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As usual, not to be out done, Dana also tried to see how many spots she could get herself in and out of. One rock did manage to take out a shock mount, but that was partly her brother's fault and the bolts he used. About halfway through, after pushing the limit quite nicely herself, she let Gunny take the wheel and see what he could do. While still rocking the boat a little much, he did much better than last time and got some nice shots of his own.
Brian and his dad really worked their Cherokee, and when the run was over they stated that this was definitely one of the harder trails they had done. With the longer Chero wheel base and because it wasn't outfitted with sliders yet, they had to do a couple things a little differently. There was only one time they actually got hung up on their rockers, and not wanting to leave metal behind, took a tug off from the nearest tow hook. But there was no shame in that, especially since each vehicle managed to require the same thing at some point during the day. -Dana would have me sure to explain that while her Jeep needed a pull, she was not the driver at the time.
I actually got to put my GPS topo software to work on this trip. It helped us figure out where exactly on the trail, point for point, we were and how to reach our road out (last time we couldn't find it and ran the trail backwards to get out). Interestingly enough, the trail in and the trail out showed up on my regular MapSource street map software.
Anyway, again this trip, the drivers pretty much left no obstacle untouched. Once reaching Squeeze Rock, the end of our main trail ride, everyone had pretty much had their fill and there was no reason to run her again. Although, Jared, maybe because he felt he needed one more challenge, or maybe because the camera man felt he needed to use up all of his film, tried a tough little rock climb for higher ground. He pushed it and managed to maneuver up it for a nice king of the hill view. It was the straight out way off the mound that provided the real challenge though. It consisted of a multiple stair step, not too bad, as long as the steps matched up. But because they didn't, gravity fought his opposing wheels and almost won, forcing us to strategize a way to keep J and his Jeep from rolling door to top onto some jaggedly placed rocks below (one that was poised to come through his doorless side. To make matters worse, when J got out, after we had roped his Jeep off to the nearest rock, his seat belt locked up like a Banchee and we ended up having to disassemble it to get him strapped back in. To make a long story short, we got him to ease it down, while tied off and all three of us guys, easing his slack down. It was actually fun teamworking him off, but you could totally tell if we had slacked off the rope, we would have tested Darren's knotting skills for sure. |
