Elephant Hill
We started out to Elephant Hill early in the day. Before getting to the trailhead for Elephant Hill, we had to go to the visitors' center to get the permits to run Elephant Hill. Sean had emailed the visitor center and got permission to have four vehicles in one group, though they normally allow only three per group. We were good to go.
We stopped in the parking lot to air down. It looked like the day was going to be sunny and hot. After airing down, we started going up Elephant Hill. None of us had any issues with this first hill climb. All of us did the "pull in and back down" way of doing the trail, which is always fun.
After the trail started to flatten out, Jason and Julie noticed that Sean was leaking fluid. We stopped to take a look at what could be leaking from Sean's Jeep. It looked like it was leaking from the left front of his Jeep from around the firewall. We spent some time looking and looking all over his Jeep without finding any leaks, and then Sean remembered that he had a gallon of water behind his driver's seat. The bottle had fallen on its side and had been leaking water out of the top, and it dripped through the floorboards and out of the Jeep.
After this excitement, we drove on and arrived at the area that begins with a small hill climb. Julie engaged her front locker. When she got to the top of the hill she tried to turn off her locker, but it only flashed its control light and would not unlock the front locker. We tried to get her locker to unlock, but we had no luck. Julie drove the rest of Elephant Hill with her Jeep's locker engaged.
The narrow gap between the tall rock walls, the tight squeeze, was fun for the JKU as that Jeep takes up the whole width of the gap between the rock sides. It was a really tight squeeze. We stopped for lunch in the shade next to the tight squeeze. It was nice to be in the shade.
After lunch we went to the Joint Trail. We hiked through the short cave to the narrow passage to the overlook at the top. It was a great view of the area.
After the short hike we went to the Silver Stairs, the last obstacle before going back to Elephant Hill. We did not go to the overlook after the Silver Stairs, as we needed to get back to the parking lot to try to fix Julie's Jeep.
After making it to the parking lot, everyone aired back up. Matt and Jason jacked up the front end of Julie's Jeep. They tried rocking both front wheels. That was no help. In the end, Matt and Jason pulled off the front differential cover and took a screwdriver to unlock the locker. Matt had just read about how to disengage the front locker shortly before their Utah trip, and it sure had come handy! After reinstalling the front differential cover and adding new gear lube, Julie was ready to drive back to Blanding.
Matt, Jason and Julie went back to Blanding and Sean drove to Grand Junction, starting his drive back home.
The three of us stopped at a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. That's when we decided that we would go to Moab and run Fins & Things the next morning. What a crazy day!
Reports from Other Days: 5
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Elephant Hill. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
