Grand Canyon trip

[84projectFORD]

So a couple weeks back, i told the wife "we need a weekend away from the kids". of course she fully agreed but we had to figure out what to do. Prices for shit are through the roof but we started naming off some ideas. One way or the other, we were getting out of town. She asked if we could do some kind of adventure in the tracker, fuck yeah we will! dont have to ask me twice about that. Then i remembered she has never been to the Grand Canyon. I asked if she wanted to do that as part of our trip and make a 3 day camping trip of it. She was 100% down. Fuck yeah!

So we set this past weekend up as the trip date and i went to work on routing. plan was to leave from my house and hit dirt roads instantly (fucking major plus of not living in town anymore). At some point, we decided to invite a couple friends to see if they wanted to go. it was kinda last minute but midget nate and his wife were down for the trip. So just the 4 of us and 2 rigs, my shit box and nates canned ham. Jbrapp lives in flagstaff and said hed come meet us friday night at the first camp location and hang out/camp, then ride with us for a bit before splitting off to go back home. Even better.

Friday 6/10:

after pulling a 12 hour day in the garage the prior weekend replacing the fucking 20 miles of timing chain suzuki decided was a good idea to put in these v6's, i was soooo looking forward to this day. We had the shit box loaded down and i refused to put the rack on the roof because "prelander", not "overlander". Honestly, the rack doesnt make it any easier and it just makes it more top heavy. fuck that thing. We met up with Midget nate at 7am at the Shell by my house in new river and took off into the dez. first part of the route sort of followed the I17 north till black canyon city, then wed start splitting away from it. it was already 85* out and getting hotter, Nate was looking forward to cooler weather lol. Hit a bunch of roads i never did before till we hit bumble bee road. this takes you to crown king or mayor. We were headed to mayor for our first fuel stop. Made it there around 9:30 and fueled up. Then headed towards Orme/Dugas, this road was a new one for me and man was it a fun/fast one. The goal was to hit Jerome and Haunted Hamburger for lunch, we were on pace for that. When we finally got to the 89 on the west side of mingus mountain, we started running into a shit load of locked gates. prescot valley has blown up with houses and private property has really locked shit down back there. real fucking bummer but after trying a few routes, we said fuck it, lets just take the 2 lane paved road over the moutain and into jerome. its 11:15 and we are fucking hungery for burgers. we rolled in at about 11:45 and had us some damn good food

parked in Jerome

Once we finished, Midget Nate suggested we stop at the verde river and take a swim. Fuck yeah, im down. Girls were too. So we headed out of town around 1:00pm and booked it down towards the verde river (crossing it was part of our route). got down there in about 30 min and cracked open some liquid liberations to enjoy in the water. Couldnt get back to the swimming holes as locked gates fucked us but we still soaked our pale white legs in the cool water.

Girls took pics of our sexy asses. nates attire was on POINT!

after an hour of so fucking around trying to catch crawdads, we headed out to get up the rim and see sycamore point. part of the route was on the "great western trail" and it was a rocky bitch. hit a nice little washout too

had our selves a successful toast and then finished up the canyon. Finally got on top of the rim and hit good roads, we booked it to the point for pics and views

Once the "ooooo" and "aaahhhh" were done, we headed back into the forest to make camp. Jbrapp soon met up wtih us and we proceeded to finish all our beers that night. gas station stop for sure first thing in the morning.

to be continued

 

[84projectFORD]

Day 2:

woke up around 6:00am to Jbrapp having enough of the bugs fucking with him and loading his shit up to be ready to head to breakfast lol. We all got up and got moving. had camp packed up in about 20 min and then proceeded to drink a monster and relax for a bit while we shit talked. left camp around 7:00am and made it to Williams by 7:30. jbrapp was not about to let the canned ham beat him to williams and all 700hp came alive on the asphault just before town lmao.

had ourselves some food and found that there was a car show in town that day. So we walked the main drag and checked some shit out.

this ones for Jakey @P.R.exploder69

Then headed to the gas station to spend a kidney on fuel, get ice, and re-stock on beer. We left there on a route that headed north just east of williams. sweet little two track road with kickers, tight corners, and the ocassional "mud whoops". if you have ever been in northern az and experienced these fuckers, you know they suck ass. they are tighter together than reg desert whoops, extremely sharp and very deep. they can fuck you up in a hurry. In my haste to make sure i didnt have the TRX cunt punch the shit box, i missed seeing a set of 5 of these fuckers in the tree shadows. we hit them at about 40, first one popped the front end up and it proceeded to float the rest. As i was about to hit them, i said "Oh shit!" and wife instantly grabbed the oh shit handle. after we went through i said "wow! this new front end valving handled that like a champ!". Wife says "can you turn around and go back so i can get my stomach? when you said "oh shit", all i saw was a tree we were headed straight toward till you turned" . We kept on till we hit the 180 highway and pulled off to see why midget nate could talk to me but couldnt hear me.

Turns out, his antenna was loose above the base. tighten that bitch up and we were good. Jbrapp parted ways from us here. Something about being a bitch and turning into our other married friend that doesnt do trips with us anymore... i guess the real reason was that he needed to unload a trailer that had a bunch of block still on it and hes done this trail 5 or 6 times now but still sounds lame.

Initially, we were just going to cross the highway and keep on that "great western trail" accept we were passed by a bunch of gayzers that wouldnt go over 45mph. they were all spread way the fuck out too so nate and i chose a new route that would bypass them. headed down and hit some roads that were all two track but fast as fuck. initally we didnt hit them much faster than 60-65 because we were unsure about wash out but the way back was another story. there were again some sweet kickers we had some fun on. overall, we really didnt stop at any point other than to make sure each rig was good. We hit the GC entrance by 12:00 and were at the aprking lot by 12:15. holy fucking asian drivers everywhere!!

White people were the minority up there but we did the typical touristy crap.

midget nate feeling normal sized

We left GC around 2ish after getting some stuff for the kids and gay stickers to put on each others rigs. Plan was to get a late lunch in Tucyan and then head back from there. Ate some pizza and had a "prickly pear ipa" but it left nate and i pretty disappointed in the flavor department. At this point, we were figuring out how we wanted to get back. it was getting late and we still needed to get back to williams to fill up and then setup camp. We went back and forth on if we should just take the highway back to williams or the dirt we ran on the way up. Finally all of us agreed to not be little bitches and just run the dirt road back. So we filled up on fuel and hit the dirt around 3pm. nate was hitting sections in excess of 80mph and i was keeping a hard hold at 65. no cage and a little tuning issue were holding me back. perfectly fine with me. Nate was not big on having beer breaks (weird if you ask me, he can out drink me any day of the week!) so we kept on and got back to williams in just under 2 hours. Hit the gas station once again and then headed back down to our camp for the night. We were setup and chillin around 6:30 and finally fired up the grill around 7:00 to cook up steaks, mash taters, bears and coors latte's.

No fires kinda sucked but the full moon made it bright as shit at night.

We didnt kill as much beer this night and were discussing the 112* heat we were about to head back into the next day. Not an issue for me (a/c bitches!) but a very real issue for nate and his wife. plan was to take a little asphault around the rocky-as-fuck great western trail and have breakfast in jerome, then book it home and try to be there by 1ish.

To be continued

 

[badlinesgoodtimes]

So awesome man. Makes me want to get out on an adventure soon.. It's been way too long... looking forward to the rest of the tale.

 

[84projectFORD]

Day 3: Final day

We woke up Sunday morning around 6:00am again to the sound of midget nate bitching about his back... very well could have been the actual SOUND of his back. hard to say. Anyhow, got up, got moving and started packing. it was a beautiful 55* that morning and i sure as fuck didnt want to go back down to the heat. Nates wife was starting to worry more about the heat down in phx though and asked if we could just skip breakfast in jerome and book it home. We had no issues with that, i dont need either of them getting heat stroke in the fucking canned ham... it would live up to its name then.

Left camp around 7:30am again and we took the 71 road south off the rim towards Jerome. we cooked right along across the verde and headed back up the mountain. Rolled into Jerome around 8:30. Took a piss break and then rolled on. Cross over mingus mountain and hit the powerline trail down to Orme. Cruise the Orme Dugas road untill i hear "Hey i think i found a cattle guard jump, should we stop?" your damn fucking right we will stop! So jackassery ensued and we both turned around to hit the jump. it turned out to be more of a roller but still fun to play on.




Nates turn



When we were done dicking around, we headed back toward Mayor to top off fuel. Got into Mayor around 10:30 and decided to throw together a quick lunch. fucked off for about 30 min and then said our good byes from there since we wouldnt be stopping again. Took bumblebee rd all the way back to the highway and just ran the 10 miles of highway back to new river road where we split off and headed back to our houses.

Overall, we had a fucking blast. Everyone was tired as hell but it was an awesome adventure. Saw more parts of AZ ive never seen and sucked in the cool temps. the best part was just not being in a rush and going with the flow. I have a hard time relaxing on a trip i plan but i made damn sure everyone knew up front, im not stressing to hit checkpoints. initially, mileage was suppose to be in the 400-450 range and i though that was alot but we wound up doing 530 miles over 3 days after re-routing some areas. about 50 miles total of asphault.

Carnage from the trip was minimal,

the Retard TT:

• Lost a RR fender flare
• LF bottom fender mount broke, zip tie fixed
• Either the tune or the O2 sensor are being fucky. had lean spots i never had before but im also driving in parts of the map i never really saw before so may just need tuning. O2 sensor did wig out twice and just hold a number but then reset.

the Canned Ham:

• Loose antenna (tighten up and good to go)
• LF shock is still weeping a bit (i attempted to fix a long while back but i think its just fucked now)
• threw a check engine light for front diff "smart lock" issue and lost 4wd about 1/2 way back the last day. may have been sooner?

So overall, fuckin minimal as shit issues for what we did. good times!!

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Such a rad region. I wish we had explored more on the trip I took over 3 years ago now... We hadn't planned to stay in the GC area so I didn't really look up much around it but when we were there I realized it was almost all open trails.

Time to go back when I have something worth a shit to drive.

 

[84projectFORD]

Such a rad region. I wish we had explored more on the trip I took over 3 years ago now... We hadn't planned to stay in the GC area so I didn't really look up much around it but when we were there I realized it was almost all open trails.

Time to go back when I have something worth a shit to drive.

Shhhhh, that stays on the down low

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Wait???? you don't want a bunch of Prelanders invading your space?

 

[84projectFORD]

Wait???? you don't want a bunch of Prelanders invading your space?

public forum = overlanders will invade our prelander space

 

[Radmigo]

That Tracker is sick! I was going to do a trip up there for the 4th, but gas prices scared us all away. Ended up on Mogollon instead.