Next early spring adventure...

After nearing almost a month since I have gone out at all four-wheeling and almost four months since an actual trail-ride, rock crawling adventure, I have decided that it's time to plan the first 2009 trail-ride for the spring. Obviously the Moab trip will be planned and is something that I always look forward to but, I'm thinking about going somewhere exploring, someplace new that I've never been to before. A few places come to mind as I ponder on what terrain I will encounter and what kind of gear I will need to bring. Some of the places I've thought of are: Simpson Springs down the old Pony Express trail (which would consist of exploring spurs roads & canyons), Lookout Pass area outside of Vernon and Fairview, Temple Mountain outside of Goblin Valley State Park, or a little known hard-core four-wheel drive trail near Delta that's sometimes referred to as Cat Canyon. Anyone one of these places can be fun and exciting as long as we're well prepared. Lookout Pass and Simpson Springs require less winch/recovery gear but more survival, gas and water supplies because of the remoteness of the trails. The other two trails (especially Cat Canyon) are almost just the opposite with a winch, tow-straps and tools for mechanical breakdowns being the required items to take with you. As I research which of these areas I'll be planning for our excursion I will keep posts on any updates or changes about the areas and the trails.

Aftermath from trip...

Well, after driving my truck for a few days I have began to notice a creeking noise from the front-end. It's only on acceleration in four-wheel-drive and it doesn't matter whether the transfer-case is in low range or high, it still makes the noise. I'm thinking that it may be the u-bolts loosened up and they are allowing the front axle to shift slightly on the axle perches or it could be the soft transfer-case mount that has maybe sagged enought to allow the double-cardan joint of the front driveline contact the transmission crossmember under torque. Either way its got to be fixed and I will this week find the root of the problem and try to correct it.

The actual trip trying to GET to Lake Mountain...

Nate and I, both equipped with CB radios, headed out for our little excursion Saturday night leaving behind the pavement and running into a lot of melted snow and icy, watery mud underneath of it. We followed the main road all the way to were it bends and elevation starts to increase up the shoulder of Lake Mountain. After 20 mins or so of driving we ran into some deep snow (two and a half feet) and the danger of sliding off the steep road was getting iminent with our constant attempts of running up the hill at full speed. Once Nate was extracted from the snow with the Blazer, we decided to turn around for home but try a different route. We had found a road or whats supposed to have been a road and ran into some iced over puddles that looked to be frozen. I proceeded to drive through with my Blazer and managed to break through the ice from the weight of the truck. I then realized that this puddle was more of an iced over pond from the depth of it. I immediately accelerated in hopes to keep my momentum and pull through to the other side. Mud, water and ice chunks flew up in the air landing on the hood and windows as I pushed the engine close to it's rev limiter. My forward progress seemed to stop all together, so I let off the gas and got out and realized that my seven foot tall trail beast was about four and a half feet submerged into this now churned up icy mud hole. Nate in his Jeep Cherokee, tried to no avail pull me free from the goo with two long tow straps. It might as well been a Tonka truck hooked up to mine as the Jeep would stop dead in it's tracks as soon as the slack in the straps would pull tight. To end the trip, I finally called my cousin who has a Chevy Duramax diesel pickup to come extract my three and a half ton rig. Needles to say, it still took another forty-five minutes of dang near breaking the straps or ripping off his reciever hitch to jerk my truck hard enough to get me out of the drink. Maybe next time I can get closer to obtaining my goal on reaching the TV towers in the winter time with a little less snow and a lot less mud holes....

4wd group for the Lake Mountain trip...

So I finally got together my group of four-wheeling buddies last weekend to see just how far we could conquer the trail going up to Lake Mountain. Brandon and Nate both from my work were commited on going. They drive an 85' GMC shortbed pickup sporting a new 350 engine and a super-low SM465 trans. which turns the 35" tires and the other drives a 96' Jeep Cherokee with a coil-spring lift and an Aburn Ected electric front locker in his Dana 30 axle. My cousin was also supposed to go as well. His ride consists of a 1994 toyota double cab, (four-door, which in 94' only was available in Japan and had been shipped to the U.S.) 8+ inches of lift, full-width Detroit stuffed Dana 60 rear axle and True-trac driven Ford Dana 50 front axle including hydro-steer. A small block chev 350, ORD doubler t-cases and 40" MTR tires don't hurt either. :-)..........................
Well, everybody but me and Nate ended up going...bunch of wusses...actually I guess they had more imporant things to do than go with me tearin it up......yeah right!