Yessir, the Moab, Utah. One of my favorite places on earth. It just keeps getting busier and busier, though, especially with the RZR crowd (and I do mean crowd). Gone are the days of a quiet evening trail run on Hell's Revenge, even in mid October. But enough on that.
Quick detour up into the mountains on the way out there:
The first two nights it rained almost all night as I slept in the back of the Cruiser, which seems crazy for Moab. It was also an annoying reminder of how bad my roof leaks. Here's my sleeping setup, it works well. I throw a pad on the cot and with my 0 degree bag I slept pretty good.
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I ran Top of the World on a Wednesday and ran into a stock (with rock rails) 99 cruiser the same color as mine. Who would have thought? I don't think they would have made it without the rear locker.
Some posing. I should've worked harder on getting better poser pics. Oh well.
After finishing Top of the World I ran up Onion Creek which is a beautiful drive.
The next day I did some exploring with my old man.
My favorite pic of the trip:
3rd night camp. Notice the mountains peeking above the ridge. Such a beautiful place.
I went and ran Poison Spider as far as I could. I got past the waterfull, but there was a pretty nasty spot not far after that and I wasn't feeling it so I turned around.
After doing the southern portion of Fins and Thins I headed over to Hell's Revenge. I really like Hell's Revenge, it's like all the best of Moab rolled up into one trail, great scenery, fun obstacles and great climbs. And doing it in the early evening light makes for great pics and a few less RZRs.
Lake Michigan near the start. After all the rain there were some impressive puddles.
Great light.
4th night camp, the Cruiser was covered in frost. I was nice and warm inside.
Exploring Yellowcat Flats and doing some rock picking with my old man. Boy it is barren out there.
Last night of camp out in the cow pasture.
After the last night's camping, I fired her up and started driving and it immediately started running rough and the check engine light started flashing. That kind of freaked me out, being somewhat remote by myself. But, I just plugged in my OBDII reader, fired up my app and saw I had a misfire on #8. Fortunately, I had a spare coil along. I swapped it in and was rolling again in 20 minutes. I think before next season I will swap out all of them with new Denso units. This is the second one I've replaced and these aftermarket ones don't seem to be holding up.
That and the leaky roof were the biggest Cruiser trouble spots of the trip. The long ass-overhang took some getting used to, too. Chunking/dragging coming off steep obstacles/large ledges was pretty common. With the steel bumper it was nothing to worry about and fortunately I never gut the muffler.
My rig has F/R ARBs and a large Warn air compressor mounted under the hood. All got good use on this trip. It's fun putting all the mods to work.
Overall, for my first trip to Moab with the Cruiser, I thought it did great. Prior to this I had a modified Cherokee that was more geared to rock crawling and I was anticipating a larger drop-off in the capabilities of the Cruiser. I won't be able to run Moab Rim in the Cruiser like I did with the Cherokee, but the drive to and from sure was a lot more pleasant.
Quick detour up into the mountains on the way out there:
The first two nights it rained almost all night as I slept in the back of the Cruiser, which seems crazy for Moab. It was also an annoying reminder of how bad my roof leaks. Here's my sleeping setup, it works well. I throw a pad on the cot and with my 0 degree bag I slept pretty good.
View media item 59269
I ran Top of the World on a Wednesday and ran into a stock (with rock rails) 99 cruiser the same color as mine. Who would have thought? I don't think they would have made it without the rear locker.
Some posing. I should've worked harder on getting better poser pics. Oh well.
After finishing Top of the World I ran up Onion Creek which is a beautiful drive.
The next day I did some exploring with my old man.
My favorite pic of the trip:
3rd night camp. Notice the mountains peeking above the ridge. Such a beautiful place.
I went and ran Poison Spider as far as I could. I got past the waterfull, but there was a pretty nasty spot not far after that and I wasn't feeling it so I turned around.
After doing the southern portion of Fins and Thins I headed over to Hell's Revenge. I really like Hell's Revenge, it's like all the best of Moab rolled up into one trail, great scenery, fun obstacles and great climbs. And doing it in the early evening light makes for great pics and a few less RZRs.
Lake Michigan near the start. After all the rain there were some impressive puddles.
Great light.
4th night camp, the Cruiser was covered in frost. I was nice and warm inside.
Exploring Yellowcat Flats and doing some rock picking with my old man. Boy it is barren out there.
Last night of camp out in the cow pasture.
After the last night's camping, I fired her up and started driving and it immediately started running rough and the check engine light started flashing. That kind of freaked me out, being somewhat remote by myself. But, I just plugged in my OBDII reader, fired up my app and saw I had a misfire on #8. Fortunately, I had a spare coil along. I swapped it in and was rolling again in 20 minutes. I think before next season I will swap out all of them with new Denso units. This is the second one I've replaced and these aftermarket ones don't seem to be holding up.
That and the leaky roof were the biggest Cruiser trouble spots of the trip. The long ass-overhang took some getting used to, too. Chunking/dragging coming off steep obstacles/large ledges was pretty common. With the steel bumper it was nothing to worry about and fortunately I never gut the muffler.
My rig has F/R ARBs and a large Warn air compressor mounted under the hood. All got good use on this trip. It's fun putting all the mods to work.
Overall, for my first trip to Moab with the Cruiser, I thought it did great. Prior to this I had a modified Cherokee that was more geared to rock crawling and I was anticipating a larger drop-off in the capabilities of the Cruiser. I won't be able to run Moab Rim in the Cruiser like I did with the Cherokee, but the drive to and from sure was a lot more pleasant.
