A Little Rock Crawling.

 

Yesterday we went out to check out the lockers by doing a little rock crawling.

We met the hard core jeepers of our group at the fire station and when everyone showed up (three more Jeeps) we headed north on 95 to Parker.

We drove through Parker on 95 and turned off on the road that goes to “The Desert Bar”. We aired down here and then continued up the dusty, graded road.

Deliverance.

After about 3 miles we turned to the left onto the first trail.
I guess the guy that made the sign can’t spell any better than I.

The First Challenge.

After a few hundred yards we came to the first serious challenge.

Of course the picture doesn’t really show how rough this is.

The first attempt was made by the leader, Dennis M, in his jeep “White Lightning”

Of course he made it look  easy.

Next came Bill in his (as yet unnamed) LJ. For a newbie he did pretty good.

Next was Dennis K’s turn in “The Black Rhino”.

Dennis got through okay.

Then it came to my turn (my new jeep still has no name).

I did okay coming down off the rock.

But got a little to far to the left and hung up the differential on a big rock in the middle of the slot.

With a little help I got through.

 

The Next Challenge.

There was one more challenge but it wasn’t to difficult.

 

The End of The Trail.

A little further along we came to the end of this trail.

Here we turned around (of course) and headed back. Along the way we took a turn off to the left to see where it went. The trail was a bit tight and had some minor challenges.

Eventually we came to a place where we had to turn around. After a lot of maneuvering we got turned around and headed back to the main trail where we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we drove back up the trail. Of course that meant that we had to climb the rocks again “Oh Darn”.

We all made it up the first set of rocks okay.

The next one was a bit more of a struggle but we all made it without having to be towed.

 

True Grit.

Once we were back on the graded road we headed for the next trail.

This trail has one major rock climb at the start.

We all watched Dennis M go first to see how it’s done.

Bill went next.

Next it was the Black Rhino’s turn.

With only a little rock-sliders dragging across the rock he did fine.

Then it was my turn.
Surprising enough I didn’t have any trouble going down. I did drag the rear bumper a little coming down of the rock.

Of course that meant that we had to come back up the rock to get out.

Dennis M in White Lightning made it look easy.

 

Then Bill tried it and after digging a few holes in the gravel and by engaging the front and rear lockers, he managed to get up the rock.

Next came Dennis K in the Black Rhino.

He couldn’t get enough traction even with front and rear lockers to get up the rock and eventually had to have a tow strap assist.

When it was my turn there was no stable ground to get traction on. I told Dennis M to just keep the tow strap handy. After a couple tries we hooked the strap on my jeep and gave me a little help to get started. Once the jeep was pulled up the rock a little it got some traction and climbed up.

Earlier, Patti had asked me if I would ever put front lockers on the new jeep.
At first I answered that if we were going to do a lot of serious rock climbing that I might consider doing so.
After Dennis K with front and rear lockers had to be pulled up the rock I decided that my jeep didn’t really need front lockers.
One: I don’t really do a lot of extreme rock crawling.
Two: as long as we are with at least one other jeep and have a tow strap, we don’t need to spend $800.00 + dollars for front lockers.

We left “True Grit” and headed for a trail that I have never liked, called “President’s Choice”.
Patti and I decided that we had had enough rock crawling for one day and headed to the Parker Walmart to pick up a few items.

President’s Choice Review.

Around 5:00 we met Dennis and Cheryl at Carl’s Jr. They told us that The President’s Choice trail was so torn up from a big Rock Crawler Run that went through it last week that they could only do a few of the challenges.

Okay, that was our day of rock crawling. It was fun but a little exhausting. The lockers worked as good as we could ask of them. Some stuff is just to much for even jeeps with two lockers.