Crown King run, and pictures.

Here are a few pictures form Adam (seabass), and I's Crown King run yesterday. It defiantly was a lot more than I was expecting, and I would be lying if I told you it was not difficult, keep in mind I am a newb 4x4. The trail starts off really nice, but gets progressively worse due to people making ruts, and areas where its been washed out. My camera died about halfway, but Adam took some more pictures and I am sure he will be around soon to share them
























The only casualties after it was all said and done was my rear driver 5100, and Adam's rear driver mud flap. Maybe a bruised ego from having to get winched out by a Jeep .

Both of our trucks did extremely well, and I was very impressed at the capabilities of the truck. We got hung up on the last obstacle on the trail as it was pretty badly rutted out and hard to find good rocks to go off of. I fully believe had we had a locker we would have been OK, or if we screwed around with rock placement longer we would have got out.

I have since then done the yellow wire mod (I now have TRAC in 4L) which probably would have got me out as well. Lessons learned is I need to get my sliders installed, and some more trail armor before attempting this again.

I am sure I forgot some stuff but am still very tired form our all day event. Adam will be along shortly to pick my my loose ends

 

Nice man cool pics.

 

Nice pics, looks like you guys had fun

One suggestion and that is try airing down, the tires will find a little more traction

 

Like Ryan said, it was a bit more than we were expecting. Definitely got into a few pickles at least a dozen times or so, and the trip took the full day. We were glad to make it through, and looking back I can say that it was fun but very stressful. Nowhere to turn around once you hit a certain point, and some spots we climbed would have been much more difficult hitting from the other direction.

Trail update: This trip required clearance additional to stock in order to not do damage. Our 3" lifts kept us safe but we had some close calls and had to be very creative in some spots. Luckily there were 4 of us in 2 trucks so we had a spotter on the nasty spots to help line up our tires. We watched two stock-height Fords get high-centered at least twice each, and one we had to tow over some boulders because he was spinning all around. Highly recommend some trail armor and maybe a come-along and other recovery gear. The very end of the trail before rising up into the pine trees has one last hoo-rah of a washout that has 2 very large boulders to overcome. A few rigs had to be winched over that one to prevent hitting a large boulder sticking out on the driver's side.

The highlight of the whole trip was watching these two complete assholes in a brand new Raptor get stuck hard twice and have to drag themselves off of a few boulders. Some good stepside rail damage and good undercarriage scraping on their $45k truck that was barely a week old. Both times they were stuck, we offered help but they refused. Lesson learned - when people stop on the trail to chat and be friendly, and you're a douchebag redneck, your new rig is going to eat ass.

Sorry for some of the low-res pics mixed in below. There were some good stills that I grabbed from my Flip video cam that had some great angles but unfortunately they're a bit grainy. I'll get some good vids uploaded probably a little later today showing some of the ride.

Enjoy!

 

Very nice gents, great pics. The raptor story makes me lol... I mean I hate ford myself but I'd still offer help and all that. When you're out in places like that... it pays to be friendly... everyone's there with the same end intent after all, to have fun, enjoy the scenery, and get in some wheeling with hopefully little to no trail damage. I was really amazed at Butcher Jones how awesome everyone was, regardless of what you drive. That was a complete 180 from the sports car scene I'm used to.

Side note, some of those pics make me cringe and want to get all my trail armor done before I even take my new beast out lol. I need to order up all my stuff again and some sliders... only thing I have now is my AllPro front bumper (not installed yet haha).

 

thanks for sharing

 

Great pics guys. I need to do that run sometime.

Jake Grats on the new truck.

 

nice pics and I wish i noticed this or knew you were rolling before hand. Haven't been on the taco forums much lately as I've been busy and primarily screwing around with the fj but ck is no longer a simple stocker run!!

I really wish you got pics of the knuckleheads in the ford!!!


Also, what is the yellow wire atrac style mod?? how do you do it and what is required with your vehicle to do it successfully? Again, links are cool since i've been away for a while. I'm in Gilbert too!!

 

The yellow wire mod basically tricks the truck into thinking its in 4h when its really in 4L. the 09 10 tacos have TRAC for reg models, and ATRAC for TRD OR models. I have an sr5 so only TRAC. When in 4H TRAC is active, but switch to 4L and it automatically shuts off. Its kind of confusing lol.

 

very nice pics

 

lol @ the F150

 

AWESOME!

 

Great pictures. can you picture what it would have been like if it started to rain on you Guys.

 

Even more lol at the douches in the Raptor. At least the guy in the F-150 was nice and appreciated the help

 

Looks like fun!

 

Now I want to go...lol when will this happen again? We need a couple guys.

 

Well I just got my sliders installed today. Let me get a few more pieces of trail armor and I will be down to go again. I would imagine it will stay the same difficulty until next winter when the snow melts off.

 

Nice pics!

 

I definitely wouldn't go back without sliders and some additional skid protection. My little spacer lift sure held up well though, but I'd be happier running billies all around with coilovers in the front to soften up the ride a bit and add a touch more clearance. Also, highly recommended to air down a bit for some better traction on those nasty spots.

 

Here's some more pics from the recovery from the final tricky part of the trail. Dammit, should have aired down and tried it one more time!




First up is Ryan's truck...almost made it. Tried weighing down the back but still slipped trying to climb over the first boulder (you can't see it but it's as big as the undercarriage of his truck and about twice the clearance of ground to chassis. Tire placement was critical but traction was horrible on the loose gravel...



Tried again after moving some rocks into the holes, but still too slick.






Mine was the first to get winched up the climb after I almost had it. I had tires at full pressure through the entire trip though. I really should have tried airing down a little bit to give it one more shot, but the boulder by my driver's door was too close for comfort. It actually hit my driver's rim when being winched and put a rash on it but it didn't bend the rim .. the beauty of $99 machined wheels