+ d
Adventurer
The old man and I spent last Thursday in Borrego Springs with Bill Burke at an all day seminar. For those of you who aren't familiar with BB read up about him, he's quite the guru. I must say it was well worth it... He coerced me into trying, what we would call a frame twister wash, and I was doing pretty well until my front axle articulated too much and I dropped a spring...doh! (Funny thing is I spent a good portion of the previous weekend drilling and welding attachment points for front limiting straps just to prevent this sort of thing, but never seemed to have time to actually attach them! Heck I even had the straps and hardware in a bag in the jeep!) The spring shot out of there with a bang when I started to comeback down on it, and at first I thought for sure I broke something. So I was partly relieved and partly embarrassed when I stopped looked under my jeep and saw the spring and isolators layin' in the dirt. Well Bill really kept his cool, I mean "getting unstuck" is his thing right? (I think he was kinda excited) So we stuck the spring back in and I started to back out of this tight wash when...of course the other spring drops out! On my Grand the driver's side articulates more than the passenger side, so Bill actually had to hold the spring in there while I was trying to back up and out of this wash. The guy is amazing, he has his hands in my wheel well while telling me to gas it and my tire is spinning away spraying the guy with rocks and sand! The other side is stuffed so hard that the tire is rubbing the coil tower and making a serious racket. Well I just couldn't get my ass around the corner so with a friendly yank from a TJ I was able to finally back out.
We left Borrego Springs well after dark and headed to a familiar camp spot near Split Mountain, we were relieved to find it vacant. Next morning we woke up, had a little breakfast and installed those limiting straps campside. We made our way up sandstone canyon to the Diablo Drop Off...which we intended to drive up. Having never seen it in person (the pictures weren't so bad) we were pretty optimistic. It took us a while to get through some tough sections on the approach to the base (thanks Kevin for my sturdy rocker protection!). Once we were there it was significantly more hardcore than expected, there were parts that were actually difficult to walk up. So we made some sandwiches, scouted the whole thing, and plotted our plan of attack (both of us thinking ‘we ain't going to make this). But I’ll be damned if we didn't clean the whole thing in one try. Of course we didn't take pictures...too stressed about making it, and then when its all over too quick we were kicking ourselves for not documenting the fun.
Once up on the mesa it was a great view and an easy drive to Arroyo Seco del Diablo. Once out in the Vallacito Wash we followed it all the way to the marsh, which is strange to go from sand and ocotillos to mud and reeds. It was pretty overgrown and we ended up backing out of there and heading over to Canyon Sin Nombre, where we set up camp in a nice hidden wash and went for a hike. After some beers and a hot carne asada dinner we were out for the night. Next day we headed back to San Diego to catch up with the real world, never enough time to really get lost. Enjoy the pics... David
waxing poetic...
passenger spring re-secured...
...******!?
"now give it some gas..."
mud...!?
ahhh the desert tranquility...
We left Borrego Springs well after dark and headed to a familiar camp spot near Split Mountain, we were relieved to find it vacant. Next morning we woke up, had a little breakfast and installed those limiting straps campside. We made our way up sandstone canyon to the Diablo Drop Off...which we intended to drive up. Having never seen it in person (the pictures weren't so bad) we were pretty optimistic. It took us a while to get through some tough sections on the approach to the base (thanks Kevin for my sturdy rocker protection!). Once we were there it was significantly more hardcore than expected, there were parts that were actually difficult to walk up. So we made some sandwiches, scouted the whole thing, and plotted our plan of attack (both of us thinking ‘we ain't going to make this). But I’ll be damned if we didn't clean the whole thing in one try. Of course we didn't take pictures...too stressed about making it, and then when its all over too quick we were kicking ourselves for not documenting the fun.
Once up on the mesa it was a great view and an easy drive to Arroyo Seco del Diablo. Once out in the Vallacito Wash we followed it all the way to the marsh, which is strange to go from sand and ocotillos to mud and reeds. It was pretty overgrown and we ended up backing out of there and heading over to Canyon Sin Nombre, where we set up camp in a nice hidden wash and went for a hike. After some beers and a hot carne asada dinner we were out for the night. Next day we headed back to San Diego to catch up with the real world, never enough time to really get lost. Enjoy the pics... David
waxing poetic...
passenger spring re-secured...
...******!?
"now give it some gas..."
mud...!?
ahhh the desert tranquility...