Moab - April 2018

The Alpine 14ers headed to Moab in April. Unfortunately, due to some mechanical problems, our fearless leader was not able to join us. However, Tom and Nancy and Bill and Cheryl did join us for dinner on Friday and Saturday night. This time we decided to tackle two trails and do some sight seeing on Saturday. On Thursday, we battled crazy wind while we took on 7 Mile Rim, on Friday we conquered Hell's Revenge, and on Saturday we ventured through Canyonlands for more of a touristy day. All told, this was another awesome trip. Thanks to Gary and Harold for their planning and leading us through the trails.

On Thursday, we faced some crazy wind. Supposedly it was gusting to 60+ mph, and we definitely felt it. We met up with Chad and Maygen in the morning, and they tolerated the wind all day in the buggy.

After fighting the wind and sand for awhile, we decided to look around Uranium Arch for a bit. It was a unique arch, gave us some break from the wind, and it housed a rather large birds nest.

After the arch, we headed out looking for a good place to stop for some lunch. We ventured across these large flat rock formations.

Ultimately, we couldn't find any good places to stop for lunch, so we ended up eating in our Jeeps to escape the wind and sand.

7 Mile Rim was a fun trail, and it would be great to do again when it's not as windy. On Saturday, the wind died down considerably, but the temperature dropped quite a bit, too. We headed to Hell's Revenge. Harold did a great job leading the way.

Hell's Revenge was a fantastic experience, and it definitely induced some sweaty palms on a number of obstacles. It challenged our skills, but we also proved our Jeeps were very capable of taking on the trail. After the initial obstacle, it's a fairly easy drive to the first big hill.

After the hill, we followed the trail out to an awesome view of the river with a few obstacles along the way.

After the observation point, Chad was able to put the buggy to the first test up Hell's Gate. The buggy handled it with ease!

We decided to take a break and eat lunch, since we had been at Hell's Gate awhile. Prior to Chad driving up the obstacle, an ATV had tumbled end-over-end down, and we all watched them get winched out.

There are a lot of great obstacles and interesting spots, and I could have posted a bunch of pictures; but, I wanted to keep the blog post from getting too long. We moved on to the next big test for the buggy at the Escalator. After some maneuvering, Chad was able to get up the Escalator without too much difficulty. 

Towards the end of Hell's Revenge, Harold noticed some noises coming from his Jeep. This would spell the end of his trip as he headed back to Denver on Saturday. He did great at leading us through Hell's Revenge, though. This is Trudy taking on a hill towards the end of the trail.

After this we went to Potato Salad Hill to watch the buggy work it's magic up that hill using three different lines.

On Saturday, we decided to do some sight seeing through Canyonlands while taking an easy trail to start. It really had some awesome scenery. Thanks to Gary for leading the way.

We stopped at this arch and had lunch. It was a great day with very pleasant weather.

Afterwards, we ventured on into Canylands National Park to see Mesa Arch.

We made our way to Mesa Arch for some very scenic pictures.

After Canyonlands, we all met up at the RV park for some great grilling and chatter. It was another great Moab trip filled with great memories. Special thanks to Gary and Harold for leading the trail runs, and for Bill and Cheryl and Tom and Nancy for joining us even without wheeling.

Illinois Gulch - March 24th

Patrol 14 headed for Rainbow Falls (aka Illinois Gulch) on March 24th. Bill, Gary, Daryl & RoxeAn, Dave & Kim,  and Sam & Elaine made the trip down. Also on this trip, we had some guests. Jamie & Cecilia and Joe were great additions on the trail, and it was awesome to get to know them throughout the day. We met at Deckers around 9:30am. We discovered several other 4x4 groups also meeting there, so we decided to quickly get underway to avoid any trailhead traffic jams. The weather was fantastic.

Of course, the main highlight of this trail is Moab Hill. Here, we made the descent down the hill, and then people took the line back up as they felt comfortable.

The first one up the hill was Gary.

Next up was Daryl, and after a couple times of backing up and taking another go at it, made it up the hill without any issues.

...and, Joe made quick work of the same line. That might make a good endorsement for the KO2's both Joe and Daryl have on their Jeeps.

Jaime headed up the same line as Daryl, Joe and Sam; but, he discovered some issues with his transfer case. Unfortunately, he had to back down and take an easier line.

Next up, Dave and Kim found a line perfect for them.

Sam picked a line similar to Joe and Daryl, but after bouncing off a rock he ended up heading up a line similar to Gary.

Bill headed up next, taking the same line as Daryl, Joe and Sam.

Unfortunately, the YJ slipped off a rock and found itself jammed pretty good (below). We ended up winching him back, and then Joe assisted him up the hill successfully.

After having fun on Moab Hill, we headed on up the trail and found a scenic spot for lunch. We had a great view of Pikes Peak.

Besides a few issues with Jaime's transfer case, we had a great day getting out to wheel and spend time with good friends.

Metberry/Longwater Gulches - 12/30/2017

Patrol 14 wanted to get out, but where can you go when the mountains are snowed in?  We had a few choices, we could just go play in the snow, which meant a lot of digging; OR, we could find trails at lower elevations.  Well, we decided to head to the gulches, lower elevations, and not difficult trails; and IF we did run into snow, any day away from the city can’t be bad.  We met at the Deckers store and headed down to the trail head about 9:30 on Saturday. Once we were off the highway, we found a nice wide spot near the trail head to air down.

Our goal for the day was to run Metberry and Longwater Gulches. If you have never been to the gulches, home of the Hayman fire, it is worth a trip to see the devastation that was left by some foolish human being. We encountered a number of downed trees across the trails. Of course, we took the time to remove these from the trails and placed them along the trailside to discourage the ATV’s in the area from going off-trail.  I think we will continue to see lots of trees across the roads in this area since the fire was in 2002, and many of the trees in that area are now starting to fall due to rot. In fact, a tree feel across the trail in the time between when we headed down the trail and returned to the trailhead.

Even though temps were in the 50’s and there was very little snow in the area, the river was covered with a significant amount of ice. 

A typical Patrol 14 tradition are Hot Dogs on Gary Boudreau’s grill.  Of course, what goes better on a Jeep run and a beautiful day than Hot Dogs, Chips and cookies? Thanks, as always, to Gary for bringing along the BBQ unit and grilling those dogs. Sweet treats were also plentiful.

 

Our group descended the one descent obstacle for the day.  Of course, this isn’t extremely difficult. It looked a lot more intimidating than it actually was.  In my opinion, coming up the rock was a lot more fun.

It was a great day to get out and enjoy some mid-winter wheeling.