That climb is tricky. We took the comp buggies up there when it was raining in 05 and I figured hey, this doesn't look too bad. Lance Clifford said NO STACKING and we all agreed. Even if someone dug it out, we'd have to do it that way. We also agreed to do the climb "Moab bump" style in order not to dig. Keep in mind it was still wet from the rain and there was a ton of water in the gorge from the flash flood that had turned us around the day before.
FYI, all of us were on DOT rubber tires, no stickeys. I was in the old RockIt, Bec in her RockHer, and Lance in the Diablo II.
I was up first and fell into the damn hole no less than five times...thanks to rear-steer I could back out of the roll/hole pretty easilly, I don't know how others get outta that darn thing.
Bec was behind me laughing the whole way and I was frustrated from not making it and actually eating it over and over. I pulled back and gave her the, "OH YEAH, if you think it's so easy!!!"
She nosed in, bumped it at 1/4 speed and hit reverse just after her back tires hit the wall. She moved over to line up left-to-right and did the same thing. Then she backed up and lined up exactly the way she did on the second try and nailed the throttle. She cleaned that sucker, even with wet tires coming outta the holes in the foot deep water.
Lance looked at me and gave me the "loser" sign.
Bec jumped outta the car and came over to make sure I knew just how much she enjoyed making the climb so easilly.
Kelly (Lance's wife at the time) jumped in the Diablo and lined up for the climb, gave it hell a couple of times without success and suddenly the crawler quit. The battery cable going to the starter had melted on the exhaust manifold and they had no master-kill so the battery within a few seconds was boiling. In a stupid but lucky move, I threw a sweatshirt over the battery and went to work on the bomb, getting it unhooked in about 1.5 minutes...it was the dumbest setup and man, I look back on that and say that was one of the stupidest things I have ever done...a crawler is not worth my life and that battery was SWOLLEN bigtime!
We drug the dead Diablo up the fall with Becca's winch and I nosed in to the wall. I took a "feeler run" on an extreme left to right line and it felt good. I backed up on the same line, then nailed it full-on. It went right up...DANG, why could't I have done that the first time!
Now, with stickeys one year later with everything dry, the wall is easier. Still I'd venture to say it truly is one of the toughest regularly run obstacles in the country.
As for the top fall on Upper Proving Grounds...that one is the scariest I've ever attempted. I played on it unstacked for 15 minutes in the old RockIt until I had bent my left lower rear link too badly to continue. It is a nightmare climb that (as far as I know) only a couple of people (in the Mt Logan K2's) have made without stacking the heck out of...even with a big stack, I've never seen anyone make it except in the video with Johnnie G and one of the Williams Bros.
