engine is bucking like crazy. Shut her down and check the gauges, temp gauge is almost completely spiked. Awwwwwwwwwww FUCK!!!!! After letting things cool down we determine that the t-stat is bad, so we yank the upper hose off and jam a screwdriver into the t-stat to pop it back open. Problem solved!

So Mark and I are off to catch up with Keith and John, who went to try and catch up with Cody. We find Keith and John at Tip Over Challenge. The LWB guys made it right up with a little finesse, and we kept on chuggin.

We catch up with Cody at the end of the trail. He's sitting by the side of Sand Flats Road, in a lawn chair, drinking beer, playing loud music, sweet. Cody talks John into giving Potato Salad Hill a run for it's money, and of course made it look easy.

We decided to scratch doing another trail and just drink beer. So we went back to our hotels, cleaned up, bought a bunch of beer, and drank it all. Then Cody tried to get in a fight with some adventure race guys over Pam's camp chair, Matt was trying to find spots on my ZJ that could be used as a bottle opener, and we all drank lots of beer.

Keith and John decided to hit Metal Masher on their way out of town Sunday with Cody riding with them, Mark and Matt bailed super early, and Pam and I just lounged around until Keith and John got done with Metal Masher so we could caravan back to Denver.

As usual, it was a GREAT trip out to Moab. Some great trails, great people, great times, and of course we broke some shit too!

We're all defnitely looking forward to going back for Grand Slam West 2005!