The Full Send Adventure 7 - Gold Spike Spider
Shane was able to locate a warranty replacement axle from the vendor of the broken axle, but it was not to arrive until late afternoon. He decided to ride as a passenger for today's trails. We learned some valuable lessons about ourselves and our rigs today: 1) don't forget to pack water in the rig 2) three spotters is too many spotters 3) the trifecta is a really hard set of trails
We decided to "send it" today as big as we could. We decided to try to reach the Golden Crack, which basically requires running the trifecta of Poison Spider Mesa, Golden Spike, and the Gold Bar Rim. So, that's what we did.
We began the day at the busy trail head for Poison Spider Mesa. Many Jeeps and OHVs were airing down at the start when we arrived and many, many more would follow before we finished the day. We made slow, steady progress up Poison Spider Mesa as it was clear from the first obstacle that this was a cut above the trails we had run already this week. We had no difficulty clearing the obstacles on Poison Spider, but we later learned we should have been running the trail with more urgency and haste than we started the day with.
At the junction with Golden Spike, we turned off of Poison Spider Mesa and continued on G.S. According to the sign posts at the junction, G.S. is an 8/10 and P.S. is a 7/10. Confident, we continued on, but we would learn that the difference between a 7 and an 8 can be substantial. G.S. wore us down with the constant barrage of ledges and obstacles, each one requiring some careful though and tire placement to minimize the number of rock hits our rigs took. None of us left this trail unscathed. To complicate matters, we discovered that neither Trent nor Ty remembered to pack the spare water we had filled at the house for the day, so we had to split Matt's spare gallon and a half between the 5 of us for this long day.
At Zuki Hill, I found myself completely stuck in a pothole full of water before the ledges. Several rigs before me had dropped carefully into the water and walked out the other side, but I managed to settle into a position with no traction and no lockers, unable to move. Matt pulled around on the bypass and I winched my Jeep out of the hole. This is the first obstacle I've ever had to winch over. Free of the water, I pulled the line back in and conquered Zuki Hill after a few attempts and some helpful spotting from Shane. Ty was able to get out of the water hole on his own power easily and also cleared the ledges with minimal effort. At this point we were pretty tired from the constant obstacles, but more awaited.
As we approached the Golden Crack, our progress slowed to nearly zero. A series of very large, close-spaced ledges sapped our energy as we constantly had to exit the vehicles and spot one another down. Often the best line was not the line that we could clear cleanly, but rather the line that offered no chance of body damage and minimal undercarriage hits. As we reached the Golden Crack, we realized we needed to pick up the pace substantially to clear the trail before sunset. It had taken us several hours to travel the ~2.3 miles from P.S. to the crack, with another mile of G.S to go and the entirety of Gold Bar Rim ahead as well. We took the requisite photos at the crack, then began looking for every bypass and easy line possible to speed our progress.
Before reaching Gold Bar Rim, we encountered a difficult ledge obstacle with options to go right (bigger ledge, lots of space) or left (smaller ledge, but rocks on each side). I attempted the left line first, but my rear tires hung on the rock and my rig slid sideways towards the large boulders uncomfortably. I backed off, reoriented, and tried again to the same result. After two attempts and nearly crunching my body tub into the rock, I backed off the line entirely and tried to climb the bigger ledge instead. At this point, Matt decided to attempt the smaller (narrow) ledge in his Ram. He tried a similar line to me with the same results, but his truck slid all the way into the rock. His ram currently sports a nice scar above the rear passenger tire where his rig and the rock met. After this failure, Shane was able to spot Matt up a different line successfully without further damage. Ty and I cleared the big ledge on the right and we continued on.
I have little to say about Gold Bar Rim, as we rushed through this to reach the trail exit with fading sunlight. I'd like to run G.B.R. again sometime at a slower pace. This was an enjoyable trail with some good views, but we did not stop long to take it in. The infamous waterfall on G.B.R. was no problem for our rigs, despite the warning signs near the obstacle.
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