Team Teraflex Trail Run Manti
Team Teraflex Trail Run – Manti
Where: Manti – Sheep Trail
When: August 21-22,2009 (overnight)
The Manti Sheep Trail is getting 
to be one of those staples in life–kinda like carrots and celery, what would life be like without a run up the canyon? This year we had a small group of 3 rigs camp over night. The rest met us at the Temple Hill camp ground in the morning. The weather smiled on us this year, no hail storms at the top of the run, just 70 degree temps and sun. The valley was hot that day with temperatures in the triple digits, so a day on the mountain was a good call. The group of jeeps was diverse as usual: 5 JK’s with “don’t scratch my jeep” written on the owners face, Links award winning scrambler, (which made the trip free of issues) a flat fender with a full compliment of 5 occupants “safely” seated mostly in it’s roomy interior, Dave Cards Crd 60 equipped Tj unlimited, Bobs lets go camping Rubicon, and the no doors for a full view rideTj XJ team.
The trail head is literally a hundred feet outside of town; make a left and you are on the trail. It winds through the trees and climbs continuously for a vertical gain of 5000 feet or so. An older gentleman, one of the locals, talked to us at the gas station in town as we were heading for the trail. He cautioned Brad that taking his beautiful new Jeep up that trail was not a wise thing to do. He warned of rocks and really big ruts in the road, and that it would be slippery and steep in spots. Brad just smiled and said, “Now don’t you stew about us none Mister, me and the fellers here be ready for what ever that trail brings, but mighty obliged for the warning wah hah”. I think that’s how the conversation went, to the best of my recollection. Anyway we went for it fearing nothing but tree branches sticking out in the trail.
The long climb up to Skyline Drive, also known as the Great Western Trail is a continuous pull, a real cooling system test. We stopped a couple of times to let the kids out and cool down the XJ, but no one had any problem at all. The XJ lost a lot of coolant at one stop, and i thought we were going to have to do the RED DAWN thing in the radiator to refill it, but alas we had plenty of water. As we came out of the trees and the views started to open up I remembered why we like this trail so much. It was time to crank some Neil on the mygig stereo and take in some of the most spectacular vistas anywhere. No!, not Neil Diamond, Neil Young dahh, I needed something awesome to complement the visuals, gosh.
The road starts to open up on top and follows the ridge lines while making its way toward the skyline. I found myself staring at a long stretch of winding road begging for a rally. The Jk sucked up anything it hit, no banging, no noise, just an incredibly smooth ride. Was it the Jeep and the Teraflex suspension? Was it my world class driving skills eliciting these results? Suddenly I came back to reality, but where was the rest of the group? Sadly I slowed, stopped, and waited. I wanted more but was denied.
We got the group back together and continued on at a respectable speed. We stopped for lunch at the top of the skyline, about 11k feet. The trip down was much easier. We went across to Ephraim Canyon and down. I missed one turn off for a side trail we saw on the map and kept going down Ephraim Canyon. Link saw the turn and mutinied, he took 6 or 7 rigs and they saw some more country. We were down by 3:30 or so and headed back for home. A swell time was had by all. Not a rough trail despite the warning, but well worth doing. We had a herd of kids with us, it was great, they all had a good time.
The next run will be in Delta Utah. It will be a much harder run, you should plan on having lockers for this one. Last year we went to the same area and had a chance for every one to test their rig and driving skills. Its not a body damage kind of a trail, just technical and challanging. I’ll write up a description shortly, but for now keep the weekend of Sept. 18-19 open for a Man Ride in Delta.
Wood out
