Winter On The Rocks, 2012

[Xiled1]

Last weekend Etti and I headed up to Hurricane, UT for Winter on the Rocks. I absolutely love this area and may even like it more than Moab. We started out wheeling on Friday on Milts Mile, a 3-3.5 trail with a bunch of fun obstacles. The group was large but we had a good time catching up with friends and checking out our friends son’s new crawler.





Ric built his 13 yr old son a hydrostatic crawler and this was its maiden voyage. It worked great and his son Hunter is getting good behind the wheel. It does hurt that the buggy just crawled everything. The rig is built around a Toro lawnmower hydrostatic drive system installed in a cut down 1st Gen Toyota pickup. They got it together at 3AM the night before the run, so its still a work in progress, but made it the entire weekend with only minor breakage.













After spending the day on Milts, I dropped Etti off and headed back for a night run. WOW – was I out of my comfort zone. We wheeled Fault line to John’s Trail Play area to Sliplock Gulch. It turned out I was running with mostly locals or at least people who’d run these trails many times. I had either only done them once or not at all. And most of them were built a lot more than me and didn’t mind body damage. Anyway, I made it through the night, but I was puckered the entire time. No pics though.

[Xiled1]

Saturday we ran John’s Trail, a step up to a solid 3.5 or more. We ran this for the first time last year and it was a blast. This year was no different. We lost the yota boys for a while, they had to fix a u-joint and get some extra gas for Hunter’s Crawler. But with such a large group, they caught up towards the end.


















We finished off that trail and headed over to the West Rim for a few obstacles. While we were there, Hunter had a bit of a malfunction in the crawler and I sustained my first real body damage. You can check out the quick video here.



Nothing some corners won’t fix. I hopped back into the Jeep and hit some more obstacles for consolation.

[Xiled1]

Corner Looks Good in this pic:


Something is different here:










Here is the link to the slideshow we made of the wheeling pics.

https://picasaweb.google.com/Xiled01/WOTR2012#


We headed back to the fairgrounds for the raffle and dinner. I managed to win a TNT Customs rear shock outboard kit. Been thinking of doing that. That was the end of the wheeling but not of the trip for us. We got up the next morning and drove to Bryce Canyon NP. We hit all the viewpoints and hiked a short loop before retiring to Ruby’s Inn – nice rooms. Up early the next morning, we tried out our snow shoes for the first time and shoed it out to another overlook before heading home. Another awesome Utah adventure. Can’t wait for next year.

Etti will be getting the pics of Bryce up this weekend and I’ll throw those in another thread.

[RokNRich]

Awesome pic's Brian, too bad about the BD -

[djui5]

I always enjoy seeing your pictures, and at the same time think to myself "wow, I could be doing a lot more with my life"

[Nick Ricci]

This makes me really sad that some dumb dumb ran a red light and smashed adams rig because we planned on being there. Great pics.

[TanTJJim]

Man I wish I could have made it this year, really bummed I missed seeing Hunter's new rig. Looks like he knows how to school it in that thing! Great pics Brian, now that you know the trails a little bit we'll have to head out there sometime outside of WOTR and do some wheeling!

[LittleBurro]

These pics are awesome. Looks like a really fun place to wheel

[Xiled1]

Awesome pic's Brian, too bad about the BD -

It sucks since I'd managed to avoid it so long, but it happens and I felt bad for Hunter. Corners are in the plans so it'll just get covered up.

I always enjoy seeing your pictures, and at the same time think to myself "wow, I could be doing a lot more with my life

All a matter of priorities I suppose. Seems like a good time to reevaluate given your unfortunate situation. Hang in there.

This makes me really sad that some dumb dumb ran a red light and smashed adams rig because we planned on being there. Great pics.

Too bad you guys had to miss out, we were the only AZ contingent as far as I could tell.

Man I wish I could have made it this year, really bummed I missed seeing Hunter's new rig. Looks like he knows how to school it in that thing! Great pics Brian, now that you know the trails a little bit we'll have to head out there sometime outside of WOTR and do some wheeling!

Wish you could have been there, had a blast. It was DANG COLD! on Saturday though. I'm ready for another trip up there any time. I can find Milts Mile, Fault Line, Nasty Half, Slip Lock, John's Trail, and West Rim. I know where the Maze is, but not sure of the lines. The locals are always willing to lead runs.