Trip Reports - Carnage Canyon
June 26th, 2004 by Solihull Soceity,Boulder, Colorado - Maybe it was the early time requirement. Maybe it was the trail’s reputation. Maybe it was something else, but we only had three vehicles show up, one was the trail leader and one was the guest of a club member, compared to last year’s 12.
Those that participated:
Cain Kobert in his ‘97 military olive D90
Don Lampman in his black 2001 TJ with everything
Hans and Roseanne Schulze in the white ‘95 D90 soft top
And like last weeks trip, there were no other vehicles at the trailhead that posed potential delay. Don seemed super setup with his new TeraFlex kit, and “everything” else. He showed me his Defender 90 in his gun case.
Promptly at 9:15am we were on our way, maneuvering amongst the boulders that makes this trail technical….or lots of fun. We encountered J**ps at a two boulder squeeze and because several had chrome rims, and didn’t want to scratch them, there was a bit of a delay. Don also decided on a real radical line which resulted in a winch.
From there the J**ps took the high road, dirt with tree roots, and we took the low road, the river bed with boulders.
The only other challenging spots included the off camber slick rock with a vehicle high boulder on the drivers side. Because the tires were muddy, it was hard to get traction in order to climb out of a potential dent. We kept sliding toward the jagged boulder that made our “paint scream”. [Thanks Don] It required many back & forths to scramble out.
As we meandered thru the river bed looking for challenges, I saw Cain in my rear view mirror and knew Don was close behind because I could hear his sub-woofer. [Is that like jumbo shrimp, because his sub was over the top?]
We finished the trail at 11 am and instead of driving straight on trail 286 which would end up on 5 Points and out, we ran up a washout, and then took a hard right that eventually led us to a precarious mogul hill that required a steady throttle. Don’s run was text book, but I got stuck very close to the top, and subsequent tries resulted in several potential tip overs.
From there, we followed the trail uphill, turned left at the first chance and followed the path until we had another chance to turn left, downhill. This lead to 286 and the way out. Once we got close to the rutted and gullied playground, cable fencing prevented drivers from entering that area, which was marked for reclamation. Other signs warned that this area would be closed if riders don’t stay on the trail.
Don and I had one other chance to play and that was a short, but steep climb with ruts and rocks. That run ended on the top of a mogul run that also was closed. We then hit 286 again, which took us to the trail head at approximately 12:15 pm .
We had a good time. High fives.
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