Yansing Gulch
Another year, some snow, and lack of rock crawling will drive a person mad. Apparently changing the name of a favorite trail will have the same effect. Chinaman Gulch is now called Yansing Gulch, but thankfully it's the same trail it always was.
The day started off with some bad news. Brian called to tell us that their Jeep had some issues. The coolant that was supposed to be in the engine was coating the undercarriage of his Jeep. This put an early retirement to his adventure for the day. We wished him the best.
Matt, Sean, and Jason met up at the Gunsmoke gas station near the trailhead. When we got to the trail, we were greeted by a full parking lot. It was a busy day. We guessed that great minds think alike. We aired down and headed up the trail.
This was Sean's first time on this trail. He got an eye opener quickly on the first guardian climb of rocks. The trail has eroded away more than last year, and the difficulty has been upped a few notches. All in all, it was (relatively) smooth sailing.
We stopped at the Rock Pile and watched buggies and Matt play on the rocks. This is almost the only bit of driving Matt got to do, because his son Corrigan was handling most of the driving for Matt. He did a fantastic job!
We had a quick bite of lunch and got back on the trail. Next up was Whale's Tail, where all three of us took the line to the left. The middle and right sides were quite a bit more washed out than we remembered or cared to attempt.
The Stairs proved to be a popular spot as we ran into many other groups up there. We parked and took a break to watch the buggies and highly modified Jeeps (YJs, TJs, and JKs) play on lines we only dream about. It was so busy we had to wait for people to repark when they were blocking the exit. Not a big deal.
Many twists and turns later got us to The Chutes. This has gotten a lot more difficult. It was way worse than last year. A bit of luck and a bucket full of skill got all three of us up with minimal worries.
From there, it was just a whole bunch of twists and turns, some scrapes, and even a scare (Sean got a back tire WAYYYY up in the air, and Jason found a scrape on his fender at the end of the day). That brought us back down to the parking lot. We aired up, said our goodbyes and headed home. It was a great day on the trail.
Reports from Other Days: 26
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Yansing Gulch. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
