Pictures from La Sal Pass, 10/13/18

[Anak]

This trail posed a remarkably different challenge from any of the other trails I ran in Moab: Snow. More snow than we were prepared to handle in fact. It was a novel thing at first, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly.

And our leader, Chuck, well, he gave it everything he had to give. He had rolled his jeep on its side the day before. This meant he had no driver's window. And his rear differential was not exactly happy with life. In fact, it made it all but the last quarter mile back to camp. Dealing with that was its own interesting challenge.

We did not expect to find this boulder on the trail. Some rock stacking had been done so folks could get over it. Chuck had no problem. But mud on tires made it like driving on a stack of ice cubes. I slid off to the side and landed on my front diff. More rock stacking was required.

 

[Anak]

This was Chuck trying to push a tree off the trail. It didn't work. We took care of it with axes. Another tree had to be winched off the trail.

This was as high up the mountain as we made it. About 9,000 feet. The goal was 10,400. But at the rate we were making progress we were not going to get there before dark.

We turned around and made our way back down the mountain.

And had to work our way back over the pile of rocks, which now had collected even more mud from our tires.

 

[Anak]

A Varmint having lunch in the cool slate chair. Actually, it was a downright cold chair. It probably warms up in the sun though. It would be a great spot to watch the sun set over Moab.

And this was as far as the Chuck Wagon made it:

The pinion nut let loose and the yoke came off the pinion and the ring gear swallowed the pinion gear right into the carrier, fully locking up the rear axle.

But we got the right tow truck and operator and with three drivers working together got the Jeep onto the trailer.

I sure hope Chuck made it home without any more problems.

 

[macgyvr]

I sure hope Chuck made it home without any more problems.

Chuck and I took the southern route back to Indiana/Ohio via I40 avoiding the tall mountains on I70 (which his tow rig did not like on the way out) and the snow in the Rockies and Kansas.

He made it home on Tuesday with no further issues.

mac 'and he had a blast of a trip' gyvr

 

[Anak]

Good to hear.