2003
September 28th was anything but an ordinary Sunday! It was a Sunday that we had been looking forward to all year long! Time to re-shred the Cross! As always it posed plenty of new challenges this year. With the recent rains, the challenges were completely different. A new rock the size of a 44” swamper posed the first obstacle. You have two options, drive over the top or try to avoid it by hugging the rock outcropping on the right. I took the first option. I was very lucky that I avoided damage to the right side of the Crusher (as far as I leaned over)… Bo found that rock placed just perfectly to avoid any decent approach for a full sized Blazer. After trying the up and over he ended up getting as close to the right as possible. In this case it was just close enough to push in his passenger side door 4” and leave his right tail light lens on the ground. Dave found a little abrasion on his passenger door also.
Progressing up the trail we found the high off camber section with a new bypass on the lower level. That didn’t stop Super Dave from venturing up the off camber. The narrow “V” section was a walk in the park for our well-equipped group. The stream crossing and rock garden followed that up. We couldn’t remember this section ever being as torn up. To testify to the challenge here we found one of the permanent winch anchors yanked completely out of the granite slab that it once lived in. That must have been one hell of a winch pull! After I clawed my way up the rocks, Bo was on deck. The Blazer kicked some major ass! The wet rock caused the back end to drop off the side of one of the boulders landing on the pinion of the 1-ton Chevy axle. That required a little work from a stock Jeep jack placed very strategically! With some careful winch action Bo was clear, letting Super Dave go for broke. The Cherokee made short work of the rocks leading to the waterfall. Once at the final rock a tiny tug got him over the massive boulder. We had lunch at the city, did some sight seeing and got back down the monster. Unbelievable day, too bad we have to wait a whole year do it again! Cheers, Chris…
