A chill day on 6s at Gordy's, and mission accomplished with our scouting intentions. Mike and Janet Crosby, Mary and I cruised up Hidden Valley first and on to get a look at Squeeze Canyon to get eyes on the hardest sections . We drove about halfway in, parked and walked the rest of the trail. We discussed lines along the way and all agreed it would be a fun and challenging 7 for our rigs, and were excited to take it on in the coming months. The "squeezy" section would want good spotting and even then threatened a good chance of body damage. It was unanimous that we would run it with hard tops off!
After returning to the rigs, we took a quick run on Upper Amado to the 5 foot waterfall to test out the Crosby's new toy - a beast of a 2017 JKU on 37s with all the goodies one could wish for! Mike took the wheel and cruised up it without much trouble, but both Mary and Doug were shut down in their shorter wheel based 2 drs. Then it was on to Fred's Shortcut and lunch at the entrance to Cat Scratch. This is becoming one of my favorite 6s - partly because it has been recently resurrected after not being run for some time, and offers new terrain and a more challenging way over to the northeast areas of Gordy's trails.
Finally, it was on to our last goal - getting eyes on Gates of Hell which, as far as we know, not bun run in many years and is being slowly reclaimed by the desert. We found a low section of bank along the wash,and were able to drop in and run back up and down a couple times to open an entry point, and were excited to be able to drive instead of walking the whole trail. After it wasn't long before we encountered the first obstacle - beautiful white and grey area of smooth tricky level 6 rock that would fun fun to navigate. We decided to keep walking before putting tires on it, and the trail continued to deteriorate until we reached the end of the loop. It appears that many years of torrential runoff have removed all 10-15 feet of gravel and effectively left this area impassible to all but MAYBE the wildest rear steer buggies. Disappointing, but the trail could still be run as on out and back level 6 to that point, with some gorgeous views and rock to play on. Will definitely put it on the list of trails to run after Cat Scratch in the future.
Another great day on the rocks with good friends, fun trails, and nothing broken!
