Moab 2012

Overland

Story by Rich Walker, Photos by Kelly Walker

To some people, a tradition is something handed down from generation to generation. For myself, I consider our annual Moab trips to be tradition. Even after 17 trips south (this being number 18), I still get just as excited as our first trip in the late 90’s (yes, some years I went more than once). Consider Moab “the candy store” and myself “the kid”!

This year we had 2 condos reserved for the 10 people and 5 rigs. Colin and I had our buggies, Grant and Cody had their heavily modified Jeeps and Jesse was in his Toyota truggy. We arrived in Moab to perfect weather and didn’t waste any time getting unpacked and settled in for our 7 nights and 8 days.

Day one of wheelin’ took us to Area BFE, a privately owned off road park 8 miles south of town. Area BFE is open year round and is home to everything from the “comp playground” to famous trails like Helldorado and Britney Spears. It worked out well for us, as a couple guys in our group had some fresh mods to their rigs and needed a bit of test time.  When testing was done we made our way over to Britney Spears where every one of us got DENIED! Not one person in our group made the trail (the hard way) unassisted. After lunch we decided to hit up Helldorado. In the many times I have been to Moab this trail has become mandatory and I think I have done it well over a dozen times. This year was a bit different however. Last year I was able to climb the waterfall at the end of the trail unassisted so I thought this year would be easier. Boy was I wrong. Let’s just say I hit it with a little too much pep (2nd gear, full throttle) and ended up taking a bit of a hard roll over. The recovery went very smooth and while I let my buggy sit Colin stomped the wall on his second try. Thanks for getting revenge on that mean wall for me buddy!

We decided to take it a bit easier for day two so we hit up Metal Masher. This trail is a bit more of a scenery trail with some harder optional lines for those wanting to spice it up a bit. Everyone in our group hit every single optional line on the trail and had a blast doing so. Lunch was spent at the cliffs edge while we all took in the breathtaking view. The heat was getting to us a bit this day so we opted to bomb all the way out and spend the rest of the day by the pool… with some adult beverages of course!

In all honesty this was pretty much the layout of our entire trip. Wake up, wheel, get back to the condo and hit up the pool, BBQ something delicious, enjoy some bevies, sleep and repeat. What a terrible way to spend the week, eh?

To change it up a bit mid week we spent the day hiking around Canyonlands National Park. The State of Utah has so much to offer other than wheelin’ and we like to take in something new each time we go. If you get the chance (and you feel like hiking for 10+ kms) I highly recommend touring through either Canyonlands or Arches National Parks.

The rest of the week went by in what felt like 15 minutes. We were constantly on the go hitting up trails like it was our job. We went back to Area BFE and did a couple new trails (even new to me). Dropkick, Lockjaw, S&M, Blackout and Smashing Pumpkins filled our day. We also finally found the Pickle. Long story, but I have been looking for this trail for 3 or 4 years and I finally found it! From night runs on Moab Rim to trying to weave our way through 150 RZR’s on Hell’s Revenge we kept putting on miles (not kms!) on the slick rock.

As a little prelude to my next article, my loving wife worked with the BLM group in Utah to gain access to a test program for a trail called Coyote Canyon. We were only the second group to be given the code to the gate and I feel it’s very noteworthy that a group from Canada traveled all that way to be a part of this new program.

I would like to thank everyone that came on this trip (Kelly, Colin, Cody, Robin, Grant, Carey, Bryson, Jesse and Becky) and made it one for the history books. It’s hard to ask for a better group of people and a better place to spend the week wheelin’.