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10-09-2011, 10:54 AM
We had been wanting to make it out to Moab for an "overlanding" style trip for a while now, and having done Colorado the last 2 years we figured this was the year to do it. We had hoped to include White Rim, but part of the road north of Potato Bottom was washed out and is still impassable, so we substituted some other trails instead.
We drove in to Moab on Saturday October 1st and unloaded everything from the tow rig and headed out Kane Creek Rd. We had already driven 350ish miles to Moab that day, so we didn't plan on going in too far, and it was a bit hot. Pushing 90 in October, a little warmer than we had hoped for, but that would all change soon enough.
We found a nice spot at the base of Hurrah Pass where Kane Creek heads south and settled in for the night.
Shortly after we started setting up camp, it got a bit windy and Justin's tent tried to run away.
He packed it in and slept in his XJ that night, and we would all get quite acquainted with the wind as the trip went on.
Random camp site shot
Justin also found the need to fix his Jeep ALREADY, even though we hadn't even been in 4Lo yet.
We were greeted the next morning by an excellent sunrise and packed up to head on over Hurrah Pass and into Lockhart.
It felt a little weird calling it a "Pass" at 4,780 feet considering we had pulled the trailer over Imogene Pass at 13,110 ft the year before, and our house is somewhere around 5,400, but we'll go with it.
Heading through Chicken Corners
Making the turn into Lockhart
One of the trickier spots on Lockhart. There were definitely a few sections that took some extra thought and caution with the trailer, but nothing too bad.
Another small pass on our way through Lockhart
We tooled along Lockhart for a ways until we stopped for some reason, none of us really remember at this point, we're thinking bathroom break. Anyways, after getting out of the Jeeps we noticed a bike helmet, small pack, and one glove in a wash about 50ft from the road. We were pretty remote at this point, and had already set the over/under on how many people we would see for the rest of the day at 3, so if someone was indeed out there they were in a world of hurt. We had the SPOT and some first aid training, so we searched around for a bit but could not find anyone or more evidence of someone being out there. We ended up sticking around that area for a while too, as I noticed an issue on my Jeep as I was walking back to it.
A few years back when I had installed my Clayton's long arms, I ran the brake lines for the rear axle on the rear facing edge of the truss. This had worked fine for 5+ years, until now. Apparently my gas tank skid had been grabbing at the brake lines and bent the line going to the rear driver wheel pretty substantially. I tugged at the lines a bit to get them out of the way and then the line started leaking badly. The hard line itself ended up cracking a little bit inside the fitting, so we pulled it apart and tried to come up with a solution. Justin and I both own double flare tools, but they had been left at home, so that wasn't going to work. We could just clamp off the rear lines altogether and call it a day, but with pulling the trailer I wanted to at least make an effort to keep some of my rear brakes. We didn't have any bolts that matched the fitting to plug it, so I tried to weld it shut, and that failed miserably, so we just clamped it off anyways and I was very happy I had decided to go with a trailer axle that had electric brakes. We figured we'd get to camp and figure out something more permanent from there.
We stopped and checked out the wreckage from the plane crash a bit further south.
10-09-2011, 11:05 AM
We had set our destination for the evening somewhere around Hamburger Rock, and the rest of the trip did not disappoint. Some nice wide open sections where we could gain some ground and make up for some of the delays earlier in the day.
We came through this little section right before reaching our campsite.
There was a considerable amount of dispersed camping around Hamburger Rock, but much of it was already occupied, and Hamburger Rock itself was almost empty, so we opted to pay a $6/night and stay there. We were treated to some amazing sunsets and sunrises, and an all around good campsite.
We had still wanted to run Elephant Hill and venture into Beef Basin while we were down there, so we needed to come up with a good fix for my brakes. Unfortunately the only real option was to drive back to town for parts. The ZJ actually felt pretty stable on the road, and since there were no major descents into town where the brakes would really heat up, we decided to take the ZJ into town and fix it there. We noticed a little decel whine/howl from the rear axle, but it didn't seem too bad so we didn't think much of it. CarQuest had exactly what we needed, and for $16 in tools (my brake line bender was at home too) and parts we had that problem solved. While under there though I noticed my rear diff housing was hot to the touch, not good, and probably explained some of the noises from the trip up. It was also about 2 qts low on fluid. We wrongly assumed it was the low fluid and filled it back up and headed back to camp, more on our wrong assumption in a bit.
The trip back to camp was uneventful and we decided to take it easy and relax the rest of the afternoon since it had been go go go for all of us for quite some time and part of the point of a vacation is to relax right? Some cards were played, I took out the R/C crawler and had some fun with it, lots of places to play around at Hamburger Rock.
We made a nice dinner that night
and of course it had to be Hamburgers at Hamburger Rock!
10-09-2011, 11:29 AM
We set out the next morning to go run Elephant Hill as that has been on our "To-Do" list for quite some time now. We ran into another couple in a WJ and we all headed up the switchbacks.
Shortly after the switchbacks you enter the one-way section that takes you over towards Devil's Kitchen Campground. A little way before the campground there's a nice section of ledges that you have to climb up coming out of a wash. We get to the first ledge and hear a "TING" and then lose all forward momentum. Uh oh. I hop out to inspect and have Pam give it a touch of throttle and see the front wheels working as they should, and the rear driveshaft spinning, but NOTHING out of the locked rear end. This is where we figured out that I was wrong in my assumption earlier. We rolled the rig back into a nice spot in the wash and dove in to the rear axle. As much as I love the protection my Ruff Stuff diff cover offers, I hate the stupid little allen key buttonhead bolts. We struggled getting a few of those off, but finally got the cover off (and drained all the fluid into a catch pan) so we could inspect the damage. At first glance nothing seemed wrong and I was a bit perplexed. Then I noticed a bunch of bolts in the bottom of the diff. WTF. Then I noticed the ring gear wasn't flush up against the carrier. Somehow, somewhere, 8 of the ring gear bolts backed completely out, another one was chewed to destruction somewhere along the way, and the last one snapped as we were climbing that ledge. Only having a couple intact ring gear bolts would certainly explain that noise from the rear diff!!
We thought through several different options, from pulling the rear driveshaft and going out in front wheel drive to dynamite. We looked over the gears though and everything looked to be in good shape still, but we only had 4 bolts left that we thought would go back in. And again I was a bit frustrated as I had not put the original ring gear bolts in my spare bolts box, but had left them at home. We ended up putting those 4 bolts back in, spacing them as evenly as possible to hopefully help something, and limped back to camp. At this point I was kicking myself for not just bringing the truck and trailer down with us the day before, as we had now had to inconvenience Justin and have him drive us back to town to get them.
We did stop at Newspaper Rock though on the way to town
On the drive to town we discussed our options for the rest of the trip. I did not want to go down without a fight, and figured if we could get some more ring gear bolts in we would be okay for some light wheeling the rest of the week. We stopped at Moab 4x4 Outpost to try our luck, and they salvaged the one remaning 8.8 rebuild kit for us to get us the bolts we needed. We're in business!! We loaded Justin's XJ up onto our trailer and headed back to camp a bit rejuvenated, but not looking forward to pulling the rear diff cover again.
It had also rained a bit that day, and we came across this on our way to camp.
We tested the depth in a couple places, and figured with close to 17k lbs of truck, trailer, and XJ we should be okay and headed in. A few other vehicles didn't feel so confident and waited it out.
The hot weather that had been forecasted was quickly changing into cold and wet, and we decided to wait on our repairs until the next day. We did get this sunset out of it though.
Even then it was a bit cold, rainy, and windy, but we ended up getting 9 new bolts into the ring gear and felt confident that while it may not be perfect, it was most likely better than my Jeep had seen in a while.
We had 3 goals for the Elephant Hill trip, The Joint, Ruin Park, and the Confluence. We didn't realize how far Ruin Park actually was, so we eliminated that because of our late start, and then flip a coin between Joint and Confluence. We ended up making really good time and decided to go for broke and hit them both.
In the same wash where we had broken the day before, I again had some issues, but only some minor electrical ones that caused me to lose my CB and power to a couple accessories like GPS and phone chargers, so no big deal really.
Just before Devil's Kitchen is this narrow area. I had seen videos of some JK's going through that made it look really narrow, but they might have just been really wide as we had no issues going through.
Scenery like this was quickly making the trip back to Moab for parts and the morning wrench session completely worth it.
10-09-2011, 11:41 AM
We ended up reaching the parking lot for the Joint and hiked in. Absolutely worth checking out if you're in the area.
Some spots are a bit tight for us bigger guys, but nothing too bad.
We headed back towards Silver Stairs and the Confluence. I was bummed to see more paving on Silver Stairs, but can't really complain too much.
It looked like there might be some more weather moving in, but we made it out to the Confluence without issue. Pam is in the foreground just to the right of middle for a good size reference.
It was smooth sailing the rest of the way, and we were all happy to have completed the trail.
Another round of weather moved in that night and it was the first time in approximately 20 nights in our RTT where we actually left the tent because of wind. It had been loud most nights as it was quite windy, but the last night at Hamburger Rock was by far the most violent. Even though the wheels were chocked on the trailer and we had leveling legs down, the wind was moving the trailer a bit. We bailed for the truck for a few hours until the sun came up.
We loaded everything up on the trailer and headed back to Moab in search of a campsite for the rest of our trip. We ended up heading into Sand Flats and found a nice spot at Juniper Campground about 6 miles in. We had hoped to run Hell's Revenge that day as well, but Mother Nature had other plans for us so we headed into town for showers and a nice dinner at Zax.
We got up Friday morning to the PERFECT Moab day.
It was a little chilly to start off, but the sky was clear, snow on the La Salle's from the day before, and temps climbing into the low 60's. With just 2 rigs, and rather experienced drivers, we decided to go for broke again and knock out Hell's Revenge and Poison Spider Mesa in one day. We hit the trailhead for Hell's just after 9, and were in town for lunch by noon.
Group shot on Hell's
Justin coming down Dragon's Tail
Making short work of Tip Over Challenge
10-09-2011, 11:46 AM
After lunch we headed out to Poison Spider Mesa. Justin had a bit of a vendetta against this trail as he broke his last time out there and was unable to complete the trail under his own power.
I've been on the trail close to 20 times, so I played around a bit on the Wedgie.
One PSM first for me though was the overlook on the backside of the loop. Definitely glad we swung by there as the view is amazing.
On the way back down we both decided to play in the Wedgie a bit. I went low, and Justin went high.
This one messes with your head a bit.
After dinner that night at the Brewery we headed back to camp to find Sand Flats completely full, guess 24 Hours of Moab draws quite the crowd! There was also an Outerbike thing north of town. Either way, having not been there for EJS or the hot rod show, it was by far the busiest I had ever seen Moab.
We grabbed breakfast at Moab Diner the next morning and headed home. Another awesome Moab trip, and we got to include some new trails this time. We still need to get back to run White Rim, Kokopelli, and get into Beef Basin and Ruin Park, but that's what next year is for right?
10-09-2011, 12:13 PM
SPOT Adventures Page (GPS Track): http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=281978
10-09-2011, 01:50 PM
Sounds like an awesome trip! Im headed down there with the CSM How High Off Road Club next weekend!
10-09-2011, 08:45 PM
DAMN! I wish I could have been there, in more ways than one, sorry we couldnt make it, and I know we talked a bit so you know why, but it looks like I missed another awesome trip!
10-10-2011, 11:36 AM
Another great adventure, looks like it was a blast, nice trip report.
10-10-2011, 02:08 PM
Looks like a great trip Dave - we'll have to do one after I get Tricia more "tent-seasoned"
11-02-2011, 12:25 AM
Some Justin that we wheeled with many years ago who used to have a 5.9?
11-02-2011, 09:14 AM
Nope, last I heard from him he was living in WA and not really wheeling anymore.Originally Posted by chadjans
11-04-2011, 10:32 AM
Well after talking to you on Sunday I realized how much carnage your 8.8 had. Sorry to hear, but good for you guys for sticking with the trip. LMK when you plan to re-build the 8.8 etc and I will stop by to lend a hand.
11-04-2011, 02:59 PM
Thanks for sharing Dave. Great pics as usual..
OT: Welded a new roof on?
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