Moab Easter Jeep Safari 1998
by Lance Clifford

My first trip to Moab, Utah, was a success! I got to drive some of the toughest trails that I have seen yet and saw many broken vehicles and several rollovers. Luckily I came home with no new dents and I went on trails like Pritchett Canyon, Golden Spike, Poison Spider Mesa, Lions Back, and Hells Revenge.

The trip began Monday night at about 8pm, after I had just worked a 75 hour work week to pay for taking one off. I was an extreme rush to get ready, so I did not get a chance to put on my new long travel shocks or move my crossmember back to keep the driveshaft from rubbing on it.

My passenger and I met up with a couple vehicles from the Pirates of the Rubicon in Reno. From there we continued on Highway 80 on to Moab only stopping for breakfast and gas along the way. The stretch in the salt flats seemed to go on forever and I think we all just about fell asleep! We arrived in Moab about 22 hours later and the snow/rain was pouring down so we decided against camping and got a room.

After that long of a drive we decided to stay in motels for the week. The first night we drove up to lions back. Because of the weather they warned us not to go up but we just had to even though there was actually snow in the cracks on the way up!

The next morning we met up with Bob and AJ who joined us for the trail ride on Poison Spider Mesa and the Golden Spike Trail. We attempted all the difficult bypasses and had a great time. The second day we ran Pritchett Canyon. There were a lot of broken vehicles on the trail making it an all day run. On the third day we stayed a little closer to town and ran Hell's Revenge or at least all that we could find of it including tip-over challenge and the hot tubs. We finished the day with a drive up Lions Back.

After a full week of wheelin, we were pretty tired so we decided to head home after the Easter Safari line up for big Saturday. On the way home we tried hwy 50, and if it wasn't for the snow storms and all the wild animals crossing in front of us, we would have made good time. All in all it was a killer trip and we are already planning next year!