We ran the Matrix the other weekend. The rains at the beginning of the week had us worried since the trail can be impassable due to water but upon arrival at the trail we discovered the 3 main waterfalls were dry. The center crack line had a small puddle still lingering which proved to be one of the only challenge for the day.
The first challenge was extracting Jimmy's buggy from under this boulder right near the start of the trail. As he drove by and brushed the rock it fell onto his rig and ended all forward progress. It looked like the rains had undercut the boulder pretty good. Using some snatch blocks and a few straps we eventually winched the boulder back, Freed the buggy, then piled some rocks under the boulder to hold it in place. I'd suggest going around this obstacle from now on by bypassing it on the right.
Barry bypassing the loose boulder.
I was in the lead and rocketed up the first waterfall. The traction caught me off guard and I got bounced around more than I would have liked as can be seen in the video. Luckily I didn't get hung up on the rock towards the top. After my run we knew you just had to bump it to clear the bottom ledge, after that you should be able to crawl the face of the waterfall.
Jack was up next and made a perfect run with a slight bump at the bottom and then letting off the gas once the first ledge was cleared as seen in this video. I should also mention that while this looked incredibly easy, we had a much harder time the first time we ran this trail a few years back due to having leaf springs all around and no ability to winch the front end down.
Scott was up next, here's a short video of his run.
Jimmy's 44's were actually tall enough that he was able to crawl the first ledge and eventually motored up the rest of the way. Barry was up last and made a pretty easy run. He's running water in his red label Krawlers.
After Barry made an easy run up the first fall we moved on to the second obstacle, the spider pool. I tried going into the notch, then backing up to line up for a run straight up the wall but the little bit of water in the notch put a damper on my plans. I have to say this is the slickest rock I have ever experienced when it gets wet. I eventually winched forward and up the face.
Jack was also thwarted by the water, he tried the same line I did and eventually winched the obstacle.
Scott on the second obstacle.