Destination Waterfall

[chino63]

This past weekend wasn't too exciting, just the normal.... nothing. That is until Rckjeep called to see if anyone was going wheeling. A call to Sam revealed an open schedule on his end as well so we soon had a small group of 3. Stories of a secluded waterfall in the Stevens Canyon Wilderness came to mind and a plan was formulated for an adventurous foray into the unknown depths of Stevens Canyon.
As we loaded up the equipment and rigs, we figured it would take several hours to reach the falls and decided it could be done in half a day. Sweet! The entrance to the trail was quite hard to find and required a bit of searching through the dense overgrowth. When we finally found it, tow rigs were locked down and the wheelers were off loaded from the trailers and we were locked in 4 low.
Rckjeep was sporting his fairly clean mountaineer which was well equipped with the standard fare as far as Bruiser chassis rigs go, very similar to my tan 'yota.



Sam had recently ressurected his blue full leaf Jeep and was itching to give it a hard run.

The trail was more difficult than we had expected and trouble soon arose.

While trying to winch up one of the harder lines near the bottom, I ran into some trouble and ended up falling backwards onto my lid.


We righted the 'yota and had to put it back on the trailer. Soon after, Rckjeep was trying to make progress on a steep climb and caught a rock which sent him up into a wheely. The end result was less than preferred.


Spirits were low but in true wheeling fashion we opted to try and tackle this trail in the tow rigs. Rckjeep in his camo Chevy and myself in the rock-limo. The beginning proved to be one of the more difficult sections but the remainder of the trail was far from easy. The next section consisted of several steep climbs which meandered back and forth amongst the huge rock outcroppings and boulder strewn canyon floor.









This proved to extremely challenging with quite a few winch sessions up small waterfalls, rock stacking to gain access to the next section of driveable trail and some very tricky/lucky driving. Soon, we came to a section of the trail where there was a very steep wall in front of us. The only way up was a narrow ledge to the right which was somewhat intimidating. Rckjeep went for it before we psyched ourselves out.





As we drove between the sheer cliff to our right and huge boulders to our left, we were rewarded with what we came for. The end of the trail and a huge waterfall.





Although there was no water coming down, it was still breathtaking and made for a great place to have lunch.
After few pictures we turned around and headed back down the trail towards civilization.










What a day!

[51504rock]

Very Sick Looks like a great place. Wish i could have made it.
I love how you put a story to the pics.

[clodstall]

nice pics.

[SlinkySam]

Great write up and Pics Dean. The day was fun for sure. In true fashion, I finished the rig the night before the run. Since I have no tow rig, I had to drive to the trail and break it in on the way there.

Surprisingly, the Jeep held up with only a winch problem. I am running stock Jeep axles (a.k.a. the weak style TLT-1 thin shafts) and plastic C-s. With only spool'd differentials and no other mods, the Jeep held up pretty damn well. Although I didn't have much flex, the air'd down tires help smooth out the ride.

I only had one other major problem on the trail which was on the way down. I was running out of fuel so I was trying to race off the trail when I lost control. I rolled over and down a hill backwards. I landed hard on a rock on my back tire. This wound up bending my main leaf spring which put me in a world of hurt. Thanks go out to my rescue crew though of Dave and Dean who got the little Jeep out.






I think I am ready for the Bean. The question is, can my stock Jeep axles handle what the Bean has to offer?

Thanks again guys for the fun run. Day #2 and still no poison oak

-Sam

[ARMRASTLER]

Where's This Stevens Canyon?

[Unimoger]

Great stories, great pics, looks like a amazing spot.

[Rockpiledriver]

Nice trail report. I have a place in mind to do something like this, down here. Guess I'll have to go check it out.

[pigeonfarmboy]

"Honey I Shrunk the Dean"

[chino63]

Originally Posted by pigeonfarmboy

"Honey I Shrunk the Dean"

So you got a problem with short people? ... you sayin I'm short?
Just kidding Nate! I wish I could be shrunk down for a ride in one of these! But then I'd need to find some scale underwear cause I'd be sh!tin' myself all the time.

[Norcal crawler]

I have seen your tan bruiser lots of times before, but never really said anything about it. But it is THE nicest bruiser i have ever seen. By far. Awesome. I also like how you put it into a story.

[Big Mike]

You make it sound like you actually pull one rig to the "trailhead" with another truck and trailer? Then unload your trail rig and go? That is too damn cool!

That would make an interesting (albeit somewhat expensive) type of competition - scale trail running. You have to transport your rig from point A to the "trailhead" at point B, unload off of a trailer, and make it around a set course back to your tow rig and reload, w/o touching it to rectify upsets except for using winches. A timed comp with time added to your total for having to actually touch your rig other than setting up a winch.

That was well written and presented. Looks like a fun spot.

[RockRacer1]

That was cool.
I felt like i was reading an article from 4-wheel petersons magazine , even the carange at the end .
nice rigs , they looked very life-like. the blue jeep with the shackles up front was my favorite and the full-size led the way just like the mag.

[sloppy]

now that is the way to post pics from a GTG. i looked at all of them it kept my atteion. sweet trucks nice spot looked like fun