Jrally
Adventurer
The first epic journey of the off road Celica is done. Leading up to this past weekend, I had no idea what would be going on. I had asked one of my old off roading buddies if he wanted to go for a drive around one of the local lakes, just some easy trip to get my feet wet, so to speak. Things looked like they were falling apart, plan wise, lots of “I’m not sure what are plans are”. Saturday night, I got a call, “Hey Jon, want to go run Four Peaks, a couple of the other guys are going up camping tonight?” By 9:30, our plans were pretty well set and my ride along co-adventurer was made aware of our schedule.
Tim showed up at my place around 7:30 the next morning, Tiny and Tammy showed up a little before 8:00. We caravanned over to one of the guys house who was suppose to be camping, they had decided camping in the living room was easier. Four cars headed out, 3 turbo charged Subaru powered desert buggies and me, in my short Toyota Celica. They all run 33 front and 35 inch rear tires, my car has 27 inch tires at both ends. So, I was hoping they would understand and take it easy on me.
For those of you that don’t know the area and are curious enough, you can look up the areas on Google maps or similar. We left North Phoenix (101 and 51 hwy), going east through Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, up to the Four Peaks road; about 10 miles north of the Saguaro Lake turn off. The dirt adventure began, along with the piles of dust coming into the car. We stopped just off the highway to air down the tires for the rock roads ahead. They all aired to 8-12psi, I went with more of a rally race pressure, 28psi, it’s what I know and seemed safer for handling. A few chuckles about it and we were off again. I took it fairly conservative, for me, but didn’t want to hold up the guys too much. Having radio communications between all the cars is fantastic, I knew when to expect on coming traffic and when I could open it up a bit, keep thing moving.
By the first stop, near the top of Four Peaks Mountain (covered with snow, but dry where we were), the others seemed happy with the way I got the car up there. It was easy going, mostly, a few rocky, rough areas, but nothing too bad. Heading over the crest, things got more interesting. The trickles of water running across the road go bigger, the washed out dips got deeper and rockier. Going down hill in the dirt is always an eye opener. We didn’t have any pucker moments, but I heard a few others say they did. To my surprise, by the time we got off the dirt, we were next to Roosevelt Lake, just south of Pumpkin Center. After stopping at the head of the lake, to look at crossing the running river, we decided getting back on the highway (188) was a smarter move. The nice leisurely drive about 20 miles into Globe was a nice break, couldn’t have asked for a better day, 75 and sunny. Stop in town for Taco Bell and top off the gas tanks, and then back on the road. I was surprised, 120 miles into the trip and I had only used about 5 gallons, not bad since about 50-60 miles were off road.
Our next turn onto the dirt was in Superior, AZ, where they filmed the movie “U-Turn”, a dusty mountain looking little town. After a few dead end trails, and some pretty challenging rock crawling for my car, we finally got pointed on the main trail. The most interesting thing about this trip was how much water was running, after so many years of drought, it has really made the desert come alive, so much green vegetation and wild flowers, incredibly picturoues.
The next 40-50 miles of trails proved to be the biggest challenges of the day. Heading SW through the mountain range, we did it all, from a 3 mile accent up a switch backed mountain road with turns so tight, even the Celica had trouble making the u-turn in one try. To crossing 8-10” deep streams full of river rocks, even a 70 or so yard run up one section of stream just to find the trail again. There were step down sections of washed out road that made me very glad I had chopped so much length off both ends of the car. The trailer hitch kept scraping the rocks on descents, finally had to flip it upside down to get more clearance. (I’ll leave it at home next time around) By the end of the, Tim and I were knows as the “Dust Twins”, the car was highly praised and invited to go on the big pre-summer run “400 Miler”. Our last stop in the dirt even found me a great old recovery shovel, that will stay with the car, the rest of it’s life. 10 more miles out to the 60 highway saw mostly smooth, high speed roads, except for one more stream crossing, 20 yards wide and 14” deep in the middle. How do I know!!? Because we stopped to look out the windows, it was right at the bottom of the doors. Once we got on the highway, it was still about 70 miles back home, bumper to bumper traffic, for about 10 miles. We had to pass by the Renaissance Festival, at the end of the day.
240 miles-ish and 10 and a half hours later I got back home, the car didn’t skip a beat. My palms are a little redder this morning, my jaw hurt last night from clinching so much at the rough sections, and most of the dust has been coughed out of my lungs. Final opinion of the Celica (Mad Max, Group B rally car, Off-Road race inspired), what a tank. The engine makes fantastic low end power, pulled a lot of the rough hill climb stuff in 2nd gear, 1200-1500 rpms, just lumping away. The handling on the higher speed, twisty sections was great. The only problem we had all day was the amount of dust, definitely getting that resolved before a trip like that again… I slept well last night!!
-Jon
Roodwerks Eng...
Tim showed up at my place around 7:30 the next morning, Tiny and Tammy showed up a little before 8:00. We caravanned over to one of the guys house who was suppose to be camping, they had decided camping in the living room was easier. Four cars headed out, 3 turbo charged Subaru powered desert buggies and me, in my short Toyota Celica. They all run 33 front and 35 inch rear tires, my car has 27 inch tires at both ends. So, I was hoping they would understand and take it easy on me.
For those of you that don’t know the area and are curious enough, you can look up the areas on Google maps or similar. We left North Phoenix (101 and 51 hwy), going east through Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, up to the Four Peaks road; about 10 miles north of the Saguaro Lake turn off. The dirt adventure began, along with the piles of dust coming into the car. We stopped just off the highway to air down the tires for the rock roads ahead. They all aired to 8-12psi, I went with more of a rally race pressure, 28psi, it’s what I know and seemed safer for handling. A few chuckles about it and we were off again. I took it fairly conservative, for me, but didn’t want to hold up the guys too much. Having radio communications between all the cars is fantastic, I knew when to expect on coming traffic and when I could open it up a bit, keep thing moving.
By the first stop, near the top of Four Peaks Mountain (covered with snow, but dry where we were), the others seemed happy with the way I got the car up there. It was easy going, mostly, a few rocky, rough areas, but nothing too bad. Heading over the crest, things got more interesting. The trickles of water running across the road go bigger, the washed out dips got deeper and rockier. Going down hill in the dirt is always an eye opener. We didn’t have any pucker moments, but I heard a few others say they did. To my surprise, by the time we got off the dirt, we were next to Roosevelt Lake, just south of Pumpkin Center. After stopping at the head of the lake, to look at crossing the running river, we decided getting back on the highway (188) was a smarter move. The nice leisurely drive about 20 miles into Globe was a nice break, couldn’t have asked for a better day, 75 and sunny. Stop in town for Taco Bell and top off the gas tanks, and then back on the road. I was surprised, 120 miles into the trip and I had only used about 5 gallons, not bad since about 50-60 miles were off road.
Our next turn onto the dirt was in Superior, AZ, where they filmed the movie “U-Turn”, a dusty mountain looking little town. After a few dead end trails, and some pretty challenging rock crawling for my car, we finally got pointed on the main trail. The most interesting thing about this trip was how much water was running, after so many years of drought, it has really made the desert come alive, so much green vegetation and wild flowers, incredibly picturoues.
The next 40-50 miles of trails proved to be the biggest challenges of the day. Heading SW through the mountain range, we did it all, from a 3 mile accent up a switch backed mountain road with turns so tight, even the Celica had trouble making the u-turn in one try. To crossing 8-10” deep streams full of river rocks, even a 70 or so yard run up one section of stream just to find the trail again. There were step down sections of washed out road that made me very glad I had chopped so much length off both ends of the car. The trailer hitch kept scraping the rocks on descents, finally had to flip it upside down to get more clearance. (I’ll leave it at home next time around) By the end of the, Tim and I were knows as the “Dust Twins”, the car was highly praised and invited to go on the big pre-summer run “400 Miler”. Our last stop in the dirt even found me a great old recovery shovel, that will stay with the car, the rest of it’s life. 10 more miles out to the 60 highway saw mostly smooth, high speed roads, except for one more stream crossing, 20 yards wide and 14” deep in the middle. How do I know!!? Because we stopped to look out the windows, it was right at the bottom of the doors. Once we got on the highway, it was still about 70 miles back home, bumper to bumper traffic, for about 10 miles. We had to pass by the Renaissance Festival, at the end of the day.
240 miles-ish and 10 and a half hours later I got back home, the car didn’t skip a beat. My palms are a little redder this morning, my jaw hurt last night from clinching so much at the rough sections, and most of the dust has been coughed out of my lungs. Final opinion of the Celica (Mad Max, Group B rally car, Off-Road race inspired), what a tank. The engine makes fantastic low end power, pulled a lot of the rough hill climb stuff in 2nd gear, 1200-1500 rpms, just lumping away. The handling on the higher speed, twisty sections was great. The only problem we had all day was the amount of dust, definitely getting that resolved before a trip like that again… I slept well last night!!
-Jon
Roodwerks Eng...
