TacPen
Banned
Dave and Jeyr had a plan to go camping this weekend. It sounded like a good plan, it really did. Unfortunately, like with all plans there was a fly in the ointment... well, for me at least. I ended up having to be on-call for some government work (if I told you, I might have to kill you) so I couldn't do the overnight trip. On top of it, I felt like I was coming down with a cold... effin' stellar I tell you. That said, meeting up with them Sunday morning seemed like a good idea so GPS coordinates in hand, Peachy and I set off for one of the coves at Saguaro Lake to meet up with the crew.
In case you haven't noticed, the Tonto National forrest is one of my favorite places to go play. It's absolutely beautiful and has a great combination of shooting areas up north, wheeling trails down south and camping areas all in between. The fact that there's an actual lake in the middle of the desert doesn't hurt either.
Instead of taking our usual route through Four Peaks Rd. we decided to get adventurous and try to make our way to the cove by way of Bush Hwy. and Butcher Jones Rd. We weren't really sure if it would work but, at least on the map, it seemed like a good way to go (although I've found that obstacles tend to look much smaller on maps as compared to real life).
The nice thing about Bush Hwy. is that as soon as you turn right you're immediately hit with beautiful scenery. POW! Mountains. BOOM! Two lane scenic road. WHAM! Awesome desert landscape (right... so someone we know might have accidentally watched an old Adam West Batman episode while channel surfing on basic cable recently).
We rolled up to Butcher Jones road and after a few more scenic miles of wondering where the hell exactly the lake was, we finally found the park entrance.
We were off to a good start, now the hard part was going to find the right cove. Each cove is separated by a ridge and some of them are quite tall. We actually saw a guy toast his motor trying to make what looked like a ridiculous hill climb a month ago so we decided to stay, more or less, on common trails. It ended up being more at first then less as time went on.
We managed to get to the west cove easily enough and got into comms. range but we were able to deduce from the GPS coordinates (and... you know, the text message telling us that they were one cove to the east) that they were over the big-ass ridge and further east.
Now, last time we were here I spotted Jeyr down from that ridge and while it was a little spooky he made it down with no problems. At the time I thought that while it wasn't easy it might make for a challenging climb. The rest of the crew looked at it and decided I was a moron. Fair enough.
Fortunately for me, Peachy was still a little groggy this early in the morning and since she hadn't gotten a good look at the hill she bought into the plan. It really isn't that hard of a climb, it's just a little spooky because there's not a lot of space and slipping to the left or right means rolling the Jeep down a 5 story hill. So... yeah, I was all over this plan. (Coordinates: N33°34'56.18" W111°29'49.29")
After the climb I decided that morning coffee was no longer necessary and I needed a bathroom break. Still, we were on top of the ridge. A few twists and turns and we found the crew's camping stop... at the cove at the base of the ridge with no way down, lovely. At least we had great comms. reception by now.
A few descents, climbs, twists and turns and some photo opportunities later (dude, that wheel is over a foot off the ground, tell me that's not wicked cool):
... and we finally made it to the right cove (Jeyr and Dave arguing whether the LHC research team really has found the Higgs Boson or the current results are just a statistical anomaly):
Dave's daughter K.C. was visiting down from college and after putzing around for a while, relaxing and shooting the wind, Dave got bored (he was really mellow and enjoying himself, it probably took 15-20 minutes before he started itching to move on. Camping obviously does the man good).
We packed up and headed on out:
In no time Dave managed to find some appropriate hills to climb and ridges to traverse (remember, we avoid washes... washes are bad. Ask Jeyr about washes and how he got the scratches on his new Tacoma then step back and watch his left eye start twitching).
We came upon a nice big hill to climb (more of a mountain really. In fact, we passed a bunch of British guys in arctic gear with ice axes and oxygen tanks on the way up). Jeyr was in the lead (to make sure we didn't accidentally take a wrong turn into a wash, apparently it happens more often than you may think) driving the Taco with his new 33" tires, Dave was next in the G Wagon (he added a cool new sticker... it's from Germany) and we brought up the rear in the Jeep (uh... new GoPro camera, it adds like 10 bhp at the wheels!). About 2/3rds up the way one of the stooges bumps a small boulder and we see it rolling right.. at.. us... down Mt. Kilimanjaro over here. We swerved left, the boulder swerved left. We swerved right, the boulder was already ahead of us. I head faked right once more and pitched the Jeep left just in time to see the boulder barrel right past us on the passenger's side. I swear it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Of course, maybe that's just because we were traveling at about 5 mph. and it was in slow motion but I'm telling you, Jerry Bruckheimer himself couldn't craft a better action scene (Vin Diesel play me in the movie, I'm working on the script right now).
After the descent down Mt. Kilimanjaro it was pretty much smooth sailing. By then we were on the main trails and Dave decided he could open the G Wagon up a little:
Rarely do I lust after material possessions (ok, that's complete b.s.) but after taking a ride in Dave's G Wagon a few months ago I'm really hurting for a set of remote reservoir, compression damping adjustable, 2.5" King Shocks for the Jeep. Sadly, either Santa didn't get my letter in time or I just wasn't good enough this year (I hear that jolly fat bastard is running a 5" lift with long-arm coilover suspension and 40" tires on the sleigh this year).
We finally made it to Four Peaks Rd. and it was time to split up again. Dave and Jeyr wanted to go blow shit up and while that did sound appealing I had to do some work at the shop and grind a fresh batch of clips for the new titanium pens. We aired back up and it was time to head back (a keen observer will note that an unnamed party seemed to have forgotten their jacket this morning. I won't name any names since I don't want Peachy kicking my ass):
Fun times indeed.
In case you haven't noticed, the Tonto National forrest is one of my favorite places to go play. It's absolutely beautiful and has a great combination of shooting areas up north, wheeling trails down south and camping areas all in between. The fact that there's an actual lake in the middle of the desert doesn't hurt either.
Instead of taking our usual route through Four Peaks Rd. we decided to get adventurous and try to make our way to the cove by way of Bush Hwy. and Butcher Jones Rd. We weren't really sure if it would work but, at least on the map, it seemed like a good way to go (although I've found that obstacles tend to look much smaller on maps as compared to real life).
The nice thing about Bush Hwy. is that as soon as you turn right you're immediately hit with beautiful scenery. POW! Mountains. BOOM! Two lane scenic road. WHAM! Awesome desert landscape (right... so someone we know might have accidentally watched an old Adam West Batman episode while channel surfing on basic cable recently).
We rolled up to Butcher Jones road and after a few more scenic miles of wondering where the hell exactly the lake was, we finally found the park entrance.
We were off to a good start, now the hard part was going to find the right cove. Each cove is separated by a ridge and some of them are quite tall. We actually saw a guy toast his motor trying to make what looked like a ridiculous hill climb a month ago so we decided to stay, more or less, on common trails. It ended up being more at first then less as time went on.
We managed to get to the west cove easily enough and got into comms. range but we were able to deduce from the GPS coordinates (and... you know, the text message telling us that they were one cove to the east) that they were over the big-ass ridge and further east.
Now, last time we were here I spotted Jeyr down from that ridge and while it was a little spooky he made it down with no problems. At the time I thought that while it wasn't easy it might make for a challenging climb. The rest of the crew looked at it and decided I was a moron. Fair enough.
Fortunately for me, Peachy was still a little groggy this early in the morning and since she hadn't gotten a good look at the hill she bought into the plan. It really isn't that hard of a climb, it's just a little spooky because there's not a lot of space and slipping to the left or right means rolling the Jeep down a 5 story hill. So... yeah, I was all over this plan. (Coordinates: N33°34'56.18" W111°29'49.29")
After the climb I decided that morning coffee was no longer necessary and I needed a bathroom break. Still, we were on top of the ridge. A few twists and turns and we found the crew's camping stop... at the cove at the base of the ridge with no way down, lovely. At least we had great comms. reception by now.
A few descents, climbs, twists and turns and some photo opportunities later (dude, that wheel is over a foot off the ground, tell me that's not wicked cool):
... and we finally made it to the right cove (Jeyr and Dave arguing whether the LHC research team really has found the Higgs Boson or the current results are just a statistical anomaly):
Dave's daughter K.C. was visiting down from college and after putzing around for a while, relaxing and shooting the wind, Dave got bored (he was really mellow and enjoying himself, it probably took 15-20 minutes before he started itching to move on. Camping obviously does the man good).
We packed up and headed on out:
In no time Dave managed to find some appropriate hills to climb and ridges to traverse (remember, we avoid washes... washes are bad. Ask Jeyr about washes and how he got the scratches on his new Tacoma then step back and watch his left eye start twitching).
We came upon a nice big hill to climb (more of a mountain really. In fact, we passed a bunch of British guys in arctic gear with ice axes and oxygen tanks on the way up). Jeyr was in the lead (to make sure we didn't accidentally take a wrong turn into a wash, apparently it happens more often than you may think) driving the Taco with his new 33" tires, Dave was next in the G Wagon (he added a cool new sticker... it's from Germany) and we brought up the rear in the Jeep (uh... new GoPro camera, it adds like 10 bhp at the wheels!). About 2/3rds up the way one of the stooges bumps a small boulder and we see it rolling right.. at.. us... down Mt. Kilimanjaro over here. We swerved left, the boulder swerved left. We swerved right, the boulder was already ahead of us. I head faked right once more and pitched the Jeep left just in time to see the boulder barrel right past us on the passenger's side. I swear it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Of course, maybe that's just because we were traveling at about 5 mph. and it was in slow motion but I'm telling you, Jerry Bruckheimer himself couldn't craft a better action scene (Vin Diesel play me in the movie, I'm working on the script right now).
After the descent down Mt. Kilimanjaro it was pretty much smooth sailing. By then we were on the main trails and Dave decided he could open the G Wagon up a little:
Rarely do I lust after material possessions (ok, that's complete b.s.) but after taking a ride in Dave's G Wagon a few months ago I'm really hurting for a set of remote reservoir, compression damping adjustable, 2.5" King Shocks for the Jeep. Sadly, either Santa didn't get my letter in time or I just wasn't good enough this year (I hear that jolly fat bastard is running a 5" lift with long-arm coilover suspension and 40" tires on the sleigh this year).
We finally made it to Four Peaks Rd. and it was time to split up again. Dave and Jeyr wanted to go blow shit up and while that did sound appealing I had to do some work at the shop and grind a fresh batch of clips for the new titanium pens. We aired back up and it was time to head back (a keen observer will note that an unnamed party seemed to have forgotten their jacket this morning. I won't name any names since I don't want Peachy kicking my ass):
Fun times indeed.
