John Canfield
Site Team
Copied from my post at RubiconOwnersForum...
We arrived yesterday at the Elephant Butte Lake RV Resort for a week of pre-runs. Our water hookup to the coach froze up this morning but we always carry at least 25 gallons of water in the tank, so no worries . I added another 50 gallons this evening and we'll run on the tank water.
We are leading two 3.0 rated trails here and we pre-ran one of them today (White Rabbit.) It's way south of the campground (15-20 miles?) so it took a long time to get to the "trailhead." I have trailhead in quotation because 90-95% of the trail I would rate as a 2.0 or maybe a 2.5 but in the wash (all of the good wheeling is usually in canyons and washes out here) there were maybe three mandatory obstacles that we think bumped the trail up to a 3.5.
The folks that did the pre-pre-run did some light pruning of the brush and the small tree limbs but I found one on the first obstacle (I was leading the trail at this point) and Rubi's hood got a little mangled . This was a very sharp rock notch breakover next to the wash wall with a very small tree growing at the wall side. Even with my good breakover clearance I was struggling on this and finally drove into the short wall and the tree limb got me.
After I got over the notch with brute force I pulled out my tree saw (first time I've ever needed it) and whacked the remaining limbs out of the way and then started stacking rocks for the five behind me which included two four-doors.
Got everybody over the notch and then the next obstacle hung up a 4-door and he needed to be winched backwards, I placed a rock in a strategic place and he crawled up but he managed to put a gash in a sidewall. I pulled out my plug kit and plugged his tire and it held until he got to the highway. Another four-door had to be strapped up the other line on that obstacle but I wasn't there (I'm busy stacking rocks at the previous obstacle.)
It was a long day for a so-so trail.
We arrived yesterday at the Elephant Butte Lake RV Resort for a week of pre-runs. Our water hookup to the coach froze up this morning but we always carry at least 25 gallons of water in the tank, so no worries . I added another 50 gallons this evening and we'll run on the tank water.
We are leading two 3.0 rated trails here and we pre-ran one of them today (White Rabbit.) It's way south of the campground (15-20 miles?) so it took a long time to get to the "trailhead." I have trailhead in quotation because 90-95% of the trail I would rate as a 2.0 or maybe a 2.5 but in the wash (all of the good wheeling is usually in canyons and washes out here) there were maybe three mandatory obstacles that we think bumped the trail up to a 3.5.
The folks that did the pre-pre-run did some light pruning of the brush and the small tree limbs but I found one on the first obstacle (I was leading the trail at this point) and Rubi's hood got a little mangled . This was a very sharp rock notch breakover next to the wash wall with a very small tree growing at the wall side. Even with my good breakover clearance I was struggling on this and finally drove into the short wall and the tree limb got me.
After I got over the notch with brute force I pulled out my tree saw (first time I've ever needed it) and whacked the remaining limbs out of the way and then started stacking rocks for the five behind me which included two four-doors.
Got everybody over the notch and then the next obstacle hung up a 4-door and he needed to be winched backwards, I placed a rock in a strategic place and he crawled up but he managed to put a gash in a sidewall. I pulled out my plug kit and plugged his tire and it held until he got to the highway. Another four-door had to be strapped up the other line on that obstacle but I wasn't there (I'm busy stacking rocks at the previous obstacle.)
It was a long day for a so-so trail.