This was the wettest weekend that I've EVER seen here in AZ. Last night while camping at about 5000ft elevation up on Ike's Backbone (west of Strawberry, AZ), we probably got at LEAST 4" of rain just last night. It was a steady downpour for most of the night. The solid dirt ground was turned into a gumbo mess by morning, including inside tent city, but the great green tarp kept us mostly dry. The mud was just crazy though. There were places that could take your shoe off if you stepped in it. Made for a REALLY messy teardown of tent city. I had to hose EVERYTHING down when I got home.. Tarps, bungees, tentpoles, stakes, everything. Even the outside of my tent! Its airing out in the backyard now.

I will be posting some pics from this weekend in a bit.. We ran into some CRAZY sloppy mud on several trails that we hit. It rained pretty good for nearly 2 days straight, so the trails were just crazy! You guys that have been on the AZ trails knwo how hard our trails can be to start with.. and the talc-like powder dust that covers the trails. add rain to that and you get the slimiest slickest mud I've seen. Then with all the mud, the rocks get slick, then figure in the rutted offcamber trails we have and it gets SILLY!

Pics and a more detailed writeup to follow...

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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."

I'm surprised there isn't a rescue party out lookin for Swanky right now. You guys know what mud is? I can see it now.....Holy shit, what is this wet dirt...it's slippery and sticking to everything....uh, my truck is sinking.

Sounds like a blast!

Matt

LOL.. for me, this was the first time I have really had a chance to honest-to-god wheel in some good slop. I'm going through the pics now. Didnt get all the pics I wish I had got, but still got some pretty sweet ones.

Usually when we find mud, trouble finds us. We're not used to this stuff.

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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."

[This message was edited by datz510 on 09-08-02 at 08:27 PM.]

Ok, the writup for this one is going to be along with the photos.

Saturday Morning, we gathered at the usual east side meeting place. Attending this run were Andy (Desert Rat), Flip (Desert Wizz'r), Duerk (orange4ska) and his friend (sorry I forgot his name), Mike (98XE4X4) and his girlfriend Kim (Black Magic Woman), and myself.

We headed up through Payson toward our first stop, Fossil Creek. Mike, Kim, and Duerk hadnt seen it yet, so it was worth the stop. It was also on the way to our destination, Ike's Backbone. Here is Fossil Creek, gorgeous as usual:


After Fossil Creek, we kicked around for a bit. Flip decides to cook his Lunchables CHeeseburgers on Andy's dirty valve cover.. MMMM:


Sign of things to come.. We headed up a side trail north of the Fossil Creek road. This trail was fun, pretty rocky and rutted. In the next hour, the clouds rolled in and the sky was looking NASTY:


Looking back.. dark sky. This is really unusual for Arizona. We usually have over 300 days a year of blue sky and sunshine. "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K!"


We stop at the corner of a very tight and steep switchback going up the North side of Fossil Creek Canyon. You can see the switchbacks for the road that you take to get down into the canyon in the distance.


Looking west down the switchback where we were parked:


The sky turned blue for a few minutes as we made our way down from the canyon's north road. We found a spot off the road that had some rocks to play on. Andy's truck posing for a photo:


Duerk's truck posed for a photo on a bigger rock. Dig the flex!


Check this out! World's first Nissan IFS truck stack?? I could have gone all the way up easily (I have the flex to do it), but I would have bent Duerk's sheetmetal.


Truck stack from the back:


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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."

[This message was edited by datz510 on 09-08-02 at 08:44 PM.]

Here we are, with tent city set up, camped out on Ike's Backbone. They call this plateau a "backbone" because its so narrow. Where we camped, it was about an 800ft hike either east or west to see the view off a a 2000+ft sheer cliff in each direction! The views were spectacular. It had started to rain when I took these pics:


Another view of tent city:


Here we were, trapped in tent city, and so we had to find things to do. The dirt under our feet turned into a sticky clay mud after about two hours of rain (and got worse after that!). Andy was playing in the mud and we ended up with this on my truck. hahahaha I took the liberty of putting this on all the other trucks, so I wouldnt be the lone bearer of the swanky name:


This is the view of the west side of a narrower portion of the backbone. If you look east at this same point, you are greeted with Fossil Creek Canyon, which is just as deep! Both are about a 2000ft drop from where we were.


The trucks lined up on the main road headed down to Childs Power Plant. We had to go see how high the Verde River was, since it had rained so much.


SWANKy leaves their mark in the beach on the Verde:


The Verde, overflowing its banks by about 50ft!! We estimate that it must of been about 7-8ft deep in the middle. It was flowing very fast!


So, since we couldnt cross the Verde to explore FR24 south, we decided to go scout trails south of the Mogollon Rim, north of Payson. We succeded in finding some very nice trails. These trails were pretty challenging with all the rain and mud. There were several spots where I slid sideways into ruts on the trail. I am VERY glad I had the mud terrain tires though. They really helped out. Notice the canyon up ahead of Andy. The rain was coming down pretty good up there.


We turned around after we decided a very steep & rocky hill descent wouldnt be a good idea in this rain. That hill had quite a few 2ft shelves that you had to drop down, so we figured we'd come back to check it out when the trail wasnt so slick.

The next trail we found turned out to be the trail of the day. FR74 south from the Control Road. This trail was marked at the entrance with a sign that read "Primitive Road - Road Not Maintained - Hazardous for Public Use". We decided that was what we were looking for. And we had a BLAST! This photo was taken near the bottom of a shelf road descent. You can see Andy and Flip coming down into canyon. Some of the shelf road up above had 800ft sheer drops into the canyon below. The scenery was spectacular here:


Andy and Flip again:


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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."

[This message was edited by datz510 on 09-08-02 at 09:10 PM.]

The clouds looking pretty ominous from the canyon floor on FR74:


I dont really know what to say about this section of the trail. It was extremely rutted, offcamber, and had the slickest mud I'd ever seen on it. It was a chore to get even a hint of traction. It did seem that once the line was broken, the trucks following had a little bit easier time making it up. This is actually the bypass for the NASTY part of this obstacle which was unpassable for us considering how slick it was.


This is my truck after making it down the bypass to the trail. The bypass itself had a dangerous washed out section (featuring a 2ft deep ditch on the passenger side) that we had to bypass. Yes, this involved cutting a corner on the trail, but given the circumstances, it was the only thing we could do if we wanted the trucks to get out in one piece (there was NO going back at this point!).


Mike riding out the washed out trail after the bypass. I got through this too, but at first had tried to straddle the ditch. My truck lost grip and slid, driver's side tire into the ditch!! This positioned my truck at about a 35-38 degree sidehill angle with me unable to open the driver's door! The top of the ditch was up to my driver's side window, it seemed. With some coaching by Andy and Mike, and some help to keep the truck upright, I backed it out and then put the passenger side wheel into the ditch as Mike is doing here, and rode it out:


Andy attempted (and managed to barely get down) the dangerous section of the bypass. His Super Swamper tires had a LOT more grip in this gumbo type mud than our radial M/Ts did, so he was able to stay up to the right long enough to get most the way down the hill.. then he lost grip as it got too offcamber and the backend slid into the ditch. The picture doesnt really do this part justice.. this spot was just NASTY. A little further up and it could easily mash the whole side of a truck:


So, we all made it through, and then found a wide open spot with lots of mud. Here's flip going through:


And Andy:


And Mike:


And finally, we made it out of there on a narrow trail that seemed to have more quad tracks than truck tracks. It had definitely been used as a road in the past, so it was just wide enough for the trucks. Now off to air up and head home.. What a weekend!!!


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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."

[This message was edited by datz510 on 09-08-02 at 09:26 PM.]

Great write up and pics as usual John!

I love this line from you: "Check this out! World's first Nissan IFS truck stack?? I could have gone all the way up easily (I have the flex to do it), but I would have bent Duerk's sheetmetal. " For some reason it just made me laugh pretty good!

Man I felt sorry for you guys as I was southbound on the I-17. There was the most insane storm I have ever been in near prescott. I could hardley see 10 ft in front of me. The rain was pelting my car so hard. I saw several accidents including one where a car was on its side facing the opposite direction in a ditch on the side of the freeway. . Scarry stuff.

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Awesome writeup, John! What a GREAT weekend. It's so rare for us to get a muddy ride like this in our own backyard!


1998 Frontier 4x4 seriously built
2002 Xterra 4x4 still stock
"Conjunction Junction, what's your Dysfunction?"

Orange, yeah...that's probably the one that came and pelted tent city! LOL. Glad you made it through OK. How was the drive to Camp Verde?


1998 Frontier 4x4 seriously built
2002 Xterra 4x4 still stock
"Conjunction Junction, what's your Dysfunction?"

Oh it was great, no problem finding my way. I gave my tuck a little beating though.. Read here. I also forgot to mention that I had to take a little part of my buper off, because it was pushed back into my tires from the big rock I hit... It was a blast though

http://nissan4wheelers.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=227600023&f=119603133&m=2046085411&r=2046085411#2046085411

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glad you folks had fun..... looked like I missed out another good trip, always next time




GOT ANY BALLS??????????

John, thanks for pics and write up. As always they are much appreciated.

I had some fun going up to my property on Saturday. The red clay is slicker than snot with water on it. No problem getting up the hill though.

I'll probably be back in town Wednesday. Hope to see you all then!

"Good idea, O Lord! Of course it's a good idea!!" - Monty Python

John, how do you find the time to do all that you do?? Great job again.

Hmm.. Im a single bachelor with nothing to do otherwise? heh

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"I'm just a bill... on Capitol Hill.."