13 March - Chinamens

[xjk9bar1]

We started with a total of 16 rigs...a 1 TJ, JohnJohns Rubi, 1 fullsize Dodge and rest XJ's (ranging from stock to modified). The magazine people had fun, I don't remember the magazine or news group. Led pretty much pulled their stocker thru the trail... No one broke anything, a few recieved some rock kisses. We got started shortly after 11 am and everyone off the trail around 6:30 pm. The first boulder garden was fun as usual, some excellent flexing. The waterfall has changed w/ winter wash out (the elevator won - 3 and 0, Steph, Led and I just couldn't get the rear ends to climb due to the snow and mud), a few rocks including a boulder relocated changing all the old lines. The new exit presented a challenging obstacle. A nice stair type rock formation where your break over point plays a significant role. All in all, Chinamans' is still one of the best trails around "for new people to cut their teeth on", to quote Nay and to test your new modifications for the upcoming season.

 

[woodrock03]

Anyone have a recomendation for a cheap body shop that does quality work (do those two go together?), in the Colorado Springs area? I was one of the couple of stockers on the run (silver '95), and sustained a bit of damage on the passenger door/rocker. :bawl: Had a good time, and met some nice people. Found the run quite challenging, and couldn't believe what a stock XJ is capable of (and what an advantage a few mods like rock rails, a mild lift, and decent tires would be).

I looked in my volumes of "Guide to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails", by Charles Wells to see what Chinamens is rated (Easy, Mod., Diff.), but it's not listed. How does it rate? Just curious.

Thanks,
John

__________________

 

[crjeeper]

Any pics from the trip? Need some vicarious trail carnage...... :cheers:

 

[Led]

Its a mod
Led

 

[Nay]

I looked in my volumes of "Guide to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails", by Charles Wells to see what Chinamens is rated (Easy, Mod., Diff.), but it's not listed. How does it rate? Just curious.

Thanks,
John

__________________

Wells would rate Chinaman as difficult. It would easily be a top five trail in his first edition book, which was written before the new breed of extreme trails gained in popularity.

Nay

 

[Nay]

Led is correct...Chinaman's is a moderate trail by our definition...Charles Wells' books are geared to the standard newbie SUV driver, for whom Chinamen's would rate as "you can actually drive on this???". In other words, Wells is very conservative in his trail ratings.

Nay

 

[Nay]

As others have noted, we had a huge crowd. My mythical web wheeler status seemed to be a huge draw :^). So of course I led the trail so I could chicken out of any tough lines without Led being able to see it. OK, I didn’t chicken, but did get totally hung up on my long arm mounts on the double stair obstacle and needed a tug to get back off. Time for a front locker to play on that stuff, and probably a redesigned longarm setup down to more of a 3 link mid-arm.

After the obstacle I noticed a weird noise at throttle and with a little bit of speed (it sounded kind of like a pigeon warbling), particularly when the suspension was leaning to the right. I couldn’t figure it out, and ended up driving home with it making the noise on and off (no longer sounding like a pigeon at highway speed...or maybe a pigeon on speed...). I was wondering if I’d fragged a transmission mount, but it turns out I had mashed the catalytic converter up into the body when I got hung up on the stairs, and so it was vibrating the body like crazy. Nice, simple (and cheap) crowbar fix for that one.

Anyway, the initial climb up the trail is really getting dug out, as are other parts of the trail. Of course, we had the advantage of running it “unpaved” as Led put it...too early in the season for the excessive rock stacking that stock-ish groups do to get through...and that made it more fun. There was snow in spots, but nothing deep, although the one major off-camber spot was wet with frozen mud underneath and snow on the upper side. Nice bit of pucker factor, but nobody seemed to have problems.

We hit the trail at 11:00 am and were off at 6:00 pm...pretty good time for a group of 17 (after the stocker with the reporter headed back down). It was 3:00 pm by the time we left the Waterfall, which is maybe 20% through the trail, so we made up some time getting up to the Stairs at the top of the loop. The Stairs are a Double Whammy (Moab) type obstacle, and only Led succeeded in taking a line from the far left, although it walked his rig about 8 feet to the right as it tried to climb before pulling up. Impressive line, though. It was easy to see why the MT/R has become the tire of choice for rock crawlers. From the Stairs it was just about all downhill...rough...dug out...and pretty slow going. But the Stairs more than make up for the loss of the old obstacles now closed off on private land, and overall I think Chinaman’s is better than ever.

It takes about 90 minutes to get a large group of almost entirely highly built rigs through a good obstacle, so we had a lot of downtime. But the weather was absolutely gorgeous and it was a great crowd. It was nice to get out and meet so many people, although I probably won’t have too many new names and faces correctly matched for next time since there were so many of us. I stopped taking pics after the first major obstacle since we had so many photographers out there...maybe somebody will get a good set up today.

And finally, my attempt to find the most out of the way place to buy Powerball tickets (it is always the remote convenience store that sells the winning ticket) failed miserably (well, I found a place but my numbers stunk), and hence I am at work today writing this trip report instead of relishing in my new status as multi-millionaire.

Nay

 

[woodrock03]

Took a few pics with a cheap digital hoto: I had stuffed under the rear seat - left the good digital at home - figures :doh:


All in all they're not too bad though, should give an idea of what it was like out there.

Cheers,
John

http://community.webshots.com/user/woodrock03

 

[xjk9bar1]

Took a few pics with a cheap digital hoto: I had stuffed under the rear seat - left the good digital at home - figures :doh:


All in all they're not too bad though, should give an idea of what it was like out there.

Cheers,
John

http://community.webshots.com/user/woodrock03

Thank You!!!!!!!