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Moab Rim Trail
- Story and
Photography by Sven Schlogl
On Sunday
after the twelve-hour drive from Los Angeles
I rolled into Moab shortly after midnight.
Monday morning I watched a lot of cool
four-wheel trucks cruise through town. The
local market is the best place to see
amazing rigs and meet their owners. This way
I hooked up with a group from Arkansas with
their heavily modified Jeeps. One of them
was a fourteen year old kid with a
tube-framed, air-bagged CJ8 with
two-and-a-half ton Rockwell axles and
four-wheel steering. They invited me to join
them on the run and I followed them to the
Moab Rim Trail.
We waited in
line for our turn to crawl up the edge of
the cliff. In some parts the trail was
off-camber leaning to the sheer drop down to
the valley floor. This is not a trip for
those afraid of heights. The Jeeps snaked
their way along over different obstacles and
reached the point where the view down onto
Moab is breathtaking - a good spot for
panorama pictures. I followed our trail boss
down towards the sandy hills where a big
crowd of wheelers had gathered to watch some
rigs blast through the deep sand with
roaring engines in hopes of reaching the
top. After some spectating we pushed on to
another overlook and then returned the way
we came. By this time it started to become
quieter along the trail until we hit the
last two obstacles. Here LA rush hour caught
up with me again and we maneuvered our rigs
bumper to bumper downhill.
Just before we
tackled the last rock step called “The
Crack” we heard about a Toyota that had
rolled on the previous obstacle. Many
spectators were standing around enjoying the
show but we continued our trip. Crawling
down the last step my line was too high on
the passenger side and my truck started to
lean alarmingly to the left. I tried to
catch it by giving it some gas but the rig
just rolled on its side. I got a hand
climbing out of the vehicle by a fellow
wheeler; with the help of a winch the
XXXpedition rig was back on its wheels in no
time. The engine was fine and still running
but both driver-side doors and the pillar
in-between were severely crumbled.
It was quite
an inconvenience not being able to use the
driver door but fortunately nobody got hurt
and the truck still tackled some nice trails
on the following days aside from getting me
back to Los Angeles on its own power.
Although the
day didn’t quite end as planned, it was
still a great four-wheeling trip with new
friends. After all, this turned out to be an
unforgettable run with interesting stories
to tell…
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