A Day of Firsts

I'm gona start off by saying how proud and happy I am. Proud because of how well my family did their first time wheelin in their vehicles. Happy because of how much they enjoyed it. Happy for them because I know that feeling when you put it in low range and attempt your first hill climb and you don't know if what you're doing is right because you're looking at the sky across the front of your hood and the adrenaline is pumping through your body because the feeling is so new and when you finally arrive at the top and are able to see landscape instead of clouds you get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment and you want to find a new hill and do it all over again. I know they have the bug now for one little reason...they're already talking about upgrades! Butcher Jones can do that to you. My dad Gene is in the 07 Wrangler, my brother Reggie is in the 99 Ram, my sister Sandra is in the 69 Suburban, which had a manual transmission, good job Samo, and my Brother in law Andy and I were behind the lens. He's gona make a dvd of the trip. Andy's good at that stuff. I wish he could come on all the trails with us! Here's some pics of the trip, I hope you enjoy.

Queen Valley

On December 6, 2008 a bunch of us went on an LDW club run to the Queen Valley area. Not every one is posted in the pictures so I'm gona go ahead and list em all. I'll try to do it in chronological order, well...I'll group the people in the vehicles and go by the oldest one in the vehicle, if that makes any sense. Tom and Blaine Baker were in Blaine's 83 F150. (Which was it's inaugural run). Chris and Nique Specht were in Nique's 78 F150. Kerry Moncur (founder of LDW) and his family were in the Toyota Land Cruiser. I was in my Liberty. Jesse Baker and his family were in his "Ultimate Montero". Billy Baker was in his Cherokee. And JT was in his YJ Wrangler. The trail was pretty easy for the most part. We never HAD to do anything hard to get by. But we did find a few obstacles off to the side of the wash along the way. Like the one in the pics below.

Only one scenic pic for this post.

And some more pics of my Liberty.
How pretty...see the untouched rock slider on the passenger side. It didn't even get touched on this trip.
We'll be back to this trail again soon! Billy found some more difficult areas that we're itchin to try. We just didn't have enough time on this trip.

Spare Tire Mount

Reggie wanted a place to keep two 37" spare tires in his bed so I took it as the perfect opportunity to hone my tubing bender skills, which actually need grinding first! These are some pics of the unfinished project. Reggie decided he wanted to add some sort of containment for two, five gallon fuel cans. So there will be another post of the finished product soon. Notice the bed mounts, they're mounts for a fifth wheel hitch. They were in the truck when he bought it so we went ahead and used those for mounting plates. Normally I would use some 3/16" strap. For something more permanent I would go through the bed and tie it into the frame. We had to cut up a floor mat to put under the plate to save the rim. when it's done there will be a clean cut piece of rubber from a heavy duty semi truck mudflap. And that allthread won't be sticking out like an antenna.
It's gona look good!

Rough and Ready?

It's rough...but nowhere close to ready. I acquired a 1988 Jeep Cherokee Wagoneer for another project. Don't really know what type of build I'm gona do but I'm pretty sure it's gona be a trailer queen for now. First things first, it has to be stripped down and needs a rear axle. Oh yeah, and I'm pretty sure I already have a 5"lift for it and some half doors or safari doors are also planned.

Thanksgiving 08 Utah

This year for Thanksgiving I visited Levi and Crystal Reed in Parowan, Utah. Along with Becky, (Levis mom) Vance and Jessica Reed and Dalin Reed. There was alot of food, rain and fun. Notice the trash can turkey.Levi used two tractor hoods and some extra steel he had layin around to cover up the coals on the can because the rain got a little to heavy later in the day. Good thinkin Levi! See the wet logs drying out inside the hoods?Well, enough about Thanksgiving, this is an outdoor adventure blog right? All the rest of the cookin happened inside, thanks Crystal. The food was great. On Saturday we finally went out to go hit up a couple of hills that were very deceiving and cruise a dirt road to the top of P Hill. On the way out we stopped where Crystal works and this was the view from the parking lot. It was a lot better than this, my camera just wasn't up to the task. Can anyone recommend an awesome camera to buy. I have so many good photo opps and if I do get a pic it usually gets deleted right away because of the poor quality.Here's the first hill that Levi led me to. Can you see the fence posts on the right side of the hill? Looks like someone didn't want em anymore and decided to climb the hill with there tailgate down. He had no problem with the hill and I didn't think I did either until my rear end got caught up on a huge battery at the top. You can see it on the right side at the top. After backing all the way down twice and tryin different lines, I finally made it.Almost the same story with this one. The difference was I went first and backed down a lot more than twice. I pretty much called it quits until I saw Levi go up it real easy. I looked at Vance and said "ok...one more time". I took the same line Levi took, which was totally opposite of my previous choice and I went right up. Here's a view from atop P Hill looking east towards Brian Head. Nope, no skiing, snowboarding, sledding or tubing.
Here's a south west view looking out over the town of Parowan.
And another one of the Liberty posin in front of the little town.
Headed back in for some food.I actually think it was pie.

Ugh

Man I hate being sick! You're home from work bored out of your mind with tons of stuff to do but you can't because it's work and that's why you stayed home from work because you'd be miserable if you didn't. Ugh...the restlessness! I hate being sick.

Repelling at Bulldog Canyon

On October 15, 2008 the elders in my ward went repelling. We had a great time. There were a few guys that hadn't been before but did real well and even got addicted real quick. I personally hadn't been in over ten years and am now thinking about buying all the climbing gear so I'd have yet another outdoor activity to help consume my single life.It was a beautiful morning to go and it seemed everyone else in the valley felt the same. That's a bit of an exaggeration. There was probably somewhere around 200 people there on all the different cliffs. My camera died before I could get pictures of everyone that participated, action pics from the bottom or any of myself so I hope you enjoy the few that I posted.

Deer Hunt October 2008

Unsuccessful! Well...at getting a deer. I was successful at a lot of other things and being unbeaten in horseshoes was one of them. The group of us, Wylie, Vance, Dalin and I got drawn for our second choice which was a place we had never hunted before and didn't go and scout ahead of time. So when we got to our area we found that it was littered with private property. It took forever to find a camp so we just made a temporary camp for the first night, packed up in the mornin and found a good spot the next day. We hiked the whole area around our camp and found lots of old mulie tracks, droppings and beds but nothing fresh. Maybe because the fawn survival rate in that area was 3 out of 100. All the fresh tracks and droppings belonged to coyotes, javelina and elk. I saw alot of small cat tracks and some mountain lion tracks but never saw any cats. What we did see was plenty of gambles quail, rabbits, antelope, javelina and a herd of 8 elk. Which I have a decent picture of below. I forgot to take a better one when I got closer. Anyway...here's a few pics of some of the scenes, camp and one of me posin. Hahaha...what a dork. I'll always laugh at that!


Mt. Hope


Always a reminder to never give up hope on that elusive mulie and eternal companion!

Hackberry Creek October 2008

Finally! I got to go on a trip. My last trip was Butcher Jones. It's been three months but feels like a lifetime! I almost didn't go on this trip because I was leaving for my hunt the next weekend. I'm glad I chose to go because I really needed it. We camped in the Oak Flats area which was near the trail and had a great dinner and breakfast supplied by Tom. Thanks Tom!

Here's one of the two tarantulas that I saw that day and one of the two things I saw that morning!Beautiful landscape...minus Jess.This was the mini Moab like area behind our camp where we played around a little before we headed out to the trail.What a bunch of posers.The biggest poser of them all!Man I like that little jeep.Next time Ryan's gona bring his 4x4 quad.I bet Nick can't wait to turn 16 to get his drivers license so he can run his new truck. Good thing you made the age deadline for the new 18 year old license qualifications.Here's some shots of all of us taking our turn on the first obstacle on the trail. And me...well...posing again.

I really liked this view and wish I had a better camera to really capture some of the scenes that I see. My 5.1 mega pixel isn't cuttin it anymore.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the funnest part of the trip. Well...because Tom and Nick were safe. What a trooper! And what a good job tyin your gear down!
What a team.