I like this one of Marchall just before he goes around that corner.. tippy tippy!

quote:

Originally posted by datz510:
Yeah.. this spot on Desoto is gonna be a bit spooky with a trailer:



More photos of the trail:
http://www.piratepathy.com/photo/Photos/Trail%20Runs/20...e%20Trail/index.html

Looks to me like the wide line to the drivers left is the "easy" line and the one to take with a trailer. Trail also doesn't look to tough but then again everything looks mild in pics! And that is a 4runner, of course it will be difficult in a Toyota!

The Patrol is going to eat that shit up and ask for more!

That spot is very off camber. going down where the TOyota went is the best spot to do it, otherwise, you're running sideways on decomposing granite, which just makes you slide downhill.

Yeah, the Patrol will just laugh at that trail. Its got a few fun spots, including a mild rock garden, a loose hillclimb with a shelf near the top and then that tippy right turn. Out of all of them, the tippy right turn had my attention the most.

The best part (if you run it in the summer) is walking up to the DeSoto Mine entrance and feeling the 40 degree F air blowing out of it.

quote:

Yeah.. this spot on Desoto is gonna be a bit spooky with a trailer:

I better make sure the trailer brake controller is working properly.

on that down hill turn hitting the brakes could be the worse thing you could do.

Not trailer brakes. Those would be a god send.

quote:

on that down hill turn hitting the brakes could be the worse thing you could do.

if you lock them up then that would be bad, otherwise you are going to need some kind of resistance on the trailer tires so it is not pushing on the ass end of your truck trying to swing you around. Honestly I would rather have a skidding trailer than a trailer breaking the traction on the rear of my truck swinging it around.

OK, we just got back from the run. I ran all of the tough hills in rear wheel drive only as a "trailer simulator". It worked out pretty good. A couple of the climbs will be tough, but the worst one has a spot where you could winch from another truck if necessary.

The trail is mostly shale, so it is very grippy. It gets loose stuff on top, but once you dig through that the shale is nice and sharp and gives you plenty of grip.

I'm going to say that trailer brakes will keep you from getting killed on the downhill sections though. They need to be something you can do manually to apply some braking while you go decend the hills.

My trailer pushed me around quite a bit in the coves, but there you didn't have a steep drop off next to you so it wasn't as big of a deal.

I'm basing this off the fact that my truck weighs around 7-8000 lbs and my trailer weights around 2000 fully loaded. If your truck to trailer ratio is far off of that you may have some problems.

I honestly don't know if anyone else in our group could have made it up those hills in 2 wheel drive.

I'm going to drag my trailer on that run as long as I get the trailer brakes set up before then. It is an easy trail to bypass though if you don't want to try it.

JW snapped a bunch of pictures today so hopefully he'll post those up. Andy actually got stuck on the hardest hill. He managed to get his spring hanger wedged between two rocks (one in front of the spring, one behind) and he couldn't go forward or reverse. When he tried to back down he pulled his driveshaft out...

Steve also slipped off a narrow section of the trail when he took a turn too wide. It gets slippery if you get off the trail for sure.

I got JWs pics...will get some posted in the next few days.

It looks like I won't be towing a trailer on the run this year. I still have my trailer frame partially built, but am planning some other mods that I need more than the trailer. It is just me and the dog. A water tank and more room would be nice, but maybe after I have a winch and am more capable of self recovery. Though my target trailer weight was so low (1k) I don't think I would have had a problem sine the caR50 weighs in at 4950 empty!

I need to put mine on a scale so I can figure out what it actually weighs. My numbers (600 empty and 2000 full) are educated guesses based on steel weight, tires, fluid capacities etc.

What does the blazer weight? about 6500 empty?

quote:

Originally posted by datz510:
Yeah.. this spot on Desoto is gonna be a bit spooky with a trailer:



More photos of the trail:
http://www.piratepathy.com/photo/Photos/Trail%20Runs/20...e%20Trail/index.html

The scary thing about that pic is it looks like it was taken from a helicopter. It was actually taken on the ground, from the trail on the next hill.

-Spike

quote:

Originally posted by System-F:
What does the blazer weight? about 6500 empty?

somewhere around there. I'm not sure exactly.