open_circuit
September 24th, 2020, 10:50 PM
Devil's Kitchen held more surprises than just the bats from the prior evening. As Ty was packing up his tent, he found two large spiders in defensive postures on the outside of his tent. We were all entertained for a while as Ty tried to remove them from the tent, as he feared the spiders were dangerous (he believes them to be hobo spiders). I was busy packing up my gear at this time, so I don't know how the spiders were eventually evicted from the tent.
After breakfast and breaking camp, we drove to the overlook of the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. At this point you can look into all three districts of Canyonlands National Park though reaching the other districts by ground requires many hours of travel from this point. After a brief stop here, we returned to our rigs and made for Elephant Hill.
The hill posed few challenges for us on this trip, though I did miss the pull out for the "reverse up this section" switchback at the bottom and ended up having to turn around before the top section of the hill. While I knew about the "reverse" section, I simply didn't see the pull out on the right and continued along uphill as usual. We all cleared the hill without incident or excitement and made our descent to the parking area on the other side before continuing to the visitor center to air up and make lunch. While airing up, my air compressor seized while inflating my final tire, but the crew had me covered.
Our original plans for the trip called for the group to split at this point. Matt and Shane were originally going to head to the Maze district for a few more days of camping while Ty and I headed back to Moab. The group instead decided to continue on to Moab together and explore some interesting trails there for the rest of the week. We agreed to get to Moab in time to run Fins and Things before settling in for the evening.
At this point we were nearly 100 miles of trail from the prior fuel stop and all a little concerned about the 70 mile trip back to Moab. The rest of the guys topped up their tanks from their spare fuel cans, and we continued east on 211 then north on 191 back to Moab. As we reached the Shell at the southern end of Moab, my fuel light turned on. I had not brought any spare fuel and was running on the tank we filled a few days prior. Having never seen my fuel light come on before, I was glad to know it works and that it means I have about 2 gallons left in the tank.
After refueling, we traveled to the sand flats to start up Fins and Things. Fins was pretty busy with many other rigs moving slowly. Many folks were camping on the trail, and I missed a turn for a fun section on the first portion of the trail causing us to short cut a fun climb and loop by accident. Nothing of note happened on the first part (south of the road) of the trail, but the second part nearly ended our week early. As shown in the video below, we had some real excitement at the obstacle that provides three different steep chutes to descend off the slickrock to the sandy floor.
Shane decided to attempt one of the steepest lines, but he misjudged the center of gravity and grip of his rig. As he was descending he felt the rig start to go over forward, so he mashed the throttle and violently rolled out at the bottom, hitting his spare fuel and water mount hard on the rocks. We were all stunned when we saw the Rover being to roll forward thinking it would topple over, so none of us caught the end of his save on film. Shane was fortunate to have anticipated the mistake and properly responded to it here to save his rig from a very bad day.
We took a few minutes after this near miss to gather ourselves before continuing the trail. We continued the trail with less traffic and better pacing until we reached the section with Kenny's Climb. Here we slowed a bit behind a big group of Jeeps and FJs, so we took our time to complete Kenny's climb. I completed the climb without incident, then Shane followed. Apparently Shane engaged his lockers to make the climb, which he easily completed. At the top of the climb, you must turn left to remain on the fin. With his lockers still engaged Shane turned to stay on the trail at which point his front driver's side axle made a loud popping sound and his tire suddenly skipped. Shane broke an axle, but we didn't know it yet.
We continued down towards Frenchie's Fin climb, where we waited in the wash for the group in front to clear. After a short wait, Shane tried to roll forward but his rig would not move and the front axle made an awful rapid clicking sound. By re-engaging his front locker, we were able to limp his rig to the side were we investigated and confirmed the broken axle. We assumed at this point that we would have to tow or winch the Rover off the trail because the Rover does not have a 2WD mode (neither low nor high range). The only option to move under it's own weight was to try locking the front diff and limp it out in 3 wheel drive while letting the broken axle spin and grind the entire way. This is ultimately how we got off the trail and back to our rental house for the evening.
Back at the house Shane and Ty pulled the axle and prepared for a replacement, though we had low hopes of finding a spare LR4 axle in Moab.
Preview from Fins.
https://youtu.be/3ChJXOS1ZMk
After breakfast and breaking camp, we drove to the overlook of the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. At this point you can look into all three districts of Canyonlands National Park though reaching the other districts by ground requires many hours of travel from this point. After a brief stop here, we returned to our rigs and made for Elephant Hill.
The hill posed few challenges for us on this trip, though I did miss the pull out for the "reverse up this section" switchback at the bottom and ended up having to turn around before the top section of the hill. While I knew about the "reverse" section, I simply didn't see the pull out on the right and continued along uphill as usual. We all cleared the hill without incident or excitement and made our descent to the parking area on the other side before continuing to the visitor center to air up and make lunch. While airing up, my air compressor seized while inflating my final tire, but the crew had me covered.
Our original plans for the trip called for the group to split at this point. Matt and Shane were originally going to head to the Maze district for a few more days of camping while Ty and I headed back to Moab. The group instead decided to continue on to Moab together and explore some interesting trails there for the rest of the week. We agreed to get to Moab in time to run Fins and Things before settling in for the evening.
At this point we were nearly 100 miles of trail from the prior fuel stop and all a little concerned about the 70 mile trip back to Moab. The rest of the guys topped up their tanks from their spare fuel cans, and we continued east on 211 then north on 191 back to Moab. As we reached the Shell at the southern end of Moab, my fuel light turned on. I had not brought any spare fuel and was running on the tank we filled a few days prior. Having never seen my fuel light come on before, I was glad to know it works and that it means I have about 2 gallons left in the tank.
After refueling, we traveled to the sand flats to start up Fins and Things. Fins was pretty busy with many other rigs moving slowly. Many folks were camping on the trail, and I missed a turn for a fun section on the first portion of the trail causing us to short cut a fun climb and loop by accident. Nothing of note happened on the first part (south of the road) of the trail, but the second part nearly ended our week early. As shown in the video below, we had some real excitement at the obstacle that provides three different steep chutes to descend off the slickrock to the sandy floor.
Shane decided to attempt one of the steepest lines, but he misjudged the center of gravity and grip of his rig. As he was descending he felt the rig start to go over forward, so he mashed the throttle and violently rolled out at the bottom, hitting his spare fuel and water mount hard on the rocks. We were all stunned when we saw the Rover being to roll forward thinking it would topple over, so none of us caught the end of his save on film. Shane was fortunate to have anticipated the mistake and properly responded to it here to save his rig from a very bad day.
We took a few minutes after this near miss to gather ourselves before continuing the trail. We continued the trail with less traffic and better pacing until we reached the section with Kenny's Climb. Here we slowed a bit behind a big group of Jeeps and FJs, so we took our time to complete Kenny's climb. I completed the climb without incident, then Shane followed. Apparently Shane engaged his lockers to make the climb, which he easily completed. At the top of the climb, you must turn left to remain on the fin. With his lockers still engaged Shane turned to stay on the trail at which point his front driver's side axle made a loud popping sound and his tire suddenly skipped. Shane broke an axle, but we didn't know it yet.
We continued down towards Frenchie's Fin climb, where we waited in the wash for the group in front to clear. After a short wait, Shane tried to roll forward but his rig would not move and the front axle made an awful rapid clicking sound. By re-engaging his front locker, we were able to limp his rig to the side were we investigated and confirmed the broken axle. We assumed at this point that we would have to tow or winch the Rover off the trail because the Rover does not have a 2WD mode (neither low nor high range). The only option to move under it's own weight was to try locking the front diff and limp it out in 3 wheel drive while letting the broken axle spin and grind the entire way. This is ultimately how we got off the trail and back to our rental house for the evening.
Back at the house Shane and Ty pulled the axle and prepared for a replacement, though we had low hopes of finding a spare LR4 axle in Moab.
Preview from Fins.
https://youtu.be/3ChJXOS1ZMk