05 Jan 08 - a short section of the Great Western Trail

crawler#976

Expedition Leader
Decided to head north and see how the weather was, and to give the new coilovers an introduction to the beating they'll take over the coming years...

Had to check the flex - it's OK! Ran a couple spots of road with good visability at speed - hit 80+ with complete control. The bigger shocks delivered a fabulous ride!

Headed to the Great Western Trail. This portion is on the Kiabab NF on FS 354 to Pine Flat. The rain was steady, and the road got sticky before it got sloppy. The clay is nasty - only an inch deep and justlike driving on grease. I'd aired down to 18 PSI - not enough for the MT/R's to clean, but then again I'm not sure any tire would. The trail climbs up from the Verde Valley to the top of the western Mogollon Rim west of Sycamore Canyon. Great veiws! Once up on top the sticky mud turned to slop, then to snow. I left the GWT and headed to a FS seasonal fire tower on Round Mountain, took a couple photos, ate lunch, and headed back to my favorite fishin' hole. The snow and fog was getting thick, and the sun was setting, so I headed out to the pavement. The slush had packed under the truck so tight that when I stopped to air up I couldn't get into park - had to use the e-brake to keep it from rolling back!

Wildlife was scarce - only saw a Willy E. at max velocity...and lots of Elk tracks, but no critters.

As seen on the map, the GWT crosses I-40, and eventually stops at the Grand Canyon NP boundary. I plan on doing an overnighter up there this summer and will post up the trip once it's planned.

Mark
 

crawler#976

Expedition Leader
30 minutes and 8 bucks later the mud was cleaned off the front suspention...going in for an alignment this Friday, so it needed to be close to spotless. The sticky stuff was wiped off on the a-arms on each rotation of the tires, and packed on so tight a regular hose wouldn't touch it. I really enjoy snow wheelin', but cleaning up the mud sucks.
 

kcowyo

ExPo Original
Love the spooky snow-fog conditions. :punk03:

I think that's the first time I've seen the TJM on your Tacoma, very nice. Nice and flexy suspension too. And yeah, greasy mud....meh.
 

p1michaud

Expedition Leader
Fun trip

Mark,
Looks like the rig is coming right along. Cool graphics on the hood and tailgate. Cool trip report, snow wheeling is fun but as you said the clean up can be a pain especially if it does not warm up. I've been under my truck with a hammer and chisel to remove frozen snow/slush from arround the driveshafts in the past at -30 Deg. C, no fun at all!
 

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