November 1999 - Spare Tire Cleanup
Trail Rating - 3.0
Trip Leader: Al Chatfield
Photos submitted by Chris Villarreal
Twice a year the Arizona Rough Riders make a trip to our adopted trail to clean and maintain it. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.
At the trailhead. 4 vehicles made it to the run, our Trip leader Al, Steve in his Nissans last trip, Jim & Donna w/ a guest and my family (my wife's parents came along for their 1st trip).
Here's a shot of the canyon and of a bush that needed trimming.
The group found a cactus that had strayed into the middle of the trail. Here is the cactus rescue squad in action.
Lunchtime.
Due to heavy rains there were quite a few more rocks on the trail than in previous years.
This is where the trail got fun. A huge boulder had been knocked loose and now sat blocking the trail just 15 minutes from the road. What followed was a 2 hour struggle by the determined Rough Riders to squeeze all the vehicles through the narrow space. We made a few "improvements" to the trail and boulder before sending a "test" vehicle through. You can see how close it was to this narrow Jeep. Not shown is it tipping towards the boulder as the front tires started climbing the opposite side of the wash. We had to make a few more adjustments to our new section of trail before we squeezed the Nissan through. It took several people pushing, spotting and a couple hi lift maneuvers to get it through with no scratches.
Here's where it's nice to be small and narrow. I made it through the same narrow opening in about 5 seconds. I was ribbed for folding my mirrors in....