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Club Gwagen Moab Trip 2002:
The second annual Club Gwagen Moab gathering was another great success. Three of us met in Moab around the
weekend of Sept 27,28,29 2002. Erwin and I were second timers and DUTCH made
the trip all the way from Atlanta GA this year. We started off with "Steel Bender" on Friday, stretched the limits on
"Golden Spike" Satruday, and tried "Metal Masher" on Sunday. While there are
some pics from Metal Masher, it was a bit of a bust. We had trouble finding
the trail and, once we did the weather turned pretty sour. We cut it short
and headed in. The first two day were spectacular however.
Erwin graciously volunteered to "follow me anywhere I wanted to go" on
Friday morning. All three of us, myself DUTCH and Erwin headed out for
"Steel Bender" on the east side of town. Early on DUTCH decided that he
would opt out and do some exploring rather than risk is very nice '00 G500.
The trail was a good mix of sandy stream beds and rocky climbs and fins. This steep climb was one
of the early obstacles. It looked to be vertical, now we were having some fun! The G's had no problems clambering up.
A little later there was a truck width fin that we climbed up on for a pic, there are
tons of neat little places to explore on these trails.
Throughout the trail there were a bunch of rocky stair steps to negotiate, again the
G's shrug this off and on we go. There is one pretty major obstacle
on the trail. It is about a three foot drop off of a rock ledge. That isn't
so bad, it was the 500 ft drop you could take if you came off of it too
fast. We took it slow and had no problems. It certainly looked worse than it
was in retrospect.
After that the trail was mostly scenic. There were some more sandy sections but mostly just a nice drive through the Moab
back country.
Golden Spike trail, rated a 4+ I believe, on a scale of 1-4, was our choice
for Saturdays wheeling. This trail offers such famous obstacles as "The
Golden Crack" and "Double Whammy", these can not be by-passed. We knew this
one would be a serious challenge to man and machine. The trail follows
"Poison Spider Mesa" for a while before splitting off and getting more
technical. The wedgie was visited during last years PSM trail run. This year
Erwin gave me a scare, he leaned the G over within what looked to be inches
of rolling. He had no idea why I was so excited when he got up. Felt like a
drive in the park to him.
Further down the road we were caught by a
heavily modified Jeep. He was running 37" tires, extended wheelbase, massive
suspension travel, winch, you name it. They were plugging along faster than
we were and were pretty surprised to see a couple stock trucks on such a
trail. We chatted a bit, had lunch and then they motored off ahead of us.
The next fun round of obstacles was a set of STEEP stair steps you had to go
down. Erwin even got out and piled some rocks, the drops were BIG.
We made it through. This trail was living up to its rating. We moved slowly
through this section. There was plenty of opportunity for damage here,
especially for trucks with little (mine) or no (Erwin) suspension lift. It was
a testament to the design of the trucks, the Jeep guys watched in disbelief.
We caught up to them again at the golden crack, one of Moab's most famous
obstacles. We watched the Jeep go through, tires spinning engine roaring,
pretty dramatic! Since I picked the trail I went first. My G was leaning
over so far that there was over 4ft of daylight under the rear tire. The
Jeep group went around to brace my truck up it was leaning so far! The first
try was with too much angle across the hole. A second attempt proved
successful. Erwin took a little less angle yet but ended up scraping his
rear bumper on the way out. Still, this was quite a feat. We had an audience
of about 6-7, the Jeepers and a group on motorcycles. It was a blast!
Soon came the double whammy obstacle. This is a set of really
really big steps you must climb. It honestly looked impassable. The real
kicker was that once you made it up the first two big steps you had to turn
parralell to them with a big rock in front of you. Don't turn too soon or
you risk rolling back down the way you came up. There were a couple more
substantial climbs to be made, then a nice easy trip back out through a
valley. This takes you by the "Gooney Bird" rock formation, really a neat
sight. We were exhausted after this one. I would not reccomend it to anyone
without some experience and patience but, it was the highlight of the trip
for me!
More pictures from the trip are available by clicking here to visit:
Brent's Home Page
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