Utah in the fall 2015 - 9 days, 475 off-road miles, and 14 hours of digging! (PICS!)

[Scoutn79]

Wow, huge kudos to both of you!! Backing the trailer in first was brilliant--one benefit to towing a trailer I suppose.
Can you or anyone else answer this; for a situation with mud like that, would snow chains on the rear, or on all 4 corners, help more, or just make all 4 corners big mudballs and actually make the situation worse? Looking for experience for the future.

Yes snow chains (not cables, although cables would be better than nothing if you are running AT's or street tires.) will help. I would assume you would put them on the front if you have only one set on a 4wd just like for snow.. The larger the links the better. I Use both large dia, cross links made of square stock and have another set of V-bar chains. The standard twist link chains will help but not near as much. The chains I use are better suited for deep snow/mud as the large links are a real rough on the truck and you on hard snow. Chains act like paddles.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Darrell

 

[mk216v]

Yes snow chains (not cables, although cables would be better than nothing if you are running AT's or street tires.) will help. I would assume you would put them on the front if you have only one set one a 4wd just like for snow.. The larger the links the better. I Use both large dia, cross links made of square stuck and have another set of V-bar chains. The standard twist link chains will help but not near as much. The chains I use are better suited for deep snow mud as the large links are a real rough on the truck and you.Chains act like paddles.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Darrell

I don't want to take this too off topic here...
If 4WD then yes if have 1 chain set only, then on front--especially when "clawing" up a hill like this.
For the 2WD van guys, then 1 chain set on rear only.
If 4WD and have 2 chain sets, then front and rear.

I have 2 sets of Olympia Sprints(German commercial grade diamoned pattern twist link chain, assembled in USA; https://tirechaindealer.com/products/erlau-olympia-sprints/olympia-sprints-140-mfg.html), haven't used them yet(don't get into that much snow/ice here). I thought the mud would fling well from the links, but wanted some firsthand testimonies.

Would you guys say that 7.14mm heavy truck cross(http://www.tirechain.com/HEAVYTRUCK.htm), 7mm square/straight cross chain(http://www.tirechain.com/square_alloy_cross_chain.htm or 7.14mm v-bar cross(http://www.tirechain.com/VBAR.htm) would work best in this mud instance?

Thanks Darrell.

Back to the adventure! :safari-rig:

 

[emtmark]

Utah in the fall 2015 - 9 days, 475 off-road miles, and 14 hours of digging! ...

Chains in mud was my dads last resort, I never needed them yet. He took his 2x4 Chevy work truck down skid trails that others wouldn't even look at. Only had to call for help once and that got the back hoe stuck too. The dozer and skidder (always has chains on) got them both out eventually.


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[chicken corners]

This is a great adventure to follow, thanks.

 

[Abitibi]

Of all the pictures, this one shows best how difficult this little crossing was!

That is steep and soft, bad combination! Well done!

 

[tienckb]

Ridge,

What is your fuel tank capacity?


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2002 LX470 expo ready
2008 Ford E350 EB V10 4x4 Sportsmobile PH top
Custom off road trailer

 

[tienckb]

My bad, saw the answer from your original post.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
2002 LX470 expo ready
2008 Ford E350 EB V10 4x4 Sportsmobile PH top
Custom off road trailer

 

[RIDGE]

This is a how to clinic in real life over landing well done lots of hard learned past lessons being applied here 🏻🏻🏻🏻🏻


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Very true! My friend's dad once told me, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted!"

I'm pretty experienced.

I'll post a few more pics but I've got 300 miles to go tonight. The gnarly stuff is coming.

 

[RIDGE]

Day 6
November 1st

We needed to get an early start to make up for all the time spent at the river. I don't think I could get tired of the morning sun against these mountains and buttes (but we left a little early for that).







Immediately after leaving camp, we hit this. It wasn't bad or anything, but it reminded me that we were still in very remote territory, and there wouldn't be help coming. What I should have alerted to is the fact that this trail hadn't seen a vehicle in months...maybe even a year. We soon found out why.











The conditions worsened and we started to wonder what was around every corner.



1.4 miles from camp, we reached the end of the road! The worst of the washout is slightly visible at the bottom of this photo. Where the trail went was basically a 90 degree, right turn from the front of the van. The driver's side wheels would've had something to drive on, but there was nothing left for the passenger side.



This was the trail. It doesn't look that bad, but trust me, it was un-drivable. I couldn't have done it in my Jeep, or a Razor...a dirt bike would've made it. The drops were big but there isn't anything to see for comparison. It was also very off camber. If you look close, you'll see the van halfway up the hill (this picture was shot after we made a new route).



Obviously it was time to think again! And obviously, going all the way back would've been the smart thing to do! It was only 7:15am and I was determined to either figure out a way to get through, or camp there for the night. I was in no hurry to turn around. The first thing to do was walk the trail and see if there were any recent tracks. It would be foolish to even try this if an impassable obstacle laid ahead. We found tracks and went back to the planning stage.

I figured out a way that we *might* make it. It looked simple in my head.

Just drive down this gnarly, loose, off camber hill and turn left around the outside of one of those big boulders. Drive around or over more rocks and up the canyon (towards the camera)...


Then the hard part - turn driver's right and cruise up this canyon...which was about the size of a Razor (maybe). The dirt bike would've popped right up it! Lol.



I'll try to finish this up tomorrow. I've gotta get going. Every time I pull over to post, I lose sleep time. Hahaha.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...Immediately after leaving camp, we hit this. It wasn't bad or anything, but it reminded me that we were still in very remote territory, and there wouldn't be help coming. What I should have alerted to is the fact that this trail hadn't seen a vehicle in months...maybe even a year. We soon found out why.

...This was the trail. It doesn't look that bad, but trust me, it was un-drivable. I couldn't have done it in my Jeep, or a Razor...a dirt bike would've made it. The drops were big but there isn't anything to see for comparison. It was also very off camber. If you look close, you'll see the van halfway up the hill (this picture was shot after we made a new route)...

When were you doing this segment? Within the last few weeks?

 

[RIDGE]

When were you doing this segment? Within the last few weeks?

11/1/15

 

[cruiseroutfit]

11/1/15

Gotcha, fwiw a few different groups battled through in October. They did a fair bit of road repair along the way. Looks like some of the stacked rocks were still in place in your pics:
http://www.expeditionutah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5008

These guys seemed to come through right after you:
http://overland.kinja.com/i-went-looking-for-adventure-and-found-it-in-the-maze-1742816540

Glad you made it through. Great trip report!

 

[RIDGE]

Gotcha, fwiw a few different groups battled through in October. They did a fair bit of road repair along the way. Looks like some of the stacked rocks were still in place in your pics:
http://www.expeditionutah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5008

These guys seemed to come through right after you:
http://overland.kinja.com/i-went-looking-for-adventure-and-found-it-in-the-maze-1742816540

Glad you made it through. Great trip report!

That's cool! That section must flood a lot. I didn't see tracks from 2 weeks prior (where they winched was not possible when we went through), and the group that went after us didn't see our tracks!

 

[cruiseroutfit]

That's cool! That section must flood a lot. I didn't see tracks from 2 weeks prior (where they winched was not possible when we went through), and the group that went after us didn't see our tracks!

We had some pretty epic rainstorms this fall and Poison Springs is pretty vulnerable to washing out along it's length. Sometimes the west half will get super soggy and become impassible until it dries out.

 

[RIDGE]

Sorry it's taking me so long...just pulled over for the night in a gnarly Nebraska snow storm. I've gone 5,861 miles in 7 days (at 57 mph average!) Long days.

I gotta admit, cruiseroutfit took some wind out of my sails! I honestly didn't think anybody had been through here in months. At the time, we might as well have been at Al Gore's North Pole (no ice); it felt that remote.

We had some work to do. I knew it would be a few hours with only one shovel and one axe. The axe kicked butt. I wasn't as worried about the first descent as I should've been, so we didn't do anything to the detour all the way to where you see me with the shovel.


A lot of rock (big and small) had been washed down from the hillside. We used them for traction where we could. I won't bore you with all the digging details, but it was a lot because I knew we would only get one shot. If I screwed up, the van was either going to be on its roof in the washout to the left, or just slide into the wash and be stuck in a big way.

The route up the canyon wasn't a cakewalk either. You can see the entrance to the climb (where the axe handle is).






The goal was to keep the passenger tires against the wall on the ledge. It was a lofty goal.


Knowing things could get bad, we decided to eat lunch and relax for a few minutes before dropping in. I didn't want to rush and make a stupid, costly, mistake.

Remember when I said I underestimated the first descent? The van did great but the trailer slid sideways because of the off camber. You can see the trailer move in these shots. It was scary at the time. Lol.






At the bottom I had turn make a sharp turn around (over) some boulders. Fords don't do sharp turns!




This is one of my favorite shots!


Heading up the canyon...








(Another great shot)