Desert Trip III

[DirtyLarry]

Got busy this week getting caught up on work stuff and didn’t have time to post more pictures.

Good idea Orbit! We’ll have to try that next time.

Turfking, I know what you mean. I lived in Michigan for a few years and it was the same way.

Monday morning…..

Once on the White Rim Trail the first stop was Muscleman’s bridge. Pictures serve this bridge no justice. It is very high and pretty narrow. You notice one buddy only has one leg and the other is in a wheel chair. With peer pressure like that I had to go out there myself even if I had to crawl.





From there we continued along our way for a while and decided to check out Lathrop bottom, which should take you directly to the Colorado River. This day the river was so high all of the canyon fingers will filled up with stagnate water. This was the end of this off shoot.



Found the only shady spot in the canyon to eat lunch.




Now back on top and back on the White Rim Trail. They call that column in the distance “Washer Woman”




Camp 1 on the White Rim Trail. Monday night


1legLance and his Troopy. That aluminum thing in the back is a refridgerator. All 3 of our trucks run a South African National Luna Fridge/Freezer. These things aren’t cheap but there is a lot to be said for drinking cold beer and eating ice cream in the desert. These fridges work flawlessly.


Tuesday morning. Way over on the other side is the Doll House. I have pictures of that area from last year. Really spectacular area.


Line up and headed out for Tuesday’s discoveries. At this spot you are about 4.5 hrs from the Canyonland vistor center.




Along this trail, it is not uncommon for your mirror to be hanging right over a cliff wall edge. Not a good place to open your door to snap a picture




Now it is time for a long climb that seems to wind around that butte forever. Pictures serve no justice to how steep and off camber (towards the edge) this section actually is. The Youtubes kind of show it. When we get to the top we find we get to go down the other side which is steeper and loaded with tight switch backs.


Looking down from the top. A few pictures ago where all three of our rigs near the cliff was taken at the mouth of that canyon finger down there.


My buddy snapped one of the best beauty shots of my rig as I crested the top. You will probably be seeing this picture again in Truck Camper Magazine soon.


More later…..

[TURFKING]

Pretty Damned Country! Looks like a lot of fun but deadly if you don't what you are getting into. Great Pics!!!!

[special-K]

That is a nice beauty shot! Too bad your truck's in the way

I understand how the true perspective/perception can be lost in pictures. When looking at that rock bridge if you look at the far side under it you can get some idea. Like when you're up top looking down on that ledge the trucks were on. I doesn't even look that far down. That land is "BIG" and one thing cancels out the other. That's what the Canyonlands are about. So are the Mountains. They play tricks on your eyes.

[Zoomad75]

Great trail report as always dude! Looks like despite the minor issues the truck and the Ramcharger performed the task at hand without a sweat. Not much to improve upon except finding a D60 for the front to add a level of durability and peace of mind over the D44. Looks like the little 44 held it's own with that being said though.

Even if my junk isn't expedition ready I'm going to have to ride along with you and McQuade next year.

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by Zoomad75

Great trail report as always dude! Looks like despite the minor issues the truck and the Ramcharger performed the task at hand without a sweat. Not much to improve upon except finding a D60 for the front to add a level of durability and peace of mind over the D44. Looks like the little 44 held it's own with that being said though.

Even if my junk isn't expedition ready I'm going to have to ride along with you and McQuade next year.

Whenever a D60 comes along for the right price it will be a welcome sight but until then the D44 is working surprisingly well even with the truck loaded to 8,000 lbs. The D44 might even live longer now that there is so much weight on the rear the front is loaded pretty light. So light, that the tires don’t rub the fender flares when flexed anymore.

Many of these trails were ran in 2wd low anyway as the stupid ORD twin stick 205 shifter kept falling out of 4 low. On three different occasions we found ourselves in a sketchy spot only to find it fell out of 4 low again. The twin stick is going to get canned or majorly reworked before the next big trip to Death Valley in April.

Oh, I miss the granny low of the old SM465. I am not digging the late model NV4500 granny gear either…..it is geared too high! OD on the highway is nice though. The Ram Charger with a slush box transmission has a better crawl ratio now, but I can outpower him by a few hundred HP!

[Zoomad75]

Originally Posted by DirtyLarry

Oh, I miss the granny low of the old SM465. I am not digging the late model NV4500 granny gear either…..it is geared too high! OD on the highway is nice though. The Ram Charger with a slush box transmission has a better crawl ratio now, but I can outpower him by a few hundred HP!

Well they say most projects are never done, something else always seems to pop up. As far as the granny gear goes, you could always step up to 5.13's to gain some crawl ratio back. A Lomax 3:1 205 is an option too.

I'm wondering if the shift rails on the twin stick kit were modified correctly to maintain the detents for the shift positions with the way it kept popping out like that. If you could ever get a hold of the boys up there to find out for sure it would be nice. I'm not sure the cheesy setup for the single stick from AA is much better, but who knows.

[DirtyLarry]

Zoo, I am not so sure 5:13 cogs would be the answer as that quickly be approaching totally voiding the purpose of bolting in an overdrive trans to begin with. Sometimes, I wish I would have used a NP241 transfercase as I think it would have held up just fine plus they have a nice low range. Maybe someday I’ll do a Lomax but they are pretty $teep!

The rest of the pictures from the trip…. 4 hrs later we made it to the White Rim campsite 2 (Candlestick).









Watch that first step! It is a dozy!


White Rim Candlestick campsite. Bill frying chicken!


Warming up beans and mashed tators in the camper. 99 degrees in the camper but it actually felt cool compared to outside. Only 12% humidity, but it is a dry heat


We camped near the Green River just a few miles North of where it meets the Colorado River.




Wednesday we headed back out. We spent 2 days getting in but it took over 8 consecutive hours to drive out to the visitor’s center to check out.





My favorite picture of the truck on the climb out of White Rim


It started to rain like a SOB as we were crawling out. We got to the top just as the sky open up. Check out all of those switchbacks that we are working through. The dirt in the corners was a really odd deep dusty dirt almost like driving in a vacuum cleaner dust bag. The corners get really greasy when they are wet too!




After checking out at the visitor center we rolled on back down to Moab to top off with supplies and spend our last night together. This camp spot is right at Moab at the beginning of the “Fins and Things” trail.

[DirtyLarry]

Thursday morning we went back into Moab and had a restaurant breakfast and said goodbye to Bill as he was taking off back to Pueblo while Lance and I headed south towards the Valley of the Gods

Just after we step up camp at the Valley of the Gods, Lance’s son’s gun broke that they had just purchase in Flagstaff the week before. So they decided to head out to stop by the gun shop on their way back to Phoenix.


See ya later Lance!


It was a beautiful campsite though! This night we dropped the top on the camper and laid up there watching stars and satellites fly by. Lots of bats too!


As I tried to get pictures of the sunset my camera died.


Friday morning while airing up the tires I noticed the front sway bar bracket was in bad shape. We continued on anyway.


From there we motored on down to Monument Valley to check things out. My MIL had never been there before.


We had a great lunch at the Navajo restaurant at the visitor’s center. Green Chili stew!


From there we peddled up to Natural Bridges to camp our final night. Cool drive up there. Valley of the Gods is below.


Campsite 6


Home State home….only 7 more hours to drive to get home. Colorado is not so colorful in this part of the state.



Here is a link to the Spot Adventure Summary page of where all we went. Be patient, the page loads slowly! Neat link, as you can zoom in, look at satellite view, etc.


That’s all folks…. Until next April when we do Death Valley and/or the Mojave Road.

[Burt4x4]

As allways AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

[71swb4x4]

Great pictures and write up!

[DirtyLarry]

These cold winter nights makes one want to reflect back on the overlanding trips of this past year hot summer days.

Desert hot trips planned for 2012 are Flagstaff in May for the Overland Expo then another trip planned out to either UT, AZ, NV or CA in late July/August. We’ll figure out the destination a few days before departure as usual. SPOT GPS links and many pictures to come!

[DirtyLarry]

I just noticed I forgot to add the linky to the Truck Camper Magazine article from July.

[mosesburb]

Nice article on your rig there. There are times that I kind of wish I had built a pickup instead of a Sub. The main reason is the ability to have a slide-in camper. I do good with what I have, but the creature comforts of a camper would be very cool. I pull a trailer every day and I don't want to pull one on vacation/off road. Now Lance has a couple good ideas that I just might have to steal and call my own that would increase the functionality of the Subs. I really like your setup. It looks extremely well thought out.

I clicked on this thread the other day when you bumped it and got suckered into reading the whole thing again (took a couple days). Very cool thread. Epic pictures. Look forward to meeting you in Flagstaff next year.