Sun 6/5 - Extreme Offroading Aventure

     This morning Dave made good on his promise of fresh made crepes.  After an excellent breakfast courtesy of his surprising culinary skills, we heading out to meet us with Dan Mick tours for our full day off road tour.  We were met by none other than Dan Mick himself, who is extremely well known around the Moab area and whose videos I had seen on Youtube while researching this trip. 

     Dan more than lived up to his reputation and a phenomenal driver who tackled the most extreme obstacles with the utmost confidence and ability.  He also proved to have an extremely gregarious personality and a seemingly endless stream of jokes, historical facts, geological knowledge, and anecdotes.  Our tour lasted about eight hours, and he never once seemed at a loss for something interesting to tell us about.





     For the first half of the tour, we visited Hells Revenge trail.  This is one of the most popular trails in the Moab area, and is in fact the same trail that I took a Hummer tour on the very 1st time I visited Moab in 2007.  At the time I marveled at the capability of Hummer which far exceeded what I thought any vehicle could possibly due.  This time, I learned that Jeep drivers are not impressed with the Hummers, and that a well tricked out Jeep is actually an even more capable vehicle.  We tackled a numerous of obstacles that were bypassed in 2007, as well as several that no Hummers even attempt.  Once such obstacle was "The Gates of Hell".  (This video was not of our group as I cannot edit any video until we get home.  Since we were significantly less inclined to scream in terror than the girls in this video, however, it's probably more entertaining anyway.)  Despite being a well traveled trail with a number of other vehicles on it at the same time as us, it is still a very difficult trail.  I lost count of how many places Dan pointed out where he has seen vehicles roll over, and we actually ran across somebody who had done so shortly that morning and was working on their vehicle as we passed.



     After Hells Revenge we stopped by Subway for lunch and wound up heading for the Moab Rim Trail.  I later checked my guidebook and determined that it is the 4th most difficult trail in Moab out of well over a hundred established trails.  This trail rises over 1000 feet in little more than a mile of extremely challenging obstacled.  At the top we were treated to a spectacular view of the Moab valley from which we could see the entire town.  Dan again treated us to his extremely impressive knowledge of the area and was able to point out many interesting facts about the town below.  We then continued on past the lookout and around a loop trail with a number of neat obstacles before descending back down the trail (And I do use the term trail very loosely...) that we had come up.

Dinner tonight was at Pasta Jays, both because Dan recommended it highly and because I have eaten there on both of my previous visits to Moab and enjoyed it both times.  We rounded out the evening with the a half a game of Terra Mystica, and will hopefully have time to finish it tomorrow night.