Travelling Helldorado |
Oregon's Mid-Valley
Crawlers tackle Lower-Helldorado |
-Eric Bewley |
Moab, UT. -A small group from Oregon, Utah, and
California started out to tackle two of the more famous trails in Moab, Upper and Lower
Helldorado. These two trails have not been officially entered into the trail system but
you wouldn't know that by the amount of traffic that always seems to be there. Many people
drive straight to Upper to either watch the carnage or drive that short yet exciting
trail. We decided to run both trails and make a nice full day out of it.
We immediately hit a traffic jam. It seems some full size rigs
decided they weren't as ready as they previously thought and they wanted to back out of
the trail. After some discussion, we were able to convince them to find a wide spot to let
us by. Lower Helldorado reminds many of the Rubicon trail with it's rock type and trail
layout. There are no steep cliffs, red rock, or open spaces here. You are in an old dry
creek bed with some nice smaller technical obsticles that will give you just about as much
as you want to make out of it.
| Not far after the first traffic jam we ran into a broken Jeep and
an extremely nice early Blazer. Unlike the first group, they accepted their position and
let us by. |
 
|
This Sidekick
breezed this obsticle. |
One of the first interesting obsticles is this
'pinching' obsticle that eats rims of tires for lunch. It is similar to the Wedgie
obsticle on the Poison Spider Mesa trail only shorter. Most every spot
on Lower is fun. Sure, there are some pretty easy lines on the trail but if you want to,
you can really stick it out there and have a blast.
 
 |
From the series of four pictures you can see that
Dave's samurai with OME springs, 29" swampers, lockers, and gears gets the most of
this obsticle. We all had a good time getting through the tight spots but I think Dave
definitely got the super-sized value meal.
 
Dave had talked about rocker protection for Moab,
Naw...
The roll back
Let's go a little
more left. |
All of us had to take a few stabs at one obsticle or another. For
me, the last steep climb with a step turn out to be pretty interesting giving me some good
air time with a nice soft wheel stand. Where's the camera man when you need them? 
Our California constituent, Tom, made short work of this trail with
his excellent driving and capable rig. The only thing that slowed him down was a set of
crappy tires that kept loosing air out the beads. |
We made good time on the trail once past the slow
pokes and ended at Upper at about two in the afternoon. Unfortuneately, the trail was
pretty clogged with fun seekers so the group decided to pass on Upper this day.
As your reading this, you might get the impression that the trail
might be a little overcrowded, and you'd be right. Either we picked a bad day to be there
or the popularity of these trails have really grown. Eventhough it was difficult to make
good time, the trail was extremely enjoyable and if your main goal is to run the Upper
trail, one should either start really early or bypass lower to get there early in
the day before the crowds.
 ZW
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