So the wife and I just returned from another RV/Jeep trip to the San Rafael Swell so the next few posts will be mostly pictures of our adventure last week.
Hope you enjoy the pictures.
We arrived early Saturday afternoon and after getting the coach set up in our site we took off in the Jeep and headed out on some trails that were closer to the town of Green River, UT. I didn't think we would be long and so I didn't air down. What a mistake, rattled my teeth loose in my head and I'm sure it didn't do the Jeep any favors either. I figured it would be a short trail but I should have still aired down and made the ride more comfortable and not rattled things around as much. Lesson learned.
Saturday night a hellacious storm rolled through the area. It started raining just after we returned to the coach from dinner around 6pm and it didn't stop until Sunday morning around 10am. We left our campsite in Green River and headed the 30 miles west to the middle of the Swell thinking that by the time we got there that the rain would quit and being desert, that the ground would **** up the moisture fast and we could continue on with our plans for the day. We aired down as there were some sucker holes poking through the clouds so we thought we would be good to go for the day.
Here we are pulled off the main dirt road airing down.
As we headed towards the trail that I had planned on running the clouds starting gathering again and we continued to climb in elevation until we hit snow.
As we were beginning our descent down into Eagle Canyon, which runs under the I-70 bridges the trail got awfully "gooey" and slimy. The trail dropping down into Eagle Canyon is a narrow shelf road that is slightly off camber towards the floor of the canyon. As we approached the first descent the Jeep slid sideways about a foot or so and gave me reason for pause. The dirt and silt on the road had turned to a slimy paste with all of the moisture and I really didn't like the idea of possibly putting the Jeep on it's lid 60-100 feet down in the canyon or best case scenario, not be able to get up and out of the other side of the canyon due to poor traction.
At this point we opted to turn around and run a trail that we had done before which was much less prone to falling off a canyon wall.
We turned south and dropped in elevation as we headed towards Red's Canyon. This is a MUCH wider canyon and had good road all the way down and quite well groomed for the most part. More like a dirt highway but seeing as how it was more gravel it would also be less muddy and I HATE mud. The views were very spectacular however and we enjoyed this drive very much. The clouds parted for a couple of hours in the early afternoon before gathering again.
Here you can see what was quite common all day where the water from the night before had washed sections away and all of that silt and dirt had been washed onto the dirt road and in some places actually washed sections of the road away.
Here you can see one area where the road is actually part of the dry river bed at the very bottom of the canyon. Luckily being much wider than Eagle Canyon the water and debris had dissipated and spread out rather than being heavily concentrated in a narrow path. Still, the road was disturbed by all of the water and silt washed across it in many places.
On day #2 we opted to try a trail that we had never run before called Copper Globe Canyon or Copper Globe Mine. The weather was complete opposite of day # 1 as there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was in the mid 50's all day. Not quite warm enough to flip the top back on the Jeep but much warmer than the day before and the ground was much less muddy. Only had a few places over the next few days where there were patches of mud that had to be driven through or around.
Here we are just about 6 miles south of I-70 and just arriving at the Copper Globe Mine.
One of the buildings still remaining, somewhat. This mine was active between 1900-1905.
Top view of the same structure from the above picture. In the rear was an exhaust flu from the old stove.
This was an interesting story. The miners opted to construct a smelter on site to melt the copper as it was being extracted from the mine. In the back ground you can see the large pile of firewood that they had gathered to feed the smelter. Unfortunately, the smelter didn't even make it one cycle as the rocks that they used to construct the smelter actually melted before the copper ore so it was in essence only used one time.
More pictures to follow......
Damn, I hate problems that cure themselves and nothing is detected. Maybe just my moving the wire around in the bracket was enough to re-establish a good connection but I tested very thoroughly before disturbing anything and the issue was detectable a couple times but not consistent. After reassembly I could not get it to act up once. I even went back and double checked the wiring to make certain it didn't chafe anywhere and short out to the engine case or metal bracket somewhere. The ONLY thing I did prior to reassembly is pinch the female spade connector just a little bit that slipped onto the coil module as I felt like it came off the spade too easily. 
