Chromolykid wrote:I use a UTV the exact same way. Coming from a similar background, I've been exploring the desert from Ludlow to Death Valley since I could ride a motorcycle at 3 years old. I raced D37 for a bit and shifted into a 3000 car in MORE and BITD. Modern UTV's have come far and are capable of incredible things. They can get places that a 3/4 ton truck simply can not go, no matter how big the tires or how many lockers. Tight canyons in the desert require a light, nimble, and narrow vehicle that can take a beating. I occasionally take a Can-Am Commander 1000 out to the most remote places to explore. Often times I'm in search of a lost mine or "treasure" from an old story that requires covering a lot of ground. The idea is that the truck and trailer act as a base camp, while the UTV is a recon vehicle that can get anywhere at a quick pace. Same idea as a motorcycle, but with the ability to carry a passenger (usually my Blue Heeler, Enzo) along with an ice chest and tools. Not sure where you're all from, but dust in the Mojave Desert is something we're all used to. Even the railroad plants miles of trees to help prevent the rails from getting sandblasted by the natural wind. You don't know dust until you drop into a silt bed doing 90mph at Vegas to Reno and it pours over the hood like water right before the world goes black
Hey Chromoly, I had that silt over the hood thing happen to me on a race course in UT. It was a S.N.O.R.E race that was held on a weekend that I couldn't get away from work to race the event. So I went out to the pit area the next weekend and ran the course by myself. There was a really tough hill climb that the high horsepower trucks had torn up pretty bad, and they had turned it into a hillclimb covered in 2' deep silt. Most of the silt had been spun down the hill, so at the bottom of the hill the silt was a whole lot deeper than that. I was riding along in my XP 1000 Fox Edition, and saw the hill ahead of me. It looked just about impossible, so I hit the gas hard as soon as I saw it. The hill was in fairly tight trees, so I only had the chance to get up to 30 mph or so. I hit the super deep silt at the bottom of the hill, and my Rzr sunk in so deep that the silt flowed right up over the hood, and over the dash, down on the floor. But I was still moving, so the silt kept coming, like a river of water, and poured in my lap, and then hit me right in the chest. It slammed me back in the seat, and it was like a giant bomb of flour exploded on my chest. POOF! I had been running the course by myself, so hadn't been worried about eating dust. I had my helmet and riding gear on, but no goggles. The Rzr came to a complete stop, and I was sitting there with a foot of silt in my lap, and in the passenger seat, and completely filling the floor boards. I opened my eyes and looked at the rear view mirror, and it just made me laugh. It looked like I had been dipped in thick white flour. Every inch of my body was covered in thick white silt, with two bright eyes looking out. It took me 15 minutes to get enough silt out of the floor boards, the seats, and my clothing to be able to get going again.
One thing that impressed me though, was that at the other end of the course I met two road graders working their way backwards on the course. They were completely grading the roads and repairing any ruts and silt beds that the race vehicles had created, so that the private land owners property wouldn't be damaged by the race.
