1/24/2015 Gulch runs [Archive] - Front Range 4x4 Forums

dieseldoc

January 25th, 2015, 11:13 AM

So we had a good day yesterday.
Started out with multiscuff over sleeping for his own run!
We got together with him down in castlerock at the cwralerado meet and greet.
A large groupe was there as always the spread was awesome.
Had jeeps in rage of mild to heavily modified.
No super wild rock buggies were in attendance.
We all left and off tk the fuel stop.

We had 8 rigs in all. 3 TJ's and 1 JK and 4 JKU's
We hit the road about 10:30 headed to sadalia and on south.
As Brandon is not as familiar with the back roads I was in lead.
I didnt want to do the steep down grade near shearwood.
I want left at the fork this takes you up and over the ridge and drops into the platt river valley just 5 mile north of the Deckers crossing.
Therese needed a bathroom stop so we hit a camp/fishing pull off.
All the ladies decided this was a good Idea.
As we were all standing aroud BS' n we picked up 2 more JKU's.
All loaded up and off again.
We hit the parking lot to air down right about 12:15.
We had a few folks with us that have not had the pleasure of airing down.
So we helped out and explained the need to air down.
Multi lead us out to little moab.
We spent an hour or so playing here.
Multi hit the center line right away and rolled up with little fight as it was much less snow covered.
Lisa was up next. She is a newbie and has not had any time wheeling in the snow.
She is a great listener and has little fear.
She bumped up onto the center line and promtly bounced the rest right up.
Once she hit the secound ledge she had to back up once or twice.
But she made it up nicely.
The 3rd ledge gave some fight, but she hit the loud pedal and bouced her way right up smiling ear to ear the entire time.
Billy in his black JKU he hit the same line.
Some tire spin and up it come.
The next ledge was some wheel spin and stopped....backed up and off again. Some bounce and up it come. The last set gave little fight to the locked front end and up it want.
Next up is Lisa's husband Robert.
This was a little bit more work as his JKU is open diff.
Now Robert has a disability that leaves him with no sence of balance as well as he lip reads.
Not sure how much loss he has but Robert is deaf and has his service dog along with him.
Robert is fearless and fallows instructions and has great skills as well.
He had to work for it but he got up the same center line as the locked Rubis have coming up.
Robert made the first ledge with just 2 back ups.
The next one required some work as well.
A few back ups and he climbed up.
The last set of ledges was a not so much.
These push the jeep to the right and the tree!
3 tries and I opted to put him on the hook.
This was Multi's first use of his winch.
We had to strap him to Pauls JKU to keep him from rolling.
With just a bit of pull Robert poped up and drove out.
I did the far left line so the open diff guys that had not run it yet could see the easy line.
I then hit the far right boulder field.
This was a fun line until I stopped.....rear center diff was up on a rock leaving my rear tires unable to find any traction. So out come the cable again.....
Billy was running up the center line again. Lisa had run the far left line.
At this point it was about 1:30 we started to discuss running Hackett
As we had 2 people that had Time deadlines we turned around and want out the way we came.
We hit the pavment and headed north the few miles to get out to cedar mt. road.
I was leading at this point. Multi has never been out here. I camp out here in the nice weather months.
We were cruzing at this point I was pushing to make time as it was after 2 when we hit the pavement.
I did the little pull off to the over look so the folks who have never been out here can seen the burn scar
We hit the top of Hackett at 3:45 no sign of anyone being there in the last week.
Some crawlarado jeepers were there last weekend.
The snow was not super deep and some patches of clean dirt on the slopes that get sun and wind all day, we started down the trail with 6 in tow. 2 full open diff JKU's.
The first set of good rocks are a down hill slight left side off cambor with a tree the has been freindly with trucks in the past, you can see the rash on the trail side.
Robert tryed to play nice but got a bit close to tree so we stoped to be sure he made it with no issues.
As Therese and I cleared the next corner comes a large rock slab, it was dry or this could have been a bad thing if the snow was deeper.
we climbed right up this with little issue some chrips here and there, as we cleared the slab face
the snow covered the upper portion of this climb.
I continued up to the top where a good steep slab with a secound slab on top of it on the left side and a tree on the right.
We stopped here to let the other make their way up.
As the group was coming up the last slab and climb with little issues
We stared up the climb with the rock on the left.
My first attempt had a slide to the left and the rear left tire was stuck against the rock.
so I backed down and put the front up on this thing and went right up to the parking spot just above, the rest of the group went a bit more right and up they came.
The 2 open diff trucks had a little flair as they spun tires coming up.
This leads to a bit of tight road snaking around the trees some ups and downs all with trees on each side, no real issues with this section of things.
I passed the bypass for the last big leadge and brought us all down a 4 foot snow covered rock ledge.
I promtly got high centered for the 2nd time.
Brandon walking up " yo man your stuck" both axles just spinning at idle.....
Me saying dude just push the rear.....and down we want with a good hard right and steep down hill.
After I want down this it was a slip and slide for the jeeps.
Brandon was next and I tryed to get him over to the shorter part....but no the but end wanted to go down the steep side, so some hard passenger and down the drop the front went some slide and down come the back.
He was down in no time. Billy was next. By now I have this thing figured out.
Having Billy put the passenger tire on the far right of the ledge meant no belly hang ups.
Billys drop was much more controlled until he was down and in the snow.
Slip sliding away.....
The next rig is open diff and made his way down just fine as he tryed to keep the slide under control.
Lisa in her JK came down next. She had her sway bar conected still so this ended up being nice and bouncy. She made her way down to the bottom with little issue.
Robert was next down and little issues.
Paul made his way down as well.
We hit the bottom and turned around for what we thought would be a bit more work to climb up.
The climb up gave me a little issues but I kept the tires turning so they could dig in & get traction.
The jeep made its way up and passed the ledge up the bypass with little issues.
As we are now 5:45 in the pm the lights are on.....
So I got to use my new LED lights. Amazing the amount of light these 3" pendant light make.
2400 lumens each side is way nice. The factory lights are just useless with these.
The step sections were not an issue for us and the rock sections were now down hill.
I guess Lisa came down one of the steep and tight sections sideways,
The trip out was really not much of an issue.
The rocky section with the friendly tree was a bit of fun as we had to dance the jeep over the rocks to not hit the tree. The rest of the group fallowed much the same line and went more left to keep away from said tree.
We hit the top where the sign is well after dark. I got every one out for a goup pic at the sign.
And down cedar mt. road we want.
We hit the fire station to air up.
Pual has a power tank. Billy has a portable air compressor. So after 30-40 minutes of air time and chit chat, we all headed out. Some all the way to 285 at pine junction and some back into town passed deckers. We made town (south...very south) at 9:30. It was 10 pm by the time myself, Therese, Lisa, Robert, Brandon were seated at Old Chicago for food.

So now for some of the 106 pics from the day.
Dam I need to down load these some place for people to see them all....