Harry Johnson
Active member
PART 1
Kids were on spring break, my 80 year old mom was itching to travel somewhere, and the wife and I wanted to mountain bike and wheel, so we picked Moab for a week.
There's a ton of stuff to do in Moab, but we only had a week, so the wife and I settled on bringing our jeep and some mountain bikes. Loaded everything up by lunch time and then went back to work to finish off the day before leaving that night:
Rolled into Bakersfield that night and checked into a hotel for the night. Decided we should probably bring the fancy bikes into the room with us.
Put the minions to work:
The next day we were delighted to find no one had fawked with our jeep in the parking lot, so we headed out for St. George, UT. Got a little snow heading through Tehachapi, Ca.
Checked into St. George for the night. and then headed out for Moab the next day. I have to say, I'm really impressed with how my wife's fancy soccer mom-mobile tows. Some rest-stop on I-70
Because we were traveling with my 80 year old mom, we went fancy and stayed at the Gonzo Inn in Moab. Not a great spot to try and figure out where to put an additional trailer and jeep, but since this was the weekend after easter jeep safari, I was able to find some street parking for our trailer and stuff our jeep in their lot.
The next morning we were going to do some "recon", but ended up just running Hell's Revenge. Our 3 year old got to take the preschool class Mouse with him for this trip, so we had to document its adventures. Here he is at the first overlook on the trail.
oh yeah, the overlook views are pretty good in the other direction too:
Despite its scary name, Hell's Revenge was actually pretty chill once you wrap your head around the insane traction the slickrock provides. (side note- I found out why it's called "Slick Rock" and not "Amazing Traction Rock": It was named back in the 1800's when people only had horses and wagons for transportation. Turns out this type of rock is really slippery if you're a horse.)
If you stop and get out, the views out on the this trail are pretty legit
Now we don't have a ton of pictures of "gnarly obstacles" because my wife hadn't been wheeling in a while, and every time she does, it makes her skittish of flopping/rolling. Every time we got to something scary, she would claim she had to get out and film it. To help her out with that, I convinced her to stay in the jeep every time we ran something difficult. Less pictures, but I think maybe she's coming back around to scary angles in vehicles. She did manage to hop out on the descent down to Hell's Gate, but I made her get in for the climb back out.
Fun little ledge later on in the trail that the Minister of Safety felt she should "film"
Hell's Gate wasn't very dramatic as long as you stayed on the correct line. I would imagine that The Escalator also wouldn't be that dramatic for the same reasons, but the correct line isn't that apparent. We were running solo, but saw some dudes walking up it scoping the way, so I figured I'd go for it and ask them if I was doing it right. About half way up with the driver's side front tire in the air, they both told me "no." Turns out about half way you need to cut from riding one side of the wall all the way over to riding the other side. After some creative backing and turning and a few white knuckles from the Minister of Safety, we were able to climb up. Unfortunately the Minister of Safety didn't feel like taking any videos due to only 75% of the jeep's wheels being on the ground at a given moment, so you'll have to settle for this pic of us parked at the top, which sadly looks a lot like the rest of Hell's Revenge. The backseat minions were unphased.
At this point we had to haul butt back to Grandma for lunch and the Minister of Safety was thirsty for something that would increase her serotonin levels and possible fix her Escalator PTSD, so we attempted to haul butt back out. ....unfortunately, there are a lot of other rigs on the trail.
Other vehicles passed and butt hauled back to town, we found "The Best Margaritas in Town" and drank them.... oh yeah, some people with horses had the same idear
After that my kids never stop moving, so it was off to the pool. The Gonzo in has a pretty nice pool setup.
And once we had swam off the morning's trail dust, it was time to get in some quick moab bike park laps before dinner. They have a pretty legit expert jump line and also some good stuff for the smaller kids:
Part 2 continued below
Kids were on spring break, my 80 year old mom was itching to travel somewhere, and the wife and I wanted to mountain bike and wheel, so we picked Moab for a week.
There's a ton of stuff to do in Moab, but we only had a week, so the wife and I settled on bringing our jeep and some mountain bikes. Loaded everything up by lunch time and then went back to work to finish off the day before leaving that night:
Rolled into Bakersfield that night and checked into a hotel for the night. Decided we should probably bring the fancy bikes into the room with us.
Put the minions to work:
The next day we were delighted to find no one had fawked with our jeep in the parking lot, so we headed out for St. George, UT. Got a little snow heading through Tehachapi, Ca.
Checked into St. George for the night. and then headed out for Moab the next day. I have to say, I'm really impressed with how my wife's fancy soccer mom-mobile tows. Some rest-stop on I-70
Because we were traveling with my 80 year old mom, we went fancy and stayed at the Gonzo Inn in Moab. Not a great spot to try and figure out where to put an additional trailer and jeep, but since this was the weekend after easter jeep safari, I was able to find some street parking for our trailer and stuff our jeep in their lot.
The next morning we were going to do some "recon", but ended up just running Hell's Revenge. Our 3 year old got to take the preschool class Mouse with him for this trip, so we had to document its adventures. Here he is at the first overlook on the trail.
oh yeah, the overlook views are pretty good in the other direction too:
Despite its scary name, Hell's Revenge was actually pretty chill once you wrap your head around the insane traction the slickrock provides. (side note- I found out why it's called "Slick Rock" and not "Amazing Traction Rock": It was named back in the 1800's when people only had horses and wagons for transportation. Turns out this type of rock is really slippery if you're a horse.)
If you stop and get out, the views out on the this trail are pretty legit
Now we don't have a ton of pictures of "gnarly obstacles" because my wife hadn't been wheeling in a while, and every time she does, it makes her skittish of flopping/rolling. Every time we got to something scary, she would claim she had to get out and film it. To help her out with that, I convinced her to stay in the jeep every time we ran something difficult. Less pictures, but I think maybe she's coming back around to scary angles in vehicles. She did manage to hop out on the descent down to Hell's Gate, but I made her get in for the climb back out.
Fun little ledge later on in the trail that the Minister of Safety felt she should "film"
Hell's Gate wasn't very dramatic as long as you stayed on the correct line. I would imagine that The Escalator also wouldn't be that dramatic for the same reasons, but the correct line isn't that apparent. We were running solo, but saw some dudes walking up it scoping the way, so I figured I'd go for it and ask them if I was doing it right. About half way up with the driver's side front tire in the air, they both told me "no." Turns out about half way you need to cut from riding one side of the wall all the way over to riding the other side. After some creative backing and turning and a few white knuckles from the Minister of Safety, we were able to climb up. Unfortunately the Minister of Safety didn't feel like taking any videos due to only 75% of the jeep's wheels being on the ground at a given moment, so you'll have to settle for this pic of us parked at the top, which sadly looks a lot like the rest of Hell's Revenge. The backseat minions were unphased.
At this point we had to haul butt back to Grandma for lunch and the Minister of Safety was thirsty for something that would increase her serotonin levels and possible fix her Escalator PTSD, so we attempted to haul butt back out. ....unfortunately, there are a lot of other rigs on the trail.
Other vehicles passed and butt hauled back to town, we found "The Best Margaritas in Town" and drank them.... oh yeah, some people with horses had the same idear
After that my kids never stop moving, so it was off to the pool. The Gonzo in has a pretty nice pool setup.
And once we had swam off the morning's trail dust, it was time to get in some quick moab bike park laps before dinner. They have a pretty legit expert jump line and also some good stuff for the smaller kids:
Part 2 continued below
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