4 days in the wilderness with some old friends, some new friends and chance to loop another another link in the Canyonlands adventure chain. The usual spring excitement around a tour is one thing, another is getting some much needed relief from some stressful home and work times as well. Nothing serious, just usual stuff that kinda of pilled up. I needed to de-stress, let Canyonlands do its healing thing, and help me push a reset button on the season. I couldn’t have been more stoked for this tour.
Lockhart basin is our destination, with some built in time to explore Beef Basin and Needles area when done. Lockhart is sort of a hardcore, truncated white rim, it goes due south from Moab to the Needles district of Canyonlands. Its been on my to do list ever since Wade and I camped at the tail end to do elephant hill for the first time. On paper, it was such an alluring trail; VERY remote, difficult and an A to B, not a loop. I’ll let you in on a secret now; it was all those things and more.
Now, given that I’ve had some, uh, troubles in my past I wanted to make sure both me and the cruiser were ready for action. I no longer had the range limitations that made the Kokopelli a concern and I had sorted any electrical problems that sidelined us in the maze, still to be safe I thought it wise to have my trusted shop give the truck a once over and to add some extended brake lines to the front because with the sway bar disconnected I was stretching the lines too far. This proved to be a huge mistake.
Wednesday - Day 1
We made great time that evening, had another great burger at Rays and made it down to meet our new friends, Brady and Riley. They had found a site for us and given the late arrival we settled right in and went to sleep, excited to wake up and take on Lockhart basin. Nothing much to say, feelings were good, excitement was high.
Thursday - Day 2
Thursday morning after a quick breakfast we started up Kane Springs rd to Hurrah pass, which would be the gateway to the trail and before long we spot out first omen.
This 2wd Ford ranger splash had apparently had a little too much fun rounding the berm here and forgot to brake or they weren’t working well. No one was around and the car looked pretty much intact so we carried on.
Speaking of brakes, it was around here I noticed my brake pedal getting firmer, the brakes getting more sensitive and progress becoming slowed substantially, to the point where I actually shifted into low range just to keep my torque converter from working too hard. I had to stop and investigate, hoping for a simple seized slide pin I could bang on and keep moving. I pulled off the wheel on the hottest rotor and tried to see if I could un-seize the stuck caliper, I finally got some pressure off but it was clear this was going to be a major problem on the trail.
A decision was made to head into town and search for a solution. So far so good.
I had this same problem a few weeks ago and it was diagnosed as a broken booster combined with a stuck caliper and hoping it was just an adjustment and maybe a new caliper away I made it into town, found a shop and had them take a look.
This isn’t the way I wanted to start this trip, but I had built in some safety margin on the timeline so if we lost a day fixing my truck we could still do the trail.
The shop I went to made a simple adjustment, with the caveat that the brake fluid felt wrong and sent me on my way, $10 cash changing hands. I made it 30 minutes up Kane springs and the brakes were ever worse, locking up so bad I had it nearly wide open to maintain 30. Turning around it was so bad that when I got back to the shop the rotors were 450+ degrees and stinking of burnt brakes. Time to break out lunch and have a think. After lunch we devised a plan to make the most of the day while they took a more thorough look at the truck.
We settled on Onion Creek an easy but AMAZINGLY beautiful drive about 45 minutes north of town that takes you into the valley you overlook at top of the world and would have been a part of the Kokopelli trail had we been able to continue. Its a great family or solo destination that will leave your jaw on the floor without beating you or your truck up. What a great diversion. Oh right, thats when I realized I was out of cell phone range. Time to head back towards town and get the word.
The word was not good.
Fluid contamination. Speaking with my shop in Salt Lake I confirmed that there was a mixup with their vendor putting power steering or ATF fluid in their brake flush system. It was caught in time, and cleaned but not well enough it seems. This explains why my I am on my 3rd master cylinder in as many months and why my brakes were locking up. My seals were swollen, preventing fluid from making it back to the reservoir. What this meant was I was going nowhere without a new master, a brake flush and luck.
At 445 PM, 15 minutes before the deadline to ship, I found a shop that could get a re-manufactured MS first thing in the morning. The shop I was at didn’t have any more time to spend on this but luckily I had made a tentative appointment with another shop when I thought it was a caliper. I would use that appointment and have them do the MS. So we left it overnight and went back up Kane Springs...again.
That night at camp was extremely windy and getting cold and Tom, who had broke off from the group to get milk in town hadn’t showed up in camp yet. Toms absence was noticed by me in particular, since he had all my gear, including my coats. It was getting colder all the time and I was in a t-shirt getting hungry and cold. I passed the time walking the road and checking for underwear.
Turns out Tom made it to the campsite but didn’t see us, called on the CB and got no response and then went back into town for some reason. Wade and his boy went to look for him and found him waiting at a gas station. That night, huddled in the spare room offered by Toms tent I slept uneasy. Was Tomorrow going to get better? Or worse?
Would I get the truck fixed? Would we make to Lockhart Basin? Check out part 2 coming soon.