Slaughterhouse Gulch
Eric and Corrie had both done a lot of work to their Jeeps and wanted to break them in properly, and since this was Corrie's first time wheeling her Jeep we decided to hit Slaughterhouse Gulch.
We arrived at the trailhead at about 10:30AM and stopped at the usual place to air down. Since this was the first run with Corrie's new Truxus MT tires, we weren't sure how far down to take them. We went down to 15 pounds and the choice was just right. Aired down and disconnected, we headed up the trail.
The first stop was the poser rock to test the new suspensions. Eric crawled up there and nearly peaked the top of the rock. Once his right rear came off the ground he decided it call it quits. He really wanted to go over the rock, but with the only winch being on his Jeep he didn't want to take a chance and possibly dump it.
Next came Corrie. She was a little unsure about it at first, but eventually worked her way up. Once she got her tire to the rock edge, she crawled right up it. Eric kept trying to get her to go higher because her right rear tire hadn't left the ground yet, but she wasn't comfortable enough to keep going. We were proud of how far she had gotten up and decided to get back going on the trail.
When we came upon Stump Hill it was still closed and there were signs and road blocks up, but people had been making an illegal trail of their own by going around to the right of the road block.
When we reached the top of the hill, we decided to stop for lunch. A few dirt bikes came by as we finished up and headed down the hill. The only snow was at the very top of the hill and it quickly decreased as we descended.
When we got to the mud lake at the bottom, it was nearly dry. There was just enough muddy water in it to get the sidewalls dirty. We just drove right through it and kept going.
It was pretty uneventful until we reached the whoopdeedoo area going up the hill. That's when the fun started. Having never ran the trail, Corrie wasn't sure which line she wanted to take. She scoped the different lines on the hill and she decided to take the left line. Eric headed up the right side of the left line to get in position to get some pictures and Corrie ended up following in his tracks. She didn't know that she was supposed to go through the whoopdeedoos because Eric told her to follow his tracks.
Eric then headed back down the hill so he could come back up for pictures. He hit every hole that he could so he could give his new suspension a good test. It performed flawlessly. It was then time to hit the flex hole.
Eric was leading and started heading up the hill when he remembered that we needed pictures. Corrie took the bypass to get up to the top to get pictures. Eric started up the hill and was hoping for a wheel stand once he got in the flex hole, but in typical Eric style he didn't even lift a wheel.
As they continued on down the trail, there was one more good place to get some awesome flex. Eric didn't tell Corrie about it and drove through it and stopped and waited for Corrie to come through. Not knowing what she was about to drive through, she just charged ahead and quickly came to a stop when she only had two wheels touching the ground. She wasn't very amused that Eric didn't tell her about it, but some really good pictures came out of it. Eric showed her how to recover from it and they were on their way.
We decided to go check out the mud pits next. As we pulled into the area, there were three other rigs playing so we decided to pull off to the side and watch. We're glad we did. About five minutes after arriving, a Toyota FJ flopped on it side while trying to climb out of the mud. They got it back on it wheels and the other two continued getting stuck.
Eric had some bolts come loose on his front differential and was loosing fluid. He got them tightened back up, cleaned up the few drops that leaked out, and we were on our way.
It was an easy trip back and we stopped at the bottom to air up and reconnect our sway bars. It was a pretty good day at Slaughterhouse Gulch, and both Eric and Corrie were very pleased with how well their Jeeps performed.
Reports from Other Days: 14
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