Moab 2017 - Bucket List Trip - Cross Country Rock Therapy Adventure

I think we both just rushed it, it wasn't really a hard obstacle relative to the rest of the trail. I was the first one going down and just dropped in blind and tagged my driver door, and I think Ryan tried going up the steeper side and got a little throttle happy

 

This was a awesome read and great pics OP. What a inspiring thread you created

 

Thanks! There is more to come but I've been slow to write. I only decided to write this after reading a ton of other awesome trip reports on here.

 

I noticed you running 315"s. I'm just wondering how capable my truck would do considering I'm on 285's full skids and locking rear diff with A-trac.

 

Ryan and I were on 255s (33x10.5) this trip. I only had a rear locker and stock skids. He was locked f&r with full skids. I did everything short of cliffhanger. Your truck will be fine. There are tons of trails it would be capable of doing.

 

Thanks for re-insurance definitely wanna go out there and hit the rubicon trail also.

 

Oh ya, moab has tons of trails that you can do. check out CO while your out this way too.

The Rubicon out in CA? That's defiantly on my bucket list, but my truck isn't quite built up to do that. I've heard 35s and f&r lockers minimum.

 

Truck is only as capable as it's driver too, you and Ryan are awesome drivers.

But yes @TacoTRD78 a ton of people run that setup and do well in Moab. Ton's of grip out there and different trails/lines to take.

Rubicon is on my list too. Such a far drive though. That's gonna be a long trip for me. CO passes is next on the bucket list.

 

Maybe we can me somewhere in the middle between Fl and Jersey lol

 

Yeah next big mod I'm thinking of is a re-gear. Id love to put a marlin crawler dual transfer case in my truck also.

 

Great report

 

Thanks everyone! The more that time passes the more I am starting to forget all the little details. I was going to try to post the trip report page and a video edit right after for the applicable day, but finding time to edit has been difficult lately. So in the mean time I am going to keep trucking on the trip report.

Day 5: Moab Rim

After the successful run on Cliffhanger, I said fuck it and was confident enough to lead the run on Moab Rim. I read the guide book quite a bit and they weren't exaggerating when they explained the pucker factor that is involved in Moab Rim. The hardest part is essentially the first mile, a bunch of steep and sometimes off camber ledges on the way up at the edge of the Colorado river. When you are on the trail, you can look off the edge and see the river below, and not the road that is between you and the river. It's a gorgeous sight, but you also know that if you fuck up and roll off the edge, you are dropping 30-50 feet onto the highway below. The first obstacle, "The Devil's Crack" is especially sketchy as you really don't have much space between you and the edge.

IMG_0260 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0758 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The group we had was only three trucks, @HolyHandGrenade and Karen in their truck, and @Sub-Zero in his. We all are similarly built, on 35's, full armor, with Tim and I locked front and rear, and Ryan only locked in the rear. Tim and I made it up relatively easily thanks to the lockers, but Ryan needed some line shimmying and skinny pedal because of only a rear locker.

The z-turn ledges were next which were pretty large and pretty steep. At this point though I have figured out how to run the ledges in Moab and we all got through the z-turn with little to no issues. I think at this point there was a ledge that went back down towards the river and sloped through there again. While the ledges did take some concentration, I don't feel like they were anything super difficult and I was wondering at this point what the big fuss was about for this trail. Boy would I eat these words later...

IMG_0760 by Michael Halat, on Flickr


We continued down the trail and took the route to the right on the way up. This had a couple climbs as well as a mini "car wash" which was basically just a deep 2 ft by 2 ft hole filled with water.

IMG_0779 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0837 by Michael Halat, on Flickr



This part was mostly scenic though, really enjoyed the views leading up to the look out.

IMG_0263 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0268 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0269 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

IMG_0270 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0273 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0275 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

We reached the look out that let's you look down on the town of Moab below. We stopped and ate some lunch there before we were going to head back down the trail. After I ate my sandwich I decided to hike up the cliffside to get some photos with a better perspective:

IMG_0277 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0279 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0282 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0285 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0286 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0289 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

It was pretty sweet doing a run with the Jersey crew like we used to run together at Rausch back home.

IMG_0295 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0813 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

From here we started back down the trail heading towards the trail head again. On this way we took the right side split again so we wouldn't be going over the same terrain. We came up on some jeeps we had seen earlier in the day at the exact right time. They were messing around in a wash and were nearly fully rolled over. We parked the trucks, and run up to help. With all of us and a couple people from the other Jeeps we were able to push them back over till they could drive themselves out of the situation. It was sketchy, but we were happy we were there to help.

This was the wash out they were messing around in:

IMG_0831 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0834 by Michael Halat, on Flickr


Most of the rest of the trail wasn't bad until we hit the first (and now last) mile of obstacles and ledges. The view was fantastic, but trail traffic was starting to build both coming up and coming back down.

IMG_8180 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0301 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

We hit the one ledge where we were going down off camber and it was much different going the other way. Now we are going up, off camber to the passenger side (sloping towards the river) and it puts lot's of pressure onto your passenger side wheel. I made it through okay but Tim I think was struggling to find the right line. It didn't help that he was much longer than me. The whole spot was sketchy as well, not a whole lot to grip and if you went too far to the right you are asking to flop. Then it happened, Tim blew his passenger side CV.

At this point we had to get Tim out of the way first. Ryan came and pulled him backwards enough to try to get him on semi level ground. The CV where it blew was binding and hitting the shocks every time it rotated, so it had to be dealt with immediately. Tim cut it and we tried to get moving again. The problem was where he cut it that was easily accessible still left a stub waving around to hit shit.

IMG_0305 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0306 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0308 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I left my truck up ahead and out of the way at the top of z-turn till we got this figured out.

IMG_0309 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

This kinda shows how off camber the main trail is. This is a "flat spot."

IMG_0310 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After Tim was able to cut more out I think Ryan or I ended up getting him up and over that ledge.

Ryan and Tim came down to the top of Z-turn and decided it's just best to get a CV swap going so Tim can get through the rest of the trail. This ended up being an extremely involved job because they couldn't get the leverage to pop the CV out without pulling the IFS skid.

While they were getting this under way I was essentially blocking the trail, and there was still tons of traffic coming up and down this tiny corridor. I decided against my best judgement to come down Z-turn without a spotter. I did however have enough sense to ask Karen to at least get it on video. I made it down the first section with little to no issue and then made my way to the second section. I basically took the worst line possible and almost rolled. I felt it get pretty bad as I was going into it and asked Karen how much more I had to go. Realistically, I should have asked for a winch backwards to re-approach. She said it only get's worse and that's when I called for Tim and Ryan to get some weight on my truck, They jumped on the back and things got even dicier as I kept going. I should have just pinned it when it got that bad, but thankfully I heard Ryan telling me to gun it and so I did. I made it through somehow without rolling, but holy shit, I was close.

IMG_8181 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8183 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8184 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8189 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODpVH8kXWfg

And screenshot:

IMG_8202 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After Tim and Ryan wrapped up his CV, they worked their way down Z-turn and kept going back down Devil's Crack. Traffic was easily at it's peak now as there were side by sides coming up, and a ton of 4x4's, quads and dirt bikes coming down. Hard part is Z-turn is a one vehicle at a time kinda spot.

IMG_8199 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0886 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0889 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

At this point I just wanted to get the fuck off this trail. We all came down the last little ledges on the way out and were just thankful we all made it out in one piece. Ryan and Tim went back to Ken's Lake to finish fixing Tim's truck and I went to move my camp site from Ken's Lake to the dunes so I could start experiencing the partying part of RT. After my experience on Moab Rim, lot's of whiskey got drank that night. Shout out to @bulhas for introducing me to the sweet sweet nectar that is Gibsons.

IMG_8207 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

 

Nice recap Mike. I’ll try to find more photos of the day for you later. Putting the roof skin on my trailer right now.

 

Minus the Kokepelli, this is almost identical to the trip I made out there from TN in 2001. It's pretty amazing eh? Back then, Lower and Upper Helldorado in BTF were open and we ran those in the middle of the week.... but aside from that, it was almost the same trip.

Great write up and great vids!!

 

Holy hell! That video had me sketching out and I'm sitting at a desk. How bad were you shaking after that??

 

Thank's for the vid's! Should definitely make for a more fun edit now.

Sucks they closed them, I have a ton left on my list that I did not get to do including Behind the Rocks, Steel Bender and Metal masher. Just an excuse to come back, obviously.

Lol a ton. Closest to flopping I have ever been. You can hear it in my voice after I got out of it. It was a good lesson learned that thankfully didn't cost me my truck.

 

[QUOTE="cynicalrider, post: 17040742
Lol a ton. Closest to flopping I have ever been. You can hear it in my voice after I got out of it. It was a good lesson learned that thankfully didn't cost me my truck.[/QUOTE]

That was scary outside the truck. I probably would’ve shat myself inside.

I really thought you were going over. I was elated and very relieved when it came down. Mostly because I had gotten out from under the rear bumper by then though

 

Great report Mike, thats crazy that the whole trail was so off camber. It'll be awhile before I can handle stuff like this lol.

This is something Ive kinda wanted to train myself to stop, I tend to get a hella shaky foot if I get in a sketchy spot which makes working the pedals that much harder and makes the whole situation worse... Cant stand it.

 

Holy hell, two updates this quickly?!

Day 6: The Trifecta (Poison Spider Mesa, Golden Spike, and Gold Bar Rim)

So after man drinks around the camp fire the previous night, I made plans with @rctoy to do the Trifecta. The goal was to hit the trail early which was pretty rough considering the amount that was drank. We tried to be on the trail by 8 or so but Konsta's boy Andrew was running behind. He was running behind enough for @HolyHandGrenade and @Sub-Zero to get their shit together and join us as well. Would have been a solid group of five till shit hit the fan almost out of the gate.

We started into Poison Spider Mesa and the traffic was already building. It was mostly UTV's and side by sides that were filing in between us in hordes. We approach the first real obstacle, an optional ledge that is kind of near the edge of the cliff. The view was fantastic from this particular spot.

IMG_0312 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Andrew and Konsta made it up no problem, so did Tim and I. Last to hit it was Ryan, and it was unfortunately his demise. He was struggling to get up it and all of a sudden we heard a loud BANG. I was thinking he blew the rear end but it was kind of worse. Tim winched him back up to level ground (or maybe I pulled him, can't remember) and we assessed the damage. We could see his drive shaft hanging down so we thought he must have hit it on the ledge. Well it turns out, his spring perches busted loose, and when he was giving it some gas to get up the ledge his entire diff rotated upwards. This bound his driveshaft up and caused it to explode.

IMG_8209 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8210 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

While Tim had a spare drive shaft I believe, the bigger issue was that Ryan's pinion was rotated and needed the perch re-welded. Tim volunteered to help Ryan get off the trail and get back into town to get this taken care of.

Konsta, Andrew and I pushed on, now with me feeling like an under dog on 35's while Andrew's on 37's and Konsta is on 42's?

We hit a bunch of obstacles on Poison Spider including the waterfall, v-notch, and a couple others. I remember a couple really steep obstacles that I think I have some videos of. I honestly feel like we flew through a bunch of poison spider including the high speed section which was a ton of fun.

From there we broke off onto a section called "Where Eagles Dare" which had steep steep slickrock sections that make Hell's Revenge look like a walk in the park. Lot's of blind hills and ridiculously steep sections. At the entrance to this trail we find a pretty sweet cave like structure to play around with and get some photos in.

IMG_0313 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0318 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0321 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0328 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

From this spot we worked our way down to the edge of the mesa where we overlooked the river, train tracks and people hiking the Corona Arch.

IMG_8211 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0331 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

We figured this was a good enough spot as any for a quick lunch.

IMG_8213 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0333 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0334 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The valley here looked amazing as well:

IMG_0340 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

My truck looks stock compared to their's.

IMG_0343 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0348 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

From here we continued our journey on where eagles dare. Here Konsta tried to climb further left than what the actual trail was and even with all his horsepower and all lockers he couldn't get up that spot because it was basically straight up.

IMG_0352 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

You can see his tire marks in front of his tire on the wall in this photo:

IMG_0353 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

And again here lol:

IMG_0354 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

After we got through all the steep climbs, off camber traverse's and descents, we transitioned into Golden Spike which had even more awesome views.

IMG_8220 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8221 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0356 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0357 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0359 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Until we finally came to an obstacle I have had on my list for this trip for quite some time now, the Golden Crack.

Of course Konsta goes across the crack at a huge gapped part just because he can lol it was impressive to say the least.

IMG_0365 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Next Andrew and I crossed the crack at the normal crossing point.

IMG_0368 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0369 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0370 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I don't think I have any photo's of myself going this way, but because I knew I wouldn't be back to Moab for a long time I wanted to hit it both ways so I turned around and went back, and then back again.

IMG_8253 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_8254 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Also the view from here was spectacular:

IMG_0373 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

It wasn't too long before a family of dirt bikers came to the crack. The father (I'm assuming) rolled up to the crack and gave his 2 stroke a brap and jumped the crack right in front of us. It was pretty awesome to watch. He offered to get someone else's bike (a 4 stroke and much smaller bike) across the same way. I wanted to get a video of it since I was so impressed by the first jump but only got my camera out enough to capture a single photo, a photo that captured an oh shit moment perfectly, a moment we almost saw someone die.

IMG_8225 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The bike bogged when he ripped the throttle and dug into the second ledge. We saw him go slightly over the bars, smack his head/face onto the rock and watched both him and the bike disappear into the crack that's about 6 feet deep in that spot.

We rushed into the crack to help get the bike off of him and get him up. Someone helped him up and two of us worked on getting the bike out of the crack. He had a pretty big knot on his head and was bleeding but seemed to be okay. He definitely should have kept his helmet on for that one. After we helped them get the rest of their bikes over and saw they were okay, we continued on the trail. I remember there being a ton of ledges we were coming down. We also hit a couple more obstacles like double whammy, golden steps, the wall, and body snatcher. Honestly those obstacles were a ton of fun and I was pretty stoked to get through all of them with minimal issues and no body glamage.

Here's some shots of Andrew trying to get up double whammy on the big boy line as Konsta called it before needing to take the line I took up:

IMG_0378 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0379 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0381 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0386 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0387 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0388 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The last obstacle we hit was the waterfall on Gold Bar rim which I was impressed that my truck was able to crawl right up. No photo's of the exit but I should have a ton on video I hope.

IMG_0389 by Michael Halat, on Flickr
IMG_0391 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

As we left the trails I headed back to the main camp at the dunes while they headed back to theirs at Ken's lake. They came back out to the dunes later that night as this was the official last night of Rock Therapy and the big party was this night as well. That night there were many shenanagins like @dakotasyota taking @IDtrucks and I on a ride in the dunes and getting a flat on the way out, the creation of the "Other Trifecta" by @NYCO where I drank Jameson, Gibsons and Jack Daniels all at the same time, and other partying. I also brought out some Yuengling for both @lotsoftoys and @IDtrucks to enjoy as well, and Jace let me have some of Colorado's finest and Mark "tolerated" me stealing swigs of his Gibsons once in a while.

The Kokopelli left it's mark on the can's I gave though.



IMG_8234 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

All in all, it was an amazing first Rock Therapy for me, but my adventure was far from over...

 

Kinda hard to train yourself out of really, it's just adrenaline fucking your body up. You can get more comfortable in sketchy situations but even then once in a while you can get yourself in a spot that really gets the blood flowing. That icy spot on the hill from the last trip we did up north definitely had my adrenaline going.