Rock Crawling

Rock Crawling - July 28

We have been so lucky on this trip to meet so many people who take us in and introduce us to their daily lives which can really be SO totally different than ours. Our next door neighbor at Portal RV Resort is Dee McNenny, a retired ski instructor and Jeep driving extraordinaire, to say the least. She is from Colorado but working on making Moab her home base.  She lives in the most beautiful casita ever built with her coach in the driveway and two amazing Jeeps in the garage. Not a bad deal at all. She invited us to go out on her buggy to try "rock crawling" Saturday. What is "rock crawling"  you may ask. Well, it is pretty much just what it sounds like! And a lot more. We spent the ENTIRE day (due to some break downs you'll read about) out in the desert driving over rocks. Well, Dad and I rode...and walked some too!

We left Portal about 8:00 AM towing the buggy.  After meeting  Dee's friend Duane Stewart we headed up into the mountains . Shortly after getting into the valley, Dee's brakes on the buggy locked up, and we thought the day might be short lived. Dad and Duwane bled the brakes and sprayed some water on them to cool them down. Ten or so minutes later, the buggy was ready to go, and I decided to ride with Duane in the Jeep. We took the Rusty Nail Trail to the Golden Crack and then the Golden Spike back. The next day I went out and found a t-shirt with Jeeps and the word Moab too.   I felt like I had enough off road credibility to wear it!

The Outlaw buggy for Dee and Dad

The view as we climbed the mountain 

My view from the Jeep

When we weren't climbing obstacles this is what the trail mostly looked like

Duane driving and me holding on for dear life at the start of this obstacle. 

Here I have on the 5 point harness and clenching my jaw while Duane sings as he drives. 

Dee is the Queen Bee driver

Duane spotting and helping find the line on the Rusty Nail Trail

The first obstacle I ever went over where I saw sky the ENTIRE way. I screamed on this one! At this point, I had no idea how anything worked. After a while, I started watching Dee in the buggy behind us and could see the tires crawling, literally, up the rocks. 

And so begins an unusually difficult obstacle...

Off camber

Dad bails...

Duane having to add rocks in front of the right passenger tire to get some traction to get over the obstacle

Stuck on the differential - you can see where it scratched into the rock. Oh, and no worries---she made it!

"No left turn" obstacle. I wish I had a picture of the drop off on the left side of the mountain!!

Squeezing through "no left turn" and listening to country music. Definitely a great day to add to the memory bank.

The Golden Crack

Lots of differential scratches and black spots that are from power steering failures

Dee on the Golden Crack with Duane spotting  - what a GREAT shot. One of my favorites on the day. 

This crack is in the Pitman arm which allows steering on the Jeep - so with that broken...no steering. Let me back up...Dee says she wants to go over the Golden Crack, and Duane says that basically there is NO way he's going to cross it because the past two times he has crossed, something has broken. Well, once Dee got over, Duane couldn't stand being on the other side (we didn't HAVE to cross this to get back to the trail head by the way) and so over he goes and "crack" the Pitman arm goes. 

So here is break down for number 2 (the locked brakes was number 1). Duane has no steering so he isn't going anywhere. Luckily, we were at the summit of the mountain on the trail and had some cell service so Dee was able to call out a mechanic. Yes, a trail mechanic had to cross all those obstacles by himself with no spotting and bring us the right part. Dad and I had brought water, but enough to be back at noon, not enough for the whole day which we quickly learned was a mistake, but Dee and Duane had plenty and we were OK on water. While we waited for the part, we took a hike to the rim of the mountain and could even see the highway so we weren't actually far from civilization, but there is no other way off the mountain than over the trails unless you want to take the 1400 foot drop...the choice is yours. 

View from our hike

Dad napping. I can't make fun because I took a long nap too!!

It probably took about 3 hours total for Tim the mechanic to get out and install the new Pitman arm (which fit!) He even had to take a nut off of his truck to finish the install, and then there were three of us driving the obstacles on the different trail on the way home. I really enjoyed this trail back. Although the obstacles were big, there was no need to spot, and we headed along nicely for a while. Not to be outdone, Dee came on the radio and said, "Well...I think I'm out of gas!" To make a really long story short (er), Tim got gas out of his tank to give to her while Duane and I headed on to get gas from the trailer at the bottom of the mountain. Instead of being out of gas, it looked like there was something wrong with the fuel cell in Dee's  buggy. By the time Duane and I got the gas, we met up with Tim and Dee in the valley before the descent down about 6:45pm. About a mile from the parking lot we came upon this....

Dee had lost ALL of her lug nuts on the back driver side and off came the wheel and tire! You can see how close we were to the highway. By this point, my cheese and crackers were WAY gone! 

Jacking up the buggy and using lug nuts from other wheels to put on the fallen wheel.

We finally made it to the flat part of the road, and Dee had a chance to show off her backing skills which were great.  She demonstrated by backing the trailer down the road so the buggy didn't have a chance to lose that wheel again. What an exciting day!! With a full belly of pizza, I slept so well and luckily didn't dream of tipping over in a Jeep!! Oh, I also can't forget to mention the amazing SKILLS both Dee and Duane have while driving these obstacles. Really top notch driving!! So lucky we were all safe and had a great day!!!