Pumpkin Eater / Achy Breaky run

[Desert Jewel]

You rubbed tiger balm on that trail's nuts!

Watch Stuart in this video...he's about ready to crap his pants thinking the Spirit is gonna land on the Monkey!!

[Mike]

Pumpkin Eater eats more than just Pumpkins!

Wow! What a great B-Day run with Jesse and Jewel! After breakfast at Del Taco, we headed cross-country 'straight' to Pumpkin Eater. Being only the second time that I have been to the trail, and only the first time in the day-light, I was surprised at how short the trail actually is. Even so, as Desert Jewel said, we spent almost 4 hours getting the five Jeeps through the canyon and to the top.

Here's some highlights from my camera:

Jesse on the waterfall:


Jeep Virgin on the waterfall:


Desert Jewel on the waterfall:


I had the old camera, so the video isn't as good, but here is a vid of Julie using momentum to beat the fall (we all had to use this technique quite a bit on this trail):


I like this vid of Max on the fall with Kurt filming until Max slides sideways, then Kurt disappears!:


Max making it up the waterfall:


The Kodiak Spirit taking a nap:


Jesse unscathed:


Jesse waiting for the for the winch Jeeps to get into position:


Julie braces the Desert Jewel at the top of the Squeeze, while Max heads out to a better position for uprighting the Kodiak Spirit:


Max's winch uprights the Kodiak Spirit:


A smokey start up:


The new and improved Jeep Virgin (aka Anal Monkey) did great! I'm pretty sure that the reason that Stuart still uses 'Jeep Virgin' is that every time he hits the trail, the Jeep has been rebuilt. Every run is a Virgin run! :


Everyone struggled at the notch that Jesse flopped at:


After the notch, Max got high centered and memories of Barney came to mind, so he winched himself up off the rock. It was one of the hardest pulls that I've seen:


Max at the Squeeze:


While we had lunch at the top of the trail, we watched another group start up the trail:


We watched the monster-built 'Yota at the front of the line cruise through the trail with only a little trouble at the falls. That is, UNTIL he got to the notch that Jesse flopped at. We watched for quite a while (and giggled some) as he struggled to get that well-built beast through the nasty spot. After watching several tries without success, we saddled up and explored the Achy Breaky trail.

The V-Notch on Achy Breaky is great fun:






The trail has lots of steep climbs and descents. The trail that we took led to the top of Watkins Peak just before sunset:


The sunset views were wonderful:






All my pics and vids can be seen here:
http://s139.photobucket.com/albums/q...-09/?start=all

Pumpkin Eater is a real ball-buster of a trail. I hear from the folks that have driven it before that it has definitely gotten tougher than in the past. I can say that it is one of the toughest trails that I have ever made it though. Loose dirt and loose rocks make the uphill run super challenging.

Thanks to Julie and Jesse for a great day. Happy Birthday to both of you! Thanks for inviting me to join you.

[Geebo]

Dang!! well you all look ya had a blast,was really nice out heh? Thanks for the pic,s, and video,s the Kodiak Spirit went over ..glad to hear ya,ll are ok..Geeb

[RAT]

OK, I took WAY too many pictures. Just finished downloading all of them. Heres a few and the rest are here:http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...unkin%20eater/

Max doin what he does best (other than stackin rocks)


Hmmm, what's that banging noise back there?


What?


Mr. Green




Takin a break


V Notch on Achy Breaky







Steep hills all over the place

At the bottom




Shadow Jeepin

[aw12345]

Looks like you all had a great trail, to bad I needed to sleep in badly to much dental happiness and the 3 hour visit on Friday to the said dentist did not help any. Had my fun at night though. will have to try pumkin eater sometime soon just for good measure. This is the second time I missed it. I guess 3 times ought to be a charm.
By the way great pictures and video and an awesome flop

[Ol Man]

Man, looks like you guys had a great time. We were there the previous weekend.

Nice to see Stu's rig back on the trail. Wonder when Andrew's rig will be done?

Rich

[Willard]

Gawd that is a gnarly trail!!!!

[Mitch]

Great pictures. I really like the photo from Kurt with the Jeep shadow on the rock.

Mitch

[Rubigirl]

really enjoyed the pic's and right up, looks like a blast! thanks for sharing.

[brokenujoint]

not the best but on request.

[IMG][/IMG]

[RAT]

not the best but on request.

[IMG][/IMG]

Who ARE those two handsome Devils? :devil::devil:

[RAT]

Yep, no doubt about it, Jesse really must have rubbed Tiger Balm on that trails jewels cuz it was a leeetle bit teed off at someone that day. But the driving done by everyone was very good; if anyone would'nt have been paying attention this could have really been ugly. Good job everyone.

[Kodiak Spirit]

Thanks for posting up the pic's and video, its awesome! I wonder how much that Rock Hard cage really helped? ... I am sure glad I bolted it in there though!

[Ol Man]

Just a clarification on the trail you guys ran. The second canyon you ran is still part of Pumpkin Eater. Achy Breaky crosses the canyon at the beginning and goes up the hill. Pumkin Eater drops into the wash and follows it and then does some fun stuff. Achy Breaky is a trail run for most 4x's and Pumpkin Eater is the more hard-core. When our club (On the Rocks) used to lead that trail at HDR we called the two canyons the East or West canyon of Pumpkin Eater. To be able to get back to camp at a reasonable hour with a lot of rigs, we broke the group up in half. That V-notch is really stacked now in comparison to what it used to be.

As a history note, the trail was put together by Jason Bunch and Steve Hastings for HDR to try to get some more hard-core trails for the event. May have been about ten years ago, but not sure..

As I said earlier, a few of us were out there the previous weekend. As you go up the V-notch and look straight ahead, there is another canyon. Have taken my rig quite a way up and am trying to see if we can't make a nice addition for the more hard-core folk.

Rich

[RAT]

As you go up the V-notch and look straight ahead, there is another canyon. Have taken my rig quite a way up and am trying to see if we can't make a nice addition for the more hard-core folk.

Rich

As many of us have contemplated. That would be a fantastic addition to Pumpkin Eater.It would be cool to find a way to go up that canyon and drop down the other side by the "staircase"? did I get that one right? Gotta look at Google Earth to see where that canyon actually goes.