LandRover 101 Extreme Trek to Moab Utah - Cont....

A Upon Arrival to our campsite, the rest of the group had abandoned the idea of camping and elected to stay in an air-conditioned hotel. We ‘diehards’ chose to remain. Besides, I wanted to see how my design performed in the elements. To my surprise, just having 2 overhead fans was plenty of cooling for our needs. The dc fridge never came close to draining the batteries overnight, and the solar panels provided more than enough power during the day. There was no need to use the wind generator at all during this trip. Above is our camp in Utah, I’m lowering the spare tire for our journey into the desert the next day. We chose not to take the camper with us as the terrain was quite difficult. I’m glad we didn’t, as the Rover often was up on 2 wheels throughout the trip!

Our first trail was the ‘Top O the World’ trail. It was a pretty grueling and rocky trail. Sharlene and I often wondered why they had chosen this trail, the rise up was difficult, and not too spectacular for scenery. I had difficulty in one rocky section, due to the poor articulation of our vehicle. If we didn’t get past this, I was considering turning around. Luckily at the behest of our English cohort Pete, I just gave it all I had and was able to bounce my way up the rocks!

I am grateful we persevered, as the view at the end was spectacular! While we were enjoying the view, I couldn’t help but notice the noise coming from two of our vehicles. It was quite loud, and sounded like boiling water. I found the source from our vehicle, it was the fuel tank. I foolishly opened the fuel cap and it exploded into a huge vapor of gasses. I frantically tried to put the cap back on. I think that with our high altitude, the heat of the engine, and the extremely high ambient temperature, the fuel had started to boil in the tank! Once I calmed down, we enjoyed the view and had our lunch on an over-hanging rock thousands of feet above the floor of the desert.

 

In the photo to the left, can you tell that Ted is afraid of heights? We could not get him out past the trees!

On the way down, the ride was quite a bit bumpier….I know it’s a 30 yr old Land Rover, but it seemed even worse than before. Upon inspection, I found that anything rubber on the vehicle had melted in the heat! Than meant all of the steering and shock bushings were gone! Even the ‘dum-dum’ holding the windshield in place was melted!

Funny what 50 degrees Celsius and a little friction does!

This picture gives a good idea of the angles involved in negotiating this trail.

That evening, we decided to try some local Mexican suggested by Ted. That is something we don’t get a lot of in Ontario. I have never experienced ‘real’ Mexican food before. It was amazing. Sharlene and I love spicy food, and this was right up our alley!

The brave LRAA members! Not looking too bad after a hard days work!

I have always wanted to drive up the Lion’s Back. One of my secret desires of this trip was to conquer that trail. Unfortunately, it is on private land, and was recently closed. We had planned to drive a trail called ‘fins and things’ that day. I was feeling quite depressed about not being able to do Lion’s Back. However, unknown to me, ‘fins and things’ would prove to be much more challenging and exciting!

We started off with a prelude to the trail called ‘Baby Lion’s Back’, which was a narrow trail up a ‘fin’ of rock. Ted advised us that he would have no part of that craziness, as he was afraid of heights. Little did he know, he would be careening off hundred foot fins much larger than this!

 

 

You can’t get lost on this trail…tire tracks help to guide the way!

 

Or can you! Often the tracks disappear…only to lead to shear dropoffs!

If you look close, you can see Ted and Mary are totally relaxed!

Good thing Pete had his trusty GPS!

 

 

Our last trip in Utah was a trail along the desert floor. Pete was our navigator, and it seemed like he was taking us on a wild goose-chase through difficult terrain. With his perseverance, we found ‘uranium arch’ and numerous other spectacular vantage points along the trail. It was a hot, difficult trail, but as with the others, we were rewarded with spectacular views. Thanks to Pete’s GPS, we found a shorter way back home, as we were all tired of bouncing around in the 50 degree sun.

 

Big steps like these were easy for us with 38” tires!

All alone in the desert

Sharlene and I persuaded the group to have a ’free’ day to do our own thing. It was nice to play tourist for a day and see the National park.Very spectacular views, they don’t make them national parks for nothing!