Our first trip to Moab from my 9yo's perspective

stioc

Expedition Leader
Found a pic of Baby Lion's Back.

babylionCustom_zpse57577f2.jpg
 

mortonm

Expedition Leader
The tires worked great too, a bit on the skinny side from some angles in real life but they out perform my previous Duratracs in everything but mud (haven't tried snow yet). Great traction, tough, quiet and smooth. I guess some old designs do stand the test of times. There were a few very rocky sections where they took a lot of beating but the only damage was the surface abrasions. The Duratracs would've had sidewall cuts all over as was the experience with my previous set.

My brother just put 215 85 R 16s on his XJ, now THOSE are skinny, 235 doesn't seem so bad
 

Allof75

Pathfinder
Beautiful trip, great reporter, and an excellent experience all around! Congrats my friend.

Now the $1500 question is.... did you break anything?
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
What a great write up to read from a kids view...
I have been to that area a number of times but it was really fun to read what she wrote.
 

PowerWagner

Explorer
Nice trip report and pics

Nice shots and cool thought to let the young'n try out her chops on the beat. I think those bfg at's are a great tire. I had been amazed at their level of traction. Wear on the beast was another issue but all in a great tire. Glad all are back safe and it was an enjoyable trip.
 

lbrito

Broverland Expert
Excellent! What a great idea. A fresh perspective on a highly visited area.
Glad I was able to make the trip. The whole state of Utah is one impressive conglomerate of areas to explore. We certainly only got our toes wet, but that was quite the experience in itself.
You did a great job narrowing down the photos! Over the last few days I have been going over mine and choosing a few from each day that sort of collectively tell the story of the day. I thought I was being extra selective, but when I finished up last night, I realized I had 223 photos selected! 22 per day doesn't seem so bad, but, I'm not sure I can get rid of very many of them. I guess that's the problem when you try to develop shutter discipline. You then begin to assign great value in every photo you take. Might just resort back to indiscriminately photograph everything again.
The GoPro video is another story. The good thing is I mainly shot with 1 camera, since my usual camera operators were not there this trip. The bad thing is I used the bumper cam as a cheat often, and it was too easy to hit the record button while doing the live preview.
Will post over the next few days.
 

stioc

Expedition Leader
Thanks guys! she's pretty excited that everyone thought her journal (which on some days she was too tired to write) was a hit :)

As for breaking anything? no the truck took a beating but never missed a beat. Two minor issues, the tires rubbed on the fender flares under extreme articulation and bent the mounting tabs etc so the flares now have a 1/4" gap between them and the body but not too obvious. The other minor issue I noticed was after running the rough trails I could smell gas near the gas cap/tank area. I'm guessing the gas sloshing around and perhaps a bad seal on the gas cap contributed to it? Didn't notice it on the highway.

I definitely underestimated Klondike Bluff Trail towards the end where you drive down the mountain to Salt Creek Rd (lots of large boulders and rocks and not much of a trail left) and then go back up to Tower Arch.

Baby lion's back had too much water; lbrito's Jeep Rubicon with a 4.5" lift and 35" tires found the water up to the rocker panels so I turned around and drove back down, talk about a pucker factor! :)

Fins-n-Things added a few scratches to my truck and on one descend I slammed my bumper mounted hi-lift straight into the ground as the truck slid down the slick rock (too much sand on the rock) but other than that it was really fun.
 

stioc

Expedition Leader
That was the one, the lower part of the plastic bumper actually hit the ground first but flexed and bounced back with no obvious damage. The truck is still dirty so I can't be certain of any other damage until I get a chance to wash it this weekend. I actually like it this way covered in that red Moab dirt :)
 

stioc

Expedition Leader
Haha, that's a nice shot! You know it doesn't look as steep in the picture but I remember the small bumps on that hill were making the rear end of the truck lift. I pulled the e-brake up to about 90% throughout for a controlled descend that way I could be smooth with the front brakes as needed and avoid a nose dive etc.

Oh and you're right it's no small feat to go from 2000 pics down to a handful, I'm sure I left out a lot of good ones. It's ExPo so I mostly focused on the truck/wheeling pics.
 

nwoods

Expedition Leader
Haha, that's a nice shot! You know it doesn't look as steep in the picture but I remember the small bumps on that hill were making the rear end of the truck lift. I pulled the e-brake up to about 90% throughout for a controlled descend that way I could be smooth with the front brakes as needed and avoid a nose dive etc.

Yeah, it's pleasantly steep:

RoadTrip_2007-081-X2.jpg
 

chmura

Adventurer
Sweet pictures, thank you for sharing!

Glad everything went smoothly for you. Utah indeed is an awesome place, I want to go back there again in the near future.

Did you happen to go on Hell's Revenge?
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,529
Messages
2,875,555
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top