Well a group of us decided that the rock slides out on the Perm needed to be explored and in the ever broadening pursuit to push our jeeps further and further we headed out looking for some fun.
All was kicking along great and we were all in Palmer at the specified time of 0900. Frosty, Badco, Little Giant, Topgun, Nate, Jeremiah, Brandon, Denise and Myself gassed up and headed the 25 or so miles to the trailhead. With the intention of finding some knarly stuff we all aired down at the trailhead just to save a bit of time. Frosty and Denise decided to start the day off right by jumping the XJ and having to replace a tie rod before the trail even left the GRAVEL lol. No pics of that unfortunately. 10 minutes and we are on the trail with me in the lead.
Perm was wet and snowy but at its best the main trail is a 2. Well that is until you get to the eroding bank. As we pulled up this is what we saw. That is all loose rock and the bottom of the canyon is 500 feet to the bottom. For a size reference, I am 6'3" 255 and I am the guy in the blue shirt. Frosty is the other Chap and he is a good 6' and 180 or so.
Well I decided that I would bo first seeing as I was supposed to be leading this gaggle. It also helped that I have basically no brains and no concept or fear of death. So I shifted into 4wd and started creeping up the loose bank.
There I am just about over the rock. Everything is looking good. Until the picture below. The loose soil just could not hold the torque of the tires and I spun out. Not really a big deal until you realize that your slowly sliding off the big rock holding you on the brink of the abyss.
As you can tell every time I went to pull forward I slid off the rock more and more. So THANK YOU to Topgun for pulling up behind me and letting me rig a little suspension for my jeep from the trees 20 feet above us on the bank. Here is TG and I (along with lots of help from everyone else) doing a quite complicated recovery effort.
If you have ever been to that slide you know just how dangerous this was. I almost considered the possibility of getting hurt or dying. If you know me you know that just me considering the possibility is a HUGE deal.
We decided (well everyone else decided, I thought everyone should have the fun I did) to shovel the bank out wide enough to carefully drive through. Probably a good decision, but in my opinion not the funnest option. Here is the rest of the crew passing through.
Badco in his Narrowtrac CJ7 Frame off restoration. SWEET Ride.
Nate and his 94 XJ. Tires are the 34x9.50 Swampers. Damn those thing bite hard in the mud! Topgun in his 99TJ. Thanks Again!
This is Little Giant, best built YJ in the 1 week and under time class. I would post a pic of Ryan but I do not have one!! He has a 94 XJ on 36 SX's.
Next we move onto the Big Boulder Fields. Lots of pictures and a bit of driving but there was snow on the them so it was not going to happen on this trip.