We just got back from Moab on Monday. Still recovering from the 4 day party. I went up with the guys from Loco Offroad, trailering my K5 behind my Silverado. We got up at 4AM on Thursday and met up with the Loco Guys in Flagstaff for breakfast.


We got up to the Slickrock Campgrounds, unloaded and grabbed some pizza in town. Friday morning we ran Metal Masher. The guys from ORD ran with us. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met, they go out of their way to help out and make sure everyone makes it off the trail (more on that later ).









The guy that was supposed to lead the trail didn't make it up to Moab until Friday night, so we ended up accidentally bypassing the trail on the way end and drove straight to Widowmaker.

This is Wally (ORD truck driven by the owner Steve)


This is Cousin Willard (ORD truck driven by Steve's dad James "Papa ORD"). I love this truck and when I build a new rig it will probably look a lot like this one.

Me, I didn't make it


This guy (Jason) busted his rear driveshaft on the first obstacle and had to drive back to camp on the bypass in FWD.


We ran Metal Masher backwards from Widowmaker. We ate lunch at the top next to a 1200 foot cliff.




Then we continued on down the trail.






We stopped to play on Rock Chucker, I made it .






Travis couldn't make it no matter how much rubber he left on the rocks.

Parking lot fun after the baja run out the wash.

The cliff in the background of this shot is where we ate lunch.


ORD put on a BBQ for everyone Friday night at the park. I think there were over 60 trucks registered, I'm not sure what the count was for attendance.



After the BBQ the ORD guys came back to camp and welded up the broken driveshaft. The police came by to bust up a party that the California guys were having. Steve from ORD ended up arguing with them for about 20 minutes on the legality of our trucks in Utah. We finally finished our beers and crashed at about 1AM.

Saturday we ran Pritchett Canyon.

You've got to be good friends with your passenger to ride in this blazer .










HOVERTRUCK!!!!!




This guy is actually paralyzed from the waist down and drives with hand controls, he did very well.







Rocker Knocker, this is the sequence shot of how you have to bounce along the ledge until you get your front tire until you're up against the rock at the end and climb out. The first picture is from the bottom.








We continued on down the trail.




Then we got to Suicide Hill. Watch the front left wheel in the last shot of the sequence of me climbing.






I'm not sure when the damage was done, but this is where it failed.



We removed the knuckle and papa ORD welded it back up using the welder on Wally.


Unfortunately they only had steel rod so we knew it wasn't going to last long (and we were still 2 big obstacles and 17.5 miles from the asphalt). I removed the hydraulic ram and would have moved the tie rod down to the stock location, but we didn't have a longer TRE so it wasn't long enough.

Willard was used as an elevator to get everyone up Rock Pile.




We all made it to the end of the trail and split up. We let most of the group go on ahead and 7 trucks stayed back to make the slow trip out. Unfortunately the knuckle only lasted .5 miles past the last obstacle, 16.5 miles from the road.

After sitting, talking, swearing and scratching our heads we finally came up with a plan. Amber and 4 of the other trucks headed out. The entire steering knuckle and axle shaft were removed along with the tie rod. We jacked up the drivers side front corner and chained up the front left axle and the rear right axle to keep weight off the drivers front corner, put the tire/wheel over the winch cable and winched the truck up on Travis' gooseneck hitch.



The remaining trail was still pretty tough, more than the Silverado could do for sure. We made it 2 miles before the winch cable sheered off from the rock ring rubbing on it.
We tied the cable around a shackle and repositioned the truck a bit differently. Any food we had left was pulled out and decimated. It was about 9PM at this point and we had been on the trail since 8AM. We still had about 15 miles to go. We would get intermittent cell coverage so we were updating Amber and the guys back at camp on our situation.
We finally got moving again and drove the rest of the way without any issues other than me driving up too far into his bed once and having to reposition the trucks. I would leave my truck in gear and assist on hills. We had strapped the front caliper to the leaf spring so I could use the brakes if needed too.

Amber and the ORD guys drove my Silverado to the end of the trail and we met them there at about midnight. We left the trucks strapped together and backed the K5 up onto the trailer and strapped it down.




We got back to camp at about 1AM where Paul met us with some Pizza and commenced drinking. Jason had actually broken his rear driveshaft again on the first obstacle of Pritchett so Jason, Travis and Papa ORD headed back out at about 1:30 to go recover his truck. I sat around talking and drinking with Steve and a couple other guys until 3AM when we finally crashed. The other guys got back at 3:30 with Jason's truck.

Awesome pics man... looks like a lot of fun.

Sunday I was awoken at about 6:30 by someone backing their trailer into my cabin... I couldn't fall back asleep so I got up and relived the story with all the people that had gone to bed before we got back.
Around 11 o'clock we headed out to run "Long Canyon" in the Silverado. A very scenic, fairly easy trail. The rest of the guys ran Hell's Revenge (where Travis broke his transfer case adapter and output sleeve so he ended up getting towed back to camp).






I had aired down the Silverado to 30PSI in the front and 25PSI in the rear. On the way back to camp I threw a tread. We got up Early on Monday and got 2 new tires for the Silverado and made the long drive home with one of the other guys from Loco. We got home around 6:15 on Monday.

I can't wait till BB09! It works out great because I do AZ run in the Spring and Blazer Bash in the Fall . The truck is actually stuck on the trailer until the Dedenbear's I ordered from ORD get here.

Looks like you guys had a kick-ass time!!! Nice pix! Later...

First time I think I've ever seen a broken knuckle like that....on a D60 no less. Very clever on the recovery.

That rocker knocker spot is where I think Rondo dumped his Frontier over on it's lid a year or two back. Looks like a good spot to roll over for sure.

Here's a video of Juan from our group taking a different line (and doing a nice near vertical wheelstand at the top).
Rocker Knocker

Here are the rest of my pictures:
Link

Long canyon is one of my all time favorite trails.

'Wally' is such a badass rig... he absolutely walked everything on UA '05...

looks like a great time! nice pics!

X2 And on a Chevy droop D60. Running high steering on a ford 60 you'll have that problem.

I can not wait to ge back on the trails again. Great pictures. Sorry to see your carnage, glad everything turned out good in the end.
Lator....

quote:

Originally posted by LordBiotree:
X2 And on a Chevy droop D60. Running high steering on a ford 60 you'll have that problem.

It's a Dodge knuckle, but they're basically the same as the Chevy.

WOW WOW.

There was a shot of you in there with a nice wheel hop.

Major ingenuity getting that truck out!!!!!

I want to go soooo bad.

Looks like a great trip. Always amazes me how ingenius people get when something breaks...great recovery story.

Someday I 'll make it to Moab...*sigh* Thanks for sharing the pictures, nice camera work.