Recently in Nick Category

On Friday, October 21st (2011), we departed Salt Lake City for Fillmore. Our goal was to get in one more camping and ATV'ing adventure before the weather turned cold and snowy.

On the first Fillmore exit, we stopped to hit Carls Jr. for a quick lunch. Just as we parked, we noticed a guy on a golf cart inspecting every trailer that pulled into the lot. At first, we didn't think much of it.

A few minutes later, this guy was looking at my 5th wheel tires with much interest. He came over and told me that my tire tread was separating and that if I pulled my rig to the service station a few hundred feet away, his guys would gladly mount my spare. I pulled to the service station and was immediately told that all six of my 5th wheel tires were coming apart.

Initially, it looked very likely that I was in a very dangerous situation with my trailer. I was quoted $2100 for 6x Cooper "Provider" tires in 235/80 R16. I declined and we made the 2-3 mile tow to the Fillmore KOA.

Google was fired up and I researched Cooper tires. To my dismay, I learned that Cooper doesn't carry a brand called "Provider", nor did they carry my tire size. Clearly, these guys were pedaling Chinese knock-off tires at twice the price I could source replacements from Discount Tire/Sears/Walmart.

To compound matters, upon arriving at the KOA, we determined that the front electric motor for the levlling legs was not working. We had to manually crank to lower (and then raise) the legs. Additionally, the rear garage door was not sealing completely, allowing both sunlight and bugs to come through.

We settled in that Friday night and for dinner, drove the ~50 miles to Hoovers for another awesome meal.

The following morning (Saturday), we decided to sleep in a bit. Overnight temps were near freezing, so nobody was really inclined to get out into the cold morning air.

My 11am, we had the ATV's loaded and were ready to roll. Destination: Marysvale (just shy of 60 miles one-way across two mountain ranges (Pahvant & Tushar).

Our route would start at the far North/East corner of Fillmore via the Paiute 03 trail through Chalk Creek.

Somewhere near the middle of the Max Reid trail (Paiute 01), the Honda Rancher lost all brakes at one of the steepest sections of trail. My tactic: Get my ATV and my sons in front of the wife and have her just coast down using the two front ATV's at brakes. Success!

Hunters were everywhere in the woods. How they managed to spot a deer is amazing considering how close they all were to each other. Deer to hunter ratio had to be 100:1 (100 hunters for every deer).

We returned to camp after sun-down with temps in the 40-50F range.

That evening, we discussed the situation with the 5th wheel tires. I went out and inspected and determined the tires would be able to handle the 140 mile return trip home.

We departed early Sunday morning and didn't exceed 55mph the entire trip home. We arrived without incident. Seems to me that tire center in Fillmore has a pretty interesting (and unethical) racket: Scope out every trailer, spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), then when they hook somebody, they increase their tire prices by $600-800 over normal retail.

The quest for replacement tires is underway and the 5th wheel goes back to Motorsportsland for service on Friday. What an eventful weekend. It would be nice to have one outing with the 5th wheel not end with maintenance/repair issues!

On June 16-18th, my 13 year old son and I departed South Jordan en route to Marysvale. In tow, we had our massive 42' 5th wheel, two quads and my mountain bike. We were intent on participating in the Take Back Utah event at Lizzie and Charlies RV park.

We arrived Wed. early afternoon (after a nice lunch at Hoovers), staged the RV (can't camp without Satellite TV, XBOX360, Air conditionining, 50amp power and ice cubes!) and called it a day.


On Thursday, we met with the TBU group and initially participated in the ride up to Bullion Falls and Monroe Mountain. After eating dirt & dust for a few miles, we (my son, myself and Gary Eli) decided to leave the group and seek out our own adventure. Our destination: Koosharem via the 53 and 33 Paiute trails (some of the most Black Diamond rated trails in the area).


Considering we've ridden this area in years past without issue, we went with our normal half-day gear (wet weather, lunch, drinks). Normally, Marysvale to Koosharem is a 4 hour round trip. This day, it turned out to be a 9am-midnight adventure.

Why was it adventure? Let me tell you our story:

The ride up the Paiute 01 and 02 can be done in a truck; That was our initial trail up the mountain. Upon reaching 7000' elevation, we started to encounter many trails blocked by either downed trees or a combination of massive snow drifts and downed trees. Our only available trails to Koosharem were the 53 and 33. Did I mention Black Diamond rated? (BD=Extremely difficult).

Gary was in a Razr SxS while my 13 year old was in a 2wd Honda Rancher.

Both trails were not easily accessed due to the amount of trees that had fallen over the trail. We spent a considerable amount of time cutting the trees back. I initially used my trusty handsaw (never leave without it) until Gary came clean that he brought a battery powered Sawz-All. What a relief!

http://www.atvutah.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1240693879/26#26

We went out again yesterday (Nick, Alex, Megan and I) to explore this hastily abandoned camp. Seems far more vandalism has taken place since last year.

Still a fun area to explore:

Although we've never been big fans of the sand dunes, we somehow found ourselves there this weekend. Going with friends (even after spelling out our dislike for the dunes), they nonetheless still found a camp spot right in the sand (White Sands camp ground).

The weather was terrible. We only had half a day without rain, snow, sleet or hail. We had to make every minute count and went riding and exploring as much as the cold wet weather would allow.

While on a quick morning outing (30 mile round trip), those of us riding discovered an abandoned settlement of some kind. It must have been hastily abandoned a few years ago, because clothing, books, bills (some in Dutch) and two pickup trucks were still there.

En route to Eureka (or so we thought):
Wife, youngest son Nick, Neice (Megan) and her friend


The lovely wife (she hates cameras and is very camera-shy):
Me, of course:


One of the abandoned trailer homes found:

Now, it's not unusual to find abandoned dwellings in the desert, but it is unusual to find them still loaded with clothing and other personal effects. These still had toys, kids bikes, clothes, food, kitchen-ware and two pick-up trucks. Also scattered throughout were books on astrology, generating solar power and various science studies.

Closets still full of clothes. Vermin have thoroughly invaded the location:

This morning at 0730, we (my 11 year old son Nick and 14 year old niece Megan) ran the 5k portion of the Salt Lake City Marathon.

We didn't train up for this one too much this year and are seriously consider a half marathon (12.2 miles) for our next run.

While we're not the fastest runners (35 minutes), we were consistent and sprinted the last 1/4 mile (I'm uploading a short video to YouTube).

It was quite a turn-out, well over 20,000 runners I believe. The fastest runner came in at like 12 minutes for the 5k. WOW! We watched several folks throwing up spaghetti and vomiting other contents. Quite interesting.

The route for this years 5k went from the Salt Lake City Building (400 South and State Street), south to 900 South, then to State Street and State north to South Temple, then over to the Rio Grande station, around and into the Gateway mall area.
SLC_09_5K_coursemap.pdf

Since the weather was looking promising (50F, no snow), my son and I decided to get out an do some ATV exploring and geocaching.

Our goal was the Sportsmans Toolkit geocache, approx. 2.5 miles up Mill Canyon Trail. En route to this location, we decided to check on my geocaches that were along the way.

Most of the trail was dry until we got near Mill Canyon. At this point, there was again snow on the ground and further up the trail, several feet of packed snow.

Is this location still open to motorized vehicles? Approximate GPSr coordinates to the trail head are: Mineral Fork

We've been up in this area a couple of times, both hiking and ATV'ing. The last time we were up there, we rapelled to the top of the mountain at the very end of the canyon and had a spectacular view to all directions.

Photos courtesy of DickC on ATVUtah.com:

Since Nick now has a Brute Force 750i, our very next ATV/Camping trip will be on top of Monroe Mountain somewhere. We did this type of camping/riding event in 2007, staying at almost 12000' elevation.

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Trail 78 from Monroe up to the Monroe Peak area is actually Forest Road #078 that vehicles use on a regular basis. It is very easy and is no problem for a SxS.
 
Photo 1 is at a road intersection where it goes up to Monroe Peak and 078 continues to the right. I think the Road number up to the peak is #165.
 
Photo 2 is at the same intersection but looking back in the direction to Monroe
 
Photo 3 is quite a ways back down off the Mt where a road goes up to Monrovian Park
 
Photo 4 is just a bit south out of Monroe (at the jct of trails 78 & 24) and looking towards Monroe Mt.
 
Photo 5 is at the same spot as photo 4 but looking North down Monroe's Main St.

 

As of yesterday, my 10 year old (Nick) and my 14 year old niece (Megan) have started to train-up for this years Salt Lake City Marathon.

We didn't get to run this one last year, but have the four years prior.

As I get older, it gets more difficult to push my 215 pounds across the pavement while trying to keep pace with 10 and 14 year olds.

The course map is the same as last year: All_events_08.pdf