Day one: Steel Bender! A little nervous for this trail simply due to the name . Who wouldn't be? It was great to be back at the rally and see a few of our old friends. I know we are extra recognizable with our little blonde haired boy with us, but so many people recognized us, even some of the reps. Chilly morning! It was 39 when we woke up: not your typical Moab morning that's for sure! We had hot chocolate and oatmeal for breakfast, made our sandwiches, loaded everything up and then headed out for our first driver meeting. Our trail had about 20 vehicles. We were doing Steel Bender but starting at the lake side. We didn't know exactly what this would mean, but we found out later that it made most of the obstacles (in particular, the "wall") dang hard. Crazy!
The biggest obstacle was The Wall. Normally you would be coming from the other side and dropping down it allowing your tires to grip the rock while you hang until you finally drop to the bottom: we were going up! We saw our guide's vehicle attempt it and was spinning out all over and had to go at it a few times before succeeding. Wait, aren't they the experts!? Funny. The next one went. We strapped them down to help the roll over factor and it took about ten minutes for them to be successful. Crazy. We looked back at our long line of vehicles, and thought that we're going to be here awhile! I was quite nervous for everyone, I'll admit it. Kevin was most nervous about the first ledge because it came with a pretty steep cliff on the potentially roll over side. He wasn't too nervous about the actual wall. There were some close calls both with vehicles, as well as the men's toes holding onto the tow straps leaping out of the way when the vehicle finally gained purchase on the rock. When it was Kevin's turn, Jadeyn wished him good luck very loudly which made everyone laugh. Kevin went up it like a pro! He listened perfectly to the guide and did exactly as he was told. It wasn't easy as could be, but he did awesome. I was quite proud of him. And I think he was very relieved.
The rest of the trail was fun and eventful with more ledges and difficult spots and was beautiful. We hung out with an older couple who really took to Jadeyn. They had a black Pomeranian who even wore tiny doggles! Whew! Nice run. We got back about 5pm, had enough time to cook dinner, relax and then head out to the ice cream social and raffle. Bummer, we didn't win anything tonight, but we'll try again. Back to our tiny cabin (10 x 20 feet big) read a few chapters of Harry Potter to Jadeyn and hit the hay! Tomorrow we have Hell's Revenge and Kevin is certain that I want to drive it. Uh, we.'ll see how that conversation goes in the morning!
Day Two: Ready for Hell's Revenge today? We started out the morning by sleeping in a bit. Rough night last night with Jadeyn sleeping. He 'woke up' doing this almost barking forced cry, but wasn't really awake at all. I tried to get him to talk to me to see what he was upset about but he wouldn't wake up. Finally Kevin had to go to the bathroom anyway and took him too. He really had to go. Funny thing is that Jadeyn had no recollection of it in the morning at all! We had pancakes for breakfast and then headed over to the driver's meeting. We wandered all over through the vendors and then right before the meeting discovered that Jadeyn didn't have his little blue racing glasses any longer. Oh man. We retraced our steps all over and couldn't find them. He felt so bad as silent tears streamed down his face. They had already started the meeting so I found a guide and asked if it was possible to make an announcement. A few minutes later they did and someone brought the glasses to the front! We were so happy and Jadeyn learned a good lesson.
Kevin took over at the halfway point (whew). The landscape here is truly breathtaking. The Le Sal mountains are all perfectly snow-capped behind the amazing red rocks. We actually got to stop at both Hell's Gate and the Escalator and have a few of our group do them! You had to have a 5 point harness and helmet, or Kevin would totally have done the Gate! The Escalator was so tricky. The guide was right there directing every tire move and with each vehicle, there were sharp intakes of breath as a random tire it seemed would pop right up in the air as the vehicle went off balance! There was only one true incident when the guy didn't make it over one part and backed up to try again. He hit the sidewall of his tire and pfsssshh...out went all the air! The guide, Kevin and another dude scampered up with an air tank to fill him up, and this just showed how steep and tall these walls are. All three guys had a heck of a time making it up! They ran, made it up about five feet and just slid right back down a few times before finally making it up the 15 foot wall into the hole to help the guy! We also stopped at the hot tubs. Only one guy did these since there was about a foot of water at least in each of them.
Kevin finally got to do Tip Over Challenge! It's the one he wanted to do last time, but when he finally got up the courage, the group had started loading up to leave. Jadeyn and I got out to 'take pictures.' Two vehicles before him got into a spot of trouble. Thankfully, the guide was there to tell them not to move and he dashed over there and stood on one fender until a couple other guys held them down and they drove through. On this obstacle, you really never have all four wheels on the ground at once, and it switches off which wheels are up. It's cool looking, but not a relaxing one to watch! Kevin did great even leaving one wheel spinning in the air for a bit! By far, this is one of our top favorite trails here!
After the trail we went over to where the Polaris guys were doing their demo runs so Kevin could finally test out a RZR 1000. Hmmmm. Maybe I shouldn't have let him. It was amazing! Pure power and smooth suspension. Wow. We were going 75 on rocky dirt paths and it felt smooth as could be. Wow. We were impressed. And we got covered in dust following the lead guide so close, but Kevin wanted to keep up with the pro and see just what the machine could do! Wow!
Day Three: Gold Bar / Golden Rim Wow, what an eventful day. It began pretty uneventful: bacon and hot chocolate for breakfast and Jadeyn played in the trees behind our tiny cabin. There are two apricot trees that he has been 'harvesting' seeds from and slicing the hard green apricots with a plastic knife. Always entertaining. We are doing Gold Bar / Golden Rim today and are pretty excited about it. When we did Poison Spider last time, we got to see just a very small part of it and hoped it would be just as cool. It didn't disappoint. The group we were with was awesome. Quite a few people that we had been on trails with in the past and even two of our favorite guides. Very cool. The trail began on the same route to Gemini Bridges, so the first three miles was a lot of dust. Lucky we got three new dust buffs while test riding the RZR 1000 yesterday; they came in handy!
Once the main trail started, we quickly realized that it was going to be a fun one. Tons of variety in the obstacles and breathtaking scenery. Wow! There were so many big obstacles that I wanted to hop out and video but we were all going at such a great pace that I didn't want to hold us up. The overlook allowed for a complete 360 view of amazing country. Arches in the distance on one side, La Sal mountains all white capped, then red rock everywhere split by the green Colorado River. Wow! There were several places along the trail that were very challenging and I was grateful we were going down them, not up (at this point I didn't know that we would be going back the way we came and would have to go back up these walls!)
Jadeyn found another 6 yr old boy to romp with and they had a ton fun exploring deep down in the crack. When everyone who wanted to go over the crack had had their chance, we loaded up and headed back. Just the very first wall to get back over was challenging enough and it reminded us of all the obstacles ahead that would be pretty difficult going the other way. We had already had one machine with a hole in their sidewall that had to be patched and hoped that it would be the only mechanical challenge of the trip. Uh, no such luck at all on that one. Were we in for a challenge.
The men started working on the Can-Am. The front bumper/fender was totally folded into itself, both side mirrors were gone, roll cage fine but scraped up, but he had bent up a tie rod. The guys figured out how to use another machine's winch to straighten the rod out and we set off again. Several tough obstacles and 15 minutes later, stopped again. A flat on a different vehicle! Patch again, off again. 10 minutes later the tie rod bent again and they had to straighten it out before continuing. Oh, the Can-Am couple were riding in other vehicles and so someone else was driving their machine. We made it a few more minutes and we caught up to the first part of the group surrounding the same Can-Am . It had tipped again! On an obstacle, the tie rod had finally snapped sending the wheel at a crazy angle and boom, over he went! It's amazing what zip ties, duct tape and extra parts can do. They made a temporary fix and we were off again only having to stop a few more times to winch him up. Funny thing, a different Can-Am was the only rig to attempt and not make it over the crack. Several other tip overs or breakdowns this week were all Can Am. I think we won't ever be buying one in the future! So the trail was a good 2+ hours longer than it was supposed to be but I was so impressed with the guides and how everyone pitched in to help an not a single person complained even as it got later and later. So nice to see that when someone breaks down, they don't just sent half ahead, they all stick together and help. It was our first experience with major trouble and it was impressive.
We made it to the cabin, had time to wash our faces and change our shirts and had to race over to the arena in time for the catered dinner! We got a seat and sat with some great people to chat with, swap stories with and all be completely entertained by Jadeyn. Dinner was delicious. We had the final raffle, and dang it, we didn't win anything! Bummer. They gave away at least 15 sets of tires and about 10 sets of wheels! Oh, they gave us the final numbers too. We were at over 1000 people and over 600 machines! What a day! Home to the cabin, a little Harry Potter and to bed!
Day Four: Last trail of the day! Metal Masher. We were exhausted after the long day yesterday so it was nice to sleep in just a tiny bit (6:30am). We packed up the entire cabin all into the Jeep and had a little breakfast. Our cabin is located right on the way to the office and bathroom for half of the campground, so we got to know a lot of people. While we were packing, so many of them came over to tell us how fun it was to be on the trails with us and ask if we would be coming again next year. So many nice people. We reserved the same cabin again for next year.
We were on the trail again with Al and Rojean and their sweet Pomeranian. Such nice people.
Well,
back on the trail again. I remember seeing part of this trail when we
were first new to the RZR and were on a different trail. We saw a
narrow gully between rocks that were so scarred from under carriages and
tires scraping and we thought there was NO WAY that anything could get
over these rocks! Well, that same section, we went over successfully!
It seems that you have to have at least one trail where your guide isn't
the best, and this was the one. Unfortunately, our dude was more
interesting in hanging with his buddies or hob nobbing with the SPS reps
who were with us. Anyway, they seemed to blaze through the trail and
didn't even stop at the super hard obstacles to see if anyone would like
to try them. We couldn't believe that the trail was over so fast!
Beautiful scenery, but, wow, it was short. The tail end of it though
was on a sandy straight path that we gunned the engine and hit the
whoo-hoos and caught some air hooting an hollering the whole way.
We
all lined up and talked it over and finally divided into three groups:
those who want to do Gold Rim, those who want to go back and those who
want to do Gemini Bridges. We chose Gemini Bridges with our friends and
hiked out to the twin arches and enjoyed the beauty. Wow. Amazing
country. Back to the Jeep, trailer-ed up, said our good byes and hit
the road! Wow, Moab is spectacular every time and it was perfect! We
headed out to Jennifer's house in Grand Junction.
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