we ran the mineral point trail this weekend. two zuks and a 22 took the ant flats road off monte cristo and headed for the hills. we were trying to find a way to connect over to the millville canyon area or even the backside of providence canyon. upon further inspection of the topo maps, it was not very likely that we would be on dirt the whole way because blacksmiths fork runs east west over our suspected north south route, nice paved highway from what i have seen. anyway we ran into some obstacles dug into the trail. they were meant to keep traffic off the road from what i have seen but my contact at the forrest service said nothing about the trial being closed. so we pressed on. it turns out that it comes down into some private property owned by the LDS church but no signs were posted. were were fortunate enough, or not, to run into the care taker who was wondering where the hell we came from because he didn't give us the combo to the front gate at porcupine resevoir.......we told the truth or course and said we came from monte cristo.....we were lost of course because we had no idea where mineral point was until i hit the internet this morning. it was a good thing we ran into the guy because they had the most inclusive 5 foot tall 3 inch schedule 40 fence going across the entire valley and unless you had a tough rig such as our own, you werent making it down the riverbed into the top of the resevoir and out one of the high and dry boat ramps we discovered later. we ran into several areas where someone cut holes out of the trail and filled them with fallen young quakies and such, it made the trail a lot funner!! the 5 foot high 3 foot round boulders re-arranged my sheet metal some but were well worth the effort. we also came accross an old willys wagon off the side of the trail and an old car that i thought was a 55 chevy nomad at first
but realized that it was another car and could care less!! all in all it took us about 6 hours to run the round trip with chad having some starter relay problems that were hard to locate at first, he would drop into one of the holes and kill kill the motor, then it wouldn't even turn over!! we had to track that down and it took about an hour. i had to snatch his zuk out of the same hole three times before we finally got the silly problem fixed. the best part of the trail was when we finally made it down into the riverbed and took the non-optional runs down it. there were a couple 100 yard stretches where you had to drop into the river and run the boulders down until the trail popped out the other side. the yearling brook trout were pissed off but they survived the Swamper/MTR attack!! all in all, if you have anything bigger than a zuk, forget it!! you cannot make two of these trail "modifications". the 5 foot tall boulder was rolled off the hillside into place and we both barely squeezed by with trail rash on both rigs, chad was rolling over into the boulder if i hadn't been pushing his zuk away from the rock as much as possible. the other obstacle was by an old snow-caved cabin where approach and departure angle was at the limits. width and approach and departure angles were the absolute limiting factor on this trail and we barely made it. without the modifications done by the mystery people, this trail would be relatively easy maybe a 3. now it is a full 3.5 for a zuk. here are the pics!!
but realized that it was another car and could care less!! all in all it took us about 6 hours to run the round trip with chad having some starter relay problems that were hard to locate at first, he would drop into one of the holes and kill kill the motor, then it wouldn't even turn over!! we had to track that down and it took about an hour. i had to snatch his zuk out of the same hole three times before we finally got the silly problem fixed. the best part of the trail was when we finally made it down into the riverbed and took the non-optional runs down it. there were a couple 100 yard stretches where you had to drop into the river and run the boulders down until the trail popped out the other side. the yearling brook trout were pissed off but they survived the Swamper/MTR attack!! all in all, if you have anything bigger than a zuk, forget it!! you cannot make two of these trail "modifications". the 5 foot tall boulder was rolled off the hillside into place and we both barely squeezed by with trail rash on both rigs, chad was rolling over into the boulder if i hadn't been pushing his zuk away from the rock as much as possible. the other obstacle was by an old snow-caved cabin where approach and departure angle was at the limits. width and approach and departure angles were the absolute limiting factor on this trail and we barely made it. without the modifications done by the mystery people, this trail would be relatively easy maybe a 3. now it is a full 3.5 for a zuk. here are the pics!!
