Soon enough we hit the road
north and made our way out near
the Moab airport to a couple of
trails that you probably won’t
find on any trail maps. The trails
are marked and legal, but only
those who know the twisting
and turning dirt roads can lead
you to the trail heads of Pickle
and Mashed Potatoes. Why is it
called Pickle you may ask? If you
don’t get it right the first time,
you can sure get yourself into
quite the pickle of a situation!
Mashed Potatoes is also named
appropriately due to the fact that
when you look out across the
landscape the white-ish colored
rock formations look like globs
of mashed potatoes as far as you
can see. With two awesome trails
ahead of us for the day, I sure
was interested to see how these
rigs were going to perform. Then
again, I was the odd man out
running leaf springs and a 93”
wheel base.
Making our way towards Pickle, there is a few miles of soft sand like trails with sweet twists and banked turns that
make you feel like you’re running the Baja 500 down in Mexico! Wheeling is generally slow and technical, so anytime you get a chance to put it in high range and rip some awesome dirt / sandy roads, is a real treat! You need to be
careful though, you can meet up with dirt bikes, mountain bikes, or another crew of wheelers coming in the opposite direction at any time. While it’s a great time, caution needs to be taken. It is fairly easy to spot the dust cloud of
oncoming traffic that is kicked up, you just need to be aware of your surroundings.
The pickle starts with a series of small ledges that aren’t much trouble, but also shouldn’t be taken lightly for anyone on 33’s and smaller. A good spotter and at least one locker, always is a good idea. The width of the JK and the
extended wheel base made quick work of most of the obstacles. The 4 door JK’s were absolutely climbing machines.
They just plain stinking work! Bottom line, these rigs are NO JOKE! I had been turned into a believer, as far as rock
crawling goes at least. They had done an impressive job. The Tereflex crew was making their presence known. Those
guys know how to drive and give their suspensions got a good work out for sure. Dennis from Tereflex was the man
on the ground for some of the obstacles, spotting most of the rigs up with little trouble.
8
June 2014