Yansing Gulch
We all met up at the Gun Smoke Gas Station in Johnson Village. The gas station has been remodeled and looks very nice inside. Soon after gassing up, we went to the parking lot for Yansing Gulch and aired down.
We then started up Yansing. The beginning of the rock garden area was very fun. Some of us had to try a few different lines to make it up and over the first obstacle. Therefore, most of the rock garden was slow going but we all had a great time.
After that, we stopped at the Rock Pile. Matt and Tim were the only ones to play around on the Rock Pile. It did make for some great pictures.
The next obstacle was the Whale's Tail. Corrigan was driving Matt's Jeep up Whale's Tail, and Matt told Corrigan to turn on the rear locker. The rear locker just flashed and didn't engage. So, they switched drivers and Matt drove the Jeep up Whale's Tail with no issues. Corrigan got his driver's license just four days before – happy 16th birthday and congrats to passing the driving test, Corrigan!
In the end, Matt and Tim were the only ones to go up the center of Whale's Tail. Going up the creek area on the top of Whale's Tail was easy for everybody. But near the end of the tight creek area, Jason blew out his right, front tire, putting a hole in the inner sidewall. It didn’t take us very long to change Jason's tire and put the spare on, and we were driving again down the trail.
We stopped at the Stairs for lunch. As we were getting ready to leave, some more Jeeps pulled in and they also stopped for lunch.
After our break, we all drove right up the Chute. We thought the Chute looked more difficult than last year, but it really wasn't.
After the Chute, it was downhill with steep drop-offs and a lot of twists and turns.
About 1/8 mile before the end of the one-way part of Yansing Gulch, we heard a loud noise and Jason yelling over the radio that he blew out his right front tire again! Of course he didn’t have any more spares with him. We looked at the hole in the same spot as the hole in the last tire he blew out, and then realized the sway bar had been hitting the tire because of the back spacing of the wheels. Afterwards, we were surprised this hadn’t happened much sooner with Jason's configuration.
We tried to put a Jeep JK wheel on his Jeep JL, but we realized that it had different lug nuts and was not going to work. We needed aftermarket wheel lug nuts. We even tried to stop other Jeeps coming along on the trail to beg, steal or borrow a spare tire or just some lug nuts from anybody, but nobody had the right size.
So, after some time, we moved his Jeep to the side of the trail and took one tire with us back home. Matt took Jason and his two kids back home, and Sean took the tire with him and brought it to Jason's house.
The next day, Jason got a new tire installed on the wheel and Matt picked him up to go back out to Yansing Gulch with Jason to recover his Jeep. Thankfully, nobody tried breaking into his Jeep overnight. It didn't take us long to mount the new tire. It was a great feeling that all was good in the end.
Reports from Other Days: 28
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