Roaming South America

Wheelin' in the Santa Catalina Mtns

May 20, 2007

Wheelin' in the Santa Catalina Mtns

This passed weekend I went off-roading with some of the TucsonOff-Road club members, and had a fantastic time! We drove up thebackside of the Santa Catalina Mtns to Rice Peak, then we went upthe back side to Mt Lemmon. The trail is rated as moderate, 3.0+.Word is it used to be rated at 4+ but since the fires a coupleyears ago the road is a little better. The road had to be cleareda bit for fire fighting. Oh well, so it goes. Below is the tripreport I wrote for the club about the run. Here is a link to thephotos of the trip.

Attendees: Kyle, Scott, Austin (with Jake), Chip, Brad, Jamie,Tiffany, and Christine.

Turned out to be a perfect day for wheeling up to Rice Peakand Mt Lemmon. We had 6 rigs - my Ranger, 4 Jeeps and a Quad.This was my first run with TOR and I really enjoyed the trip. Thetrail wasn't any harder than what I'd driven back in central WAstate.

We all headed out from Peppersauce and proceeded withoutmishap or misdirection, which is always a good thing, until thequad decided to have a front spring/shock mount come apart. Thishappened just before the looonngg uphill climb where the trail ismostly level. Probably the best place on the entire route forthis sort of thing to happen. After much work and the use of myrachet strap to compress the spring a bit, the quad was back onthe trail. Of course there was some uncertainty about itscompleting the trip without further mishap, but surpisinglyenough, it did!

We all got up the long steep climb and proceeded along justfine, until - we hit a dead-end. Yep. Turns out we missed areverse fork in the trail and kept going straight. This fork isat the bottom of the final climb to the peak. The traildead-ends, what was it, a mile or so? We had fun getting turnedaround in the tight spot. Made it back to the turn-off to thepeak and stopped to consult and send the quad up topside to seehow many rigs were up there already.

I thought it prudent to not drive my Ranger up that laststretch, the rear-end is only a 3.73 limited slip. (I'll have totry it again after I get the rebuild done.) So I rode up withChristine in here Rubicon. At the top there were two guys therealready, plus our 4 jeeps, it was a crowd, my Ranger would've hada problem getting turned around anyway. The view from up there isincredible! If you haven't done this run you've gotta do it, wellworth the time.

We had to give one of the other guys a jump start as hisbattery was dead, he'd been running his AC. Turned out he wasgrounding out where he had connected his amp to the hot side ofthe battery. Then after he left we noticed his rig was leakingsomething that we thought was brake fluid. Jamie rode down afterhim on the quad to tell him he was leaking something. A littlewhile after that we headed back down.

The trip down was uneventful, everyone made it fine, weregrouped near the campground, and Austin and Brad(? the othernew guy), left for home and work, the rest of us headed up thebackside of Mt Lemmon. This was a nice run, quite a few othervehicles on that stretch of road. Again, no mishaps, thankyouvery much.

At the top we went into Summerhaven for pizza and dessert. Itwas a very good day and very fun run. I'm looking forward to morewheeling with TOR.