TruckHacks - Wheeling Rio Puerco 11 Nov 2007

A buddy of mine and I finally found some "us" time to get out to the Rio Puerco and do some serious wheeling. For those of you unfamiliar with the Rio Puerco, it's a large expanse West of Albuquerque, NM with oddly diverse terrain. There's a bit of something for everyone's rig whether it be rock crawling, duning in Sahara like sands, steep ascents and descents, wildly off-camber crawls etc. In a lot of ways it's very similar to Moab, but just on a smaller scale. There's slickrock, Potato Salad Hill type stuff (Moon Rocks), ledge climbs, and after a good rain, some serious mudding.

One thing about wheeling totally stock full-size trucks is the typically poor approach / departure and breakover angles. Especially if you don't have rock rails. Wheelbase is debatable because sometimes you need a short wheelbase and other times you need a long one. On this trip, if we could clear the bumpers and had the breakover angle, we tackled the obstacle.

Neither of us had an air compressor with us (I know, I know, bad wheelers), so we ran street pressure the entire trip (45 front, 50 rear). For the most part this didn't really factor in except on the ledge climb where it would have been easier airing down. Then again, I took the wrong line after Glenn took the right one and cake walked right up it.

Overall, the trip was an astounding success with minimal carnage to Glenn's '06. The worst carnage was on my side when I forgot I left my Garmin GPSMap 60csx on the hood during a stop at Moon Rocks. She took two tires to the back and was a total loss.

In addition to the pics we took, we also got a lot of awesome video footage. As usual, video and pics just really don't capture the sphincter clenching reality of most obstacles. Dragons Back was steep, slick, and not a lot of margin for error in a full-sized truck with an enormous dropoff on the right.

Click on a picture for a larger, higher resolution view.

The start of the fun stuff	Glenn checking something
Glenn coming up to Dragons Back	Nice off-camber turn on slickrock
Glenn scouting out Dragons Back	Yes, it really is a long way down on the right
After coming through the narrows	Just posing
Just posing	Coming up to Moon Rocks
Slick, steep, irregular	Just posing, didn't have the breakover angle for this one
Discussing the money shot	Glenn getting into position
This took some serious spotting	Just posing
Glenn pretty much in position	We dug that out later
One side	The money shot
Another angle	Bumper didn't clear on ledge climb
Popped the cherry losing the plate bracket on Dragons Back	Misjudged departure angle coming off a ledge
Bent tow hook from Dragons Back	She was face down when she got run over
Poor baby	Look close, bent pins on the MicroSD card slot
Even damaged the batteries