We went with Brad and Brian, who each had a rather impressive display of testosterone:
Brad's Jeep
Reed, my youngest boy (6) nearly getting swallowed by Brian's tire
Overall, the Hummer did outstanding. I was amazed at what I could go up, and things it did with ease. In general, anything where it had to twist and turn with power it did easily. Anything that did not favor a long wheel base, I tried to avoid or be careful with. For a stock vehicle, I was impressed.
Metal Masher
I hadn't biked this one before, so it was going to be a complete surprise. I read up on the Internet about it, and the only concern I had was Mirror Gulch...so named for taking mirrors off of full-size vehicles.
My first picture of the H2 revealed that I thought I was
doing more than I actually was in the early going.
And then there was "Rock Chucker". Brian and I saw Brad's nose up in the air from afar. Little did we know at the time what he was going up.
Needless to say, I didn't try this one.
...speaking of things I'd prefer not to put a new vehicle through, how about Mirror Gulch?
This was taken after I went through the gulch. The toughest part was the lack of width at the far end of this picture. The ledge at the forefront of this picture is also the ledge below.
This wasn't so easy either. The sides of the ledge raised the H2 out of width danger, and I barely caught the nerf bar on the right side.
Golden Spike
Golden Spike consists of Poison Spider (a ride I had done many times on my bike), Golden Spike and Gold Bar Rim. As I drove this, I realized that I had done much of the Spike and Rim on my bike (we were supposed to do only Gold Bar...long story - got lost, ran out of food and water). Having done Poison Spider and watched 4-wheelers struggle with the initial ledges, I was a bit nervous doing them in the H2.
The H2 proved to be made for much of Poison Spider and much of Golden Spike. With the exception of navigating a narrow dry creek bed with trees, it was pretty wide open. The latter half proved to have ledge after ledge that favored a shorter wheelbase, however. Most impressive for the H2 was the Golden Crack. It's longer wheelbase and great angles made what looked like the Grand Canyon quite easily, with only a slight scrape of the rear bumper.
Here are various pictures throughout this trail:
Ryan and Reed - typical 4-wheeling scene in Moab
H2 - typical 4-wheeling scene in Moab
One of the first obstacles after the ledges on Poison Spider is the Wedgie. Fortunately, if you like the paint job on your vehicle, there is an easy bypass on the left. Brian realized that his tires were so large that he couldn't possibly do damage to his paint.
For a part of the trail, you run the rim above the highway. It's a long way down there, so if you park on the top, make sure of your footing.
There are many different ledges that are challenging on Golden Spike. The Hummer takes a few easily, while some of the really tough ones required a man-made bridge to avoid scraping metal.
That's more air than I get skiing!
Speaking of air skiing, Brad goes off a ledge that I would actually do on skis, but not in the H2:
And, then there is the Crack. After 10.7 miles on trail, you come to an obstacle with no bypass. No pictures of the H2 here, but it handled it fine. Below, Brian gets back in to try to coax his 3-wheel drive Jeep up the crack (big ledge earlier in the trail took out the oomph in his right rear wheel - which as you can see, he desperately needs that wheel here).
This site was last updated 05/05/04