Easter Jeep Safari 2018 Part 2
In part one of our Moab 2018 adventure, I talked about our first two trail days where we explored Deadman Point and Hotel Rock. If you missed that story and want to check it out, you can do so here. Today I will wrap up our trip by talking about our Big Saturday trail, Wipe Out Hill, and our experience of walking and dreaming about Jeep parts at the vendor show.
On Thursday and Friday of safari week anyone who’s anyone in the off-road aftermarket community is at the vendor show. You can find everything from recovery straps to roll cages here and you may even have an opportunity to pick up some of your long sought items at a small discount. You know, “show specials.” You won’t know how good of a deal you’re getting unless you know about the product prior to coming, so do your research before hand. It’s all too easy to get caught up in all the fun and the next thing you know you’re out of money and you don’t have enough room in your rig to get your stuff home.
I somewhat ignored my own advice during this trip to which I went into a purchase without all of the information that I needed. I had been in the market for a new GPS unit and had all but picked the new model out. Had I had more time, I likely would have already purchased the unit prior to our trip to Moab. As it were, I didn’t have time and I had my eyes open for a new Garmin while I browsed the show. Then I came across a factory rep for Magellan. He had a stack of TRX7 units. I had seen these units in multiple magazines and YouTube channels and I thought I knew everything about it, plus the price was oh so right. I decided that this would be the unit for me. Cha-ching! Thank you very much.
The TRX7 is a nice GPS, made for the offroad community. It comes pre-loaded with thousands of off-road trails and is a weather sealed unit. This attracted me because I would be using it in both my Jeep and a Polaris RZR. The RZR is open to all of the elements and the sealed unit is supposed to be resistant to dust and rain. However, the interface is a lot different from the GPS units I’ve used in the past. It acts more like your everyday navigation system on your daily driver as opposed to a Topo map style unit. This is the part I didn’t expect. It turns out all of the info that I want is there, I just haven’t mastered how to find it yet. It does work well on the trail, though and I don’t regret buying it. It just isn’t exactly what I was looking for. Again, do your research. Either way the vendor show was a great time as always and you'll find us there again next year.
For our Big Saturday trail we chose to do the Wipe Out Hill Trail. Again this isn't the most difficult trail to do but we were wanting to take it easy. Also, we had some old friends, Perry and Linda Willard leading the trail. We've known them for a long time and we try to run with them as often as we can.
This year the Willards and their gunners were dressed as pirates. They like to have themes on their trails which makes it sort of an extra special time to travel with them. Even with pirates I think that the highlight of the day was having an opportunity to witness two base jumpers launch themselves off of Determination Towers while we had our lunch stop. I've never witnessed this in person and I have to admit, it seemed pretty intense. It probably only took them about ten seconds to reach the ground which isn't a lot of time when you're free falling. That's okay, it wasn't me doing it and it was a heck of a show.
Going to Moab has always been about being in the outdoors and spending time with friends and family to me. I think that is what makes the off-road community such a tight group. It's what keeps bringing people back year after year and it's part of what keeps bringing me back. Of course, a well organized event with a plethora of trails and gorgeous scenery doesn't hurt either. I can't wait until next year's event and if you haven't been to Moab before, come on down, you won't regret it.
