Day two on the trail opens up to a bright morning and the continued excitement of fun on the unknown trail.
Breaking camp:
Everybody packs up, eats a quick snack and we take off again. Bill is back in the lead dog position and we plod on. The trail is less technical at this point. Dirt in most spots and less rocks. But what rocks are there are sharp and one reached out and gashed Bill’s left front tire. So the spare is put to use and in 20 minutes or so we are moving down the trail again.
A little while later we’ve come to a steep sandy switchback going down hill. We watched Bill and Ty navigate down and both got the right rears a little light just before the turn. Larry and me talk about the line and take a similar path down.
We see a riverbed just ahead and go check it out. That’s where we find it. The name of the trail we had been on for the last two days. It was the Devil’s Racetrack. Hmm fitting name.
Near the trail sign is a nice trail board with great map laying out the area. They rated the trails much like ski runs. Black for difficult, blue for moderate and green for easy. The Devils Racetrack was marked black.
We discuss the options based on our new discovery of where we are. We decide as a group to take the Eva Conover trail to lead us back to I-70 and we would cross back to the southern side of the swell from there. This is rated Blue and looks like it covers a nice sandy wash for quite a way.
The new trail is a refreshing change of pace after the last day and morning. Sandy and fast we could carry some speed at the bottom of this canyon. We make our way north for a couple of more miles and at the next trail sign make a turn back to the south.
A sense of scale can be had in this pic.
Stopping for a quick break at the turn we confirm out direction and mush on. I’m back in the lead and we are having fun in the sand. I take a wrong turn at a sand bar and almost get stuck in some really deep stuff. I hear some heckling over the CB from Larry but I managed to get out un-assisted. Larry reports back I’ve got so much sand pouring out from the rear bumper it looks like a waterfall. We keep riding south and notice the canyon walls getting closer and closer the further we ride.
Just impressive being at the bottom looking up in such a cool canyon. But we all know we climbed down to get here, we probably are going to have to climb up to get out.
Sure enough we reached a narrow spot that was barely 20 feet wide. Up front it looked like the trail went on and around a right hand bend. The reality was shown to us in a small white arrow on a short post. It pointed to our left. To my immediate left was nothing more than a rock wall. But in my mirror I could see the exit leading up 180 degrees in the opposite direction we were pointing. Oh yeah it’s a good steep loose rocky slope too. Uh-oh.
I hook the turn and methodically make my way up with the group behind me. Steep don’t quite cut it for a description and photos or video don’t do it justice either.
Half way up I’m struggling. It’s narrow as much as it is steep and rocks sitting in all the wrong places. Ian hops out to spot once I get hung up. He gives some direction and no way. It’s not working. He stops and asks what’s up as I walked through tougher stuff yesterday. I respond back it just doesn’t feel like I’ve got the same forward bite as yesterday. Ian says he’s going to look at something while I take another shot. I try and fail, but Ian is pretty certain I’ve killed the right side hub on the front. The axle shaft is spinning but the wheel isn’t. With the tru-trac it damn well should be. By now Larry and Ty have hiked up to survey the mess. The path is too narrow to get somebody past me to act as a winch anchor and there wasn’t anything substantial above to hook to either. I need to see what this truck can do with an open rear diff and some throttle. I had to bounce it up. Not the ideal way to go, but effective as long as I don’t break more stuff in the process. I make it up and get into position to take pics and video of the rest making it through the same mess.
Bill is next and used the heavy Dodge to keep it on the ground and maintain forward traction. He gets up without much drama.
Larry follows and takes a safe line and scrambles up with a clean run.
