Day number two and my dogs woke me up at the crack of dawn like clockwork so I snapped a few pictures of the impending sunrise.  The weather overnight was awesome, not to hot or cold and we even had a light rain which cut down on the dust. Since we ran all the trails the previous day a few of us decided to head back down to Payson to run Payette Draw.

It was definitely warmer being about a 1000ft lower but still better than 115 in the valley.  The draw was a lot easier than I remember and there is now a well worn path in the rocks so following the easy line was simple.

There were still a few optional lines.....

Along with some water from the previous evening.

My wife Karyn was piloting our Jeep while my Mom was at the wheel of my buggy.  She had never driven off-road before and she ran the trail like a natural despite me forgetting to turn the front locker on.

I took over when we got to the big waterfall.  Barry had mentioned he made the middle climb and since there was no water in the bowl this was the perfect time to try it out.

Head on doesn't work due to the massive undercut at the base of bowl.

I found with my passenger offset diff I could climb the wall to the driver side which kind of snaked the passenger side front tire right up a small ramp.  The video posted in the link towards the end of this report tells a better story. I also ran into an old friend: Jim Kawa who later sent me a link to the pictures he took that day.

Jimmy gave it a few tries but his front spring hangers kept him from climbing the ledge.

Scott and Barry both made it up without too much trouble although I missed both of their climbs while I backtracked down the wash in the LJ (didn't feel like winching it up the bypass).

A few video clips from the trail.

The bypass and line I took back in 03.

The two crawlers hanging out.

Next Day - Tonto Bridge