This was our third or fourth trip up here.  A lot of times, we'll just come to the area to explore the many mines.

Anyway, everything was going great and all, and then we got to a little tuff spot. Offroadaz was out of it in a jiff, then came Jared's turn to...(well he was already "shining" b/c of all the chrome) see what he could do.  It took a while, but he did just swell.

With a little help with the line, I was almost out but started to slip on the wet creek rocks. I was already impressed with the new MTR's performance and tried a few more times. Hmmm, still not out and now I was hung up. I needed a little pull, but then I was out.

We then began a steep hill climb and BAM! Uh oh, what was that? The noise continued every time I torqued down. We got out and looked to figure it out. Nothing wrong could be found, but that was a bad thing. The noise was coming from the rear and one of the guys observed that when the wheels were spinning and that god awful  noise struck, they'd lock up. So yeah, no point opening her up, we'd just find the broken teeth we knew were there. We finally figured out that the stupid YJ vacuum motor on the front axle had never engaged the 4WD (Which now looking back, is pretty impressive that we made it up the spots we did). So of course we couldn't finish the run and had to go out the way we came in, which took an hour-and-a-half of staring at a tow rope behind Jared's new jeep. It was pretty ironic that the last time we did the trail, we were pulling Offroadaz out with Jared's old truck. We asked him what he preferred towing with. He smiled that Jeep owner smile and said, "Do you have to ask?"
 
So anyway, our trip was cut short, but we made it home.  I opened her up the next day and sure enough something's missing alright. I counted about 8 teeth that were gone. It could have been worse with the shards  just hanging out in there on the way out.