Day 3

The Ocala Jeep Club of Florida

Broad Canyon

Editors Note: Four Wheeler Magazine had a great write- up on the Las Cruces trails in its June 1998 issue as it covered the 1998 Chili Challenge. It was fun to compare their observations with what we experienced.

"Broad Canyon: One of the favorite runs every year. If you like crawling big boulders in narrow canyons, this world-class trail is for you. Thrity one inch tires and/or limited slips are required, but most four wheelers will want more equipment, or better yet, experience. This trail is fun, but not easy!" - Four Wheeler Magazine, June 1998.

Broad Canyon is a favorite play spot and site of many Rock Crawling Championships. It is a box canyon that is dominated by the high steep cliffs that ring the floor. We even saw some ancient Indian petroglyph markings high up on the wall!

Because there's almost always a well marked trail in the middle of the canyon, and bypasses around every obstacle, the locals said that Broad Canyon can be has hard or as easy as you want it to be. However, with names like the Snake Pit, Rock and a Hard Place, and Wrong Way Alley, we once again decided to stay off the beaten path and try the harder lines.

Retracing our steps from the previous day, the first obstacle was a large fenceline of boulders that stopped the unprepared. Scott Allen and Bill Lanman showed two different lines through the rocks. Check out the way that Scott's monstrous 42" Swampers stuffed into/through his rear wheelwell!

Located within an open area of the canyon, the Snake Pit is a favorite location for the Rock Crawling Championships. The trail goes through the middle and is easy to negotiate, but there's a large gouged slickrock embankment on one side, and huge rough boulders on the other. The fun part is picking a line through these boulders or up the offcamber sides of the embankment. Scott Allen aimed his Jeep head onto the boulders and was doing a pretty good job of impressing until the sound of a Dana 60 stubshaft shattering echoed in the canyon. Did I mention that it was 107 degrees in the sun that day?

The next real obstacle was the "Rock and a Hard Place" - a Jeep-sized boulder placed smack in the middle of the trail that required you to place the driverside of the Jeep up on a ledge and hope that you don't roll over or scrape the entire side of the Jeep against the rock. The many many Jeep-colored stripes on the rock testified to the skill needed. Thankfully the last rains must have deposited a lot of gravel on the ground, because almost all of us were able to make it around (with a little help from our friends!)

Immediately after the Rock is Wrong Way Alley - about 200 yards of the gnarliest rock garden seen. All of our Jeeps were able to negotiate this without the winch - some with a little more backing-and-filling than others!

The remainder of the trail carried us high up the side of the canyon and onto a narrow Jeep-wide ridge that gave a breathtaking view of the canyons below...inches away from our wheels! We finished up the run early and headed back to the hotel to meet Jim who would be leading some of us on a quick tour of the Chile Canyon trails that we planned to run tomorrow.