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Mark and Bill headed off so I wanted to take Dave up the Gusto Gulch trail that he missed running down in the slick mud on the January trip. We headed up by one of the rock quarry areas and had fun going up the loose and rocky hill climb. I would've loved to get this on video because my front tire always catches some air and the Detroit hooks up and I slowly creep up the rock outcrop. Dave had no problems with the ARB and Detroit in back and I looked back and he was already half way up. |
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Gusto Grande is rated a blue square. Unfortuantely this rating is about as accurate as Fremontia Drive being rated a Black Diamond. Gusto takes you uphill at 30 degrees and is very well rutted with off camber sections only occasionally broken up by level terrain. I chose to straddle the rut and the front tire caught air a few times and some brake modulating helped the TruTrac hook up. About the only thing you have going for you on this trail is that it is hard packed dirt with lots of traction. The line I took made the driver's side front tire want to come up every chance it could. With all the weight of the truck on the rear axle, having a rear locker is very advantageous. Like I said, Dave took the rut way up and seemed to have a better time. I just don't like to be tilting on more than one axis at the same time so I did the straddle thing. |
| Eventually we got to the part of the trail that is a switchback with a gain of 15' in elevation. This trail certainly gets you acclimated to off-camber trail riding. We made it up to Hector's Heights and Dave's radiator was getting really hot. I added about 1/2 a jug of the coolant I was carrying with me and it seemed to like that. Also, his electric fan was shorting out and not working right. We came back down to camp and dropped the girls off and Dave and I headed back out to mess around for a little while. It turned out to be 2 hours... |
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 Oh no... |
 Well it looked solid! |
 Like my new rims? |
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I cannot remember the last time I was stuck before today.... Of all days it has to be on my 21st birthday. That is some nasty stuff right there. Dave ended up having to winch me out. I drove up to it and thought the dirt was nice and soft. Well I slowly started sinking and soon I couldn't see my front tire...I rocked back and forth but couldn't climb the hill to get me out. Well, thank goodness for the winch, and thank goodness I wasn't as stuck as Bill would be later that night! We decided to head over to the obstacle course so I could fling the goop off my truck on the haul road. When we got there, we came across some of the craziest wheeling I've seen at Hollister. |
 Chevy flatbed in the mini Rubicon |
 Flatbed 2wd Tug-Of-War! |
 Busy day on the frame twister |
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I couldn't believe this guy was taking his full size Chevy through this thing. The way this truck was built, if any full-size was going to get through, it was this guy. He was running 1 ton axles and a sweet flat bed. He also had hacked up fenders and no fender wells to fit those 40" tires. Keep in mind that in this sluice obstacle, the rocks on each side are almost 6 feet tall. While crawling over the one, he snagged his body mount on the top of it! |
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Eventually a hub broke and a really nice Willys with an exo-cage came over to try to turn the trucks wheels to get over some rocks that were keeping it from moving forward. This didn't work so well so a tow strap was used to wrap around the lugs on the boggers to make the tire move forward a few inches.