Cruise Moab 2010
By: Roberto L. Miranda.
Don’t ask me how, but I did it. Finally, I participated in the Cruise Moab event. My wife allowed me to go, and not to be present in her US citizenship act that happened during the same dates, not to mention that my father was with me for his first off road trip ever. I was not even driving my own truck!.
Jonathan and his wife Niosol stayed at our home a week before. They drove all the way from Pennsylvania for the event, and picked-up and installed some up-grades in between. Having so much enthusiasm around definitely helps me to participate.
04/26/10 California to Utah
We left OC early in the morning; Cathead was driving solo, so my dad and I rode with him. We did a quick stop at Hoover Dam, the Wynn’s Casino at the strip in Vegas and of course, a 4x4 store for last minute stuff, so we reached our destination way ahead of the plan, almost midnight.
04/27/10 Strike Ravine (clockwise) @ Area BFE
I don’t like to repeat trails in Moab, there are so many trails that I need few more years to do all of them, at least once, but we repeated some this year. The reason for that was my dad. I wanted to introduce him to the off road adventures in a trail/area that I already knew, so I choose Strike Ravine (clockwise) @ Area BFE as an introductory level for him. My dad was complaining about the dirt road from Hwy 191 to the Rancho entrance, so you could imagine the rest. I was the target for all kind of bad words that my dad never used to refer to me before; he was scared like hell, no doubt about it. Anyhow, he wanted me to take pictures of him going over the obstacles. His off road days are over, no more ridding with us the following days. Believing or not, I’m OK with that choice.
04/28/10 Green Day @ Area BFE
We went for the technical inspection and we did it without any issues. The rock buggies went for a hard trail, so it was difficult to leave the place without watching them play. We followed the group for the easy part with our rigs, and then, we walked with them for the hard obstacles. It is always nice watch those buggies crawl, break stuff and fix them in no time. We definitely learned new tips that day.
04/29/10 Poison Spider
We didn’t sign up for this one. I apologize to the trail leader and organizers as a first step. All runs started at 9:00 AM sharp, so we thought that by noon we would have the trail by ourselves. We caught the group in the first half of the loop around 2:00pm. We realized that they had issues with a Non Land Cruiser vehicle, so took them longer to sort the obstacles. I didn’t understand why they continued with a broken vehicle instead of turning back or if it was part of the group at all. Anyhow, we were trapped in the caravan, and suddenly I was spotting part of the group and made them move smoothly. The trail boss by that time (I believe so) was a green 100 series driven by a lady with kids in the back. She got stock as well. I helped to take the kids out of the rig and another guy spot her successfully for the huge step she fell and she was trapped in. Other than that, we finished before dark, went to our rented home. The Iron Pig skid plate was delivered as planned, so, we installed it quickly on Jonatan’s rig later that day.
04/30/10 Metal Masher
This run was fun. All the guys that wanted to play hard had the chance to do it. The rule is simple; you tried three times, if you don’t make it, please use “your” strap and a friend will pull you and move on. Well, the straps were not as handy as expected, shackles included, and some guys tried way more than three times, nevertheless, still fun. The view from the top of the plateau was unique. We had lasagna for lunch, while watching a rock buggy play “live”. What else could you expect for the run?
Mr. Cruiser Dan and his wife, both driving their respective 80 series, brought their kids, who were riding their bicycles. Going up, they were there, close to the group, but going down, literally, we never saw them again, so we basically look for bike tracks at every fork. That was fun, it was a little bit of tension at the moment, but both kids had a blast running down hill with their bikes, no matter, they will remember this trip for ever.
05/01/10 Kane Creek
The scenery of this trail was outstanding. Erosion cracks, water crossing, sand traps and tricky up-hill steps with tons of rocks are mixed all together. One more time, I spotted a lot of people, some of them already new me from the early runs, and they told me that they look like a parrot, saying thanks every time they saw me. Wherever I did, make the difference and I’m glad to help them. We know that the movement of big groups is slow, this one was particularly slow, but I saw it as learning experience and tolerance to others that need to learn a little bit more to act as part of the group. Is not all about what I want to do, nevertheless, we ended up with a big smile a new friends. Kudos to Claudia, she was driving the light blue FJ40, with manual steering over those rocks.
05/02/10 Utah to California.
Cathead, my Dad and I had breakfast with our friends and leave early, like 7:00. They will stay few more days. We had to drive with snow storm conditions for few hours. Then, in Arizona, we had cross winds that shake the truck very well. Driving the truck with a 6” lift was not fun in that part of the road. Passing Vegas, a car caught in fire causes a huge bumper to bumper traffic but we made it before dark, as planned. We are now ready to work some more until next trip.
