Recently in All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) Category

Sourced this USMC M1123 Troop Carrier from a private seller in Virgin, Utah. At the time, it had ~3000 miles on it.

Decided that it needed a winch, so I sourced a Mile Marker 15,000 pound winch and got it installed. Most everything on this rig is 24v, so you can’t just put anything electrical on the rig. To get the winch in place, we had to cut away quite a bit of structural steel under the bumper. Off to R&R Welding to reinforce.

Soon after the winch, I decided it was time for a brush guard to move animals and trees out of the way. Once those were both installed, it was time to wheel this beast.

I aired down to 12PSI and off we went. We discovered quite quickly that this rig is pretty wide for your average non-50” trail.

All in all, once I figured out the BRAKE THROTTLE MODULATION trick (BTM), essentially riding the brake and throttle at the same time, we learned that this thing would walk through any terrain.

Two weekends in a row, we attempted to run both South and North from our ranch near Panguitch. The South route was passable, but only after much winching the Wolverine (though my Polaris XP 1000 made short work of the snow).

The following weekend, a few of us attempted to head North toward Circleville. We got about 1 mile to the top (around 9100’) before the snow was just too deep to complete the ride. We backtracked, ran up Horse Valley and attempted to come down from the top. Again, we likely got to within 1 mile of our prior backtrack. Much winching was done by the Highlifter ATV’s..

Great days!

At first glance, and laying on the ground, I thought this was thong underwear (because there were a ton of alcohol bottles nearby too), but NOPE - COVID mask way up here on the trail. COME ON, PEOPLE!!

Garmin tracks below..

Hog-PeekaBoo.gdb

While we originally had plans to travel to Australia for 3 weeks, the raging fires and Pandemic quickly put an end to those aspirations.

So, where else to go to celebrate 30 years of marriage? Mesquite, of course!

We reserved a newly built AirBnB house on the outskirts of town (because it had a private hot tub and was huge), packed up our gear into the 2020 Jeep Gladiator and off we went.

The plan was to offroad, gamble, eat well and just generally relax - Mission success on all points.

Up until the last day, the weather was fantastic.. averaging 88-90F, more than sufficient to take the roof off the Jeep and make our runs in the open air (that would later to prove a mistake!)

After a great dinner at the Eureka steakhouse, we relaxed the remainder of the evening. In the morning, the plan was to run South/East toward the North rim of the Grand Canyon, then to the North edge of Lake Meade. Game on!

The routes:

The Trek South / East from Mesquite:

Coming off the final "Elbow Canyon" switchbacks.

Calm before the storm:

  GPSr tracks for the Mesquite Area:

Mesquite Area Riding.gdb

Hurricane area to Beaver Dam.gdb

On 3 November, Mike and I staged at Little Moab. Our singular goal was to run Rattlensnake Canyon, a narrow 50" trail that drops down over the top of the mountain to the North end of the Tintic range. Having untouched snow on the ground made the ride even better. A geocache has been placed near the center of the trail and can be found at:

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8FMJH_rattlesnake-by-bruteforce

A couple photos and GPSr tracks for this area:

GPSr Garmin tracks found here:

Eureka-Rattlesnake-Loop.gdb