Moab 4/2024

[FINOCJ]

Went to Moab last week...Jim was hanging around the fringe with joining, but in the end was not able to attend, so requested a trail report...
A quick backstory....the white flat fender is an ecj5 friend of mine (Rich) from the east coast who built that cool jeep and has come out to Colo for the last 3 years for summer wheeling. Last year, as a way to make it west for more wheeling trips, he trailered the jeep to Colo and then left it in storage with another friend and traveled back out in the fall for the HITR run Jim joined. This year his plan included coming out west even earlier to participate in the Friday flatfender fun run that occurs on the Friday of EJS....though the FFFR is not officially part of EJS. The jeep will again be left in storage over the summer with various other trips on the docket ( Rubicon in July, Colo in Aug, fall TBD), I and another friend joined for a few days of wheeling after the FFFR (they really are sticklers for the flatfender aspect, so even my old CJ doesn't qualify). Although rich got in a bit of wheeling before I joined (work was busy season), I got three days starting the Monday after EJS...we ran Fins and Hells, flat iron mesa and steelbender.

Fins and Hells are classic, so we did them, but honestly fins is getting a bit old...I still like hells, but the amount of traffic and rental guided groups can be annoying. Running these in the late fall with no crowds is much preferable. One day I'll run hells gate...I wimped out once again, but rich ran it. The lack of PS in my rig makes v-notches a PITA, especially now that the front is fully locked. Also, it was the first time I exited via the entrance gate, going by the staircase obstacle....this exit is way better than the traditional old exit that goes out past TOC and then is just a bumpy annoying exit.
Here is some shots of day 1:
the 3 jeeps:

[FINOCJ]

Day 2 was flat iron mesa - and although this trail is rated a bit easier, it was a new to me trail and has been on my bucket list....its south of town a bit and gets away from the crowds, as well as feels more like a trail than the 'offroad park' that sand flats seems to have become.....we ran the trail in a ccw loop as laid out in the Wells guidebook (and how I think its run during EJS), but I would highly recommend running this trail cw - I plan to run this again (possibly as an overnight with some additional exploring in the area), and will definitely do it clockwise so that you are going up some of the bigger obstacles.
There had been some recent precip just before we showed up....that meant lots of snow on the La Sal mts....nice view heading south down 191 to the trailhead:


a lot less slickrock wheeling, but scenic and enough challenge...






There are sort of 3 'bigger' obstacles - all optional.....the first one we came to was the chute:



Here I am struggling with the v-notch...


Rich making it look a bit easier...

[FINOCJ]

The second big obstacle is tilt-a-whirl....here I am coming down with some spotting help....you can see the RF tire finding a small ledge of rock - this is needed...


Coming out the bottom ledge...


Rich ran with out much spotting....(I was actually in the shadow pointing, but he was focused on his own marks)....he was one tire width driver side and missed the little rock ledge


and it got TIPPY real fast!


The 3rd obstacle is easter egg hill....it was actually pretty easy going down...Jen was worried about the steep hill on the bottom half and took video there, but the hard part was the ledge drop and tight s-turn on a ledge above where the video shows...


There is also a tippy, tight squeeze spot right after EEH....easy but a bit of pucker....Jen's comment was if you go sideways, you fly before you die....it was a long drop to the bottom of the canyon


Near the end (its a 15 mile loop), we came across an un-named but trickly ledge - especially for swb's....Rich made it harder than it needed to be:



More scenery to close out FI mesa:

[Tom]

Really nice photos and vids James. Thanks for sharing. How’s MT treating you these days.

[FINOCJ]

Day 3 was steelbender....this is a lollipop loop...the first half is kind of like poison spyder, but the back half gets a bit long and bumpy.
You drive in along a creek and some scenery...


Bit of a ledge to get out of the creek:


Quite a few challenging, of camber slickrock climbs:



Biggest obstacle is optional - known as 'the wall'....there were 3 routes up the wall....we took the one most suited for swb jeeps - some other built rigs on 37-40s said no way we could make it...the vids just don't do justice to how steep and big the steps are...Rich made it look pretty easy


I made it look a bit harder - manual steering


there is some slickrock fun:


more scenery:



there is an option for an exit via the flat pass trail, but it includes a big obstacle right at the start ....we took a look...it's intimidating but doable...but not at the end of a good trip...beer thirty was quickly approaching...next time



guess that wraps it up....still on my bucket list include metal masher (probably bypassing rock chunker), all of golden spike, and moab rim....think its time for some more jeep upgrades first....

[FINOCJ]

Tom previously posted: