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KUMA Adventure Thread!

51K views 232 replies 51 participants last post by  xearth 
#1 ·
This is my new thread designated to my Adventures, weather it's with my truck or not! I will be posting ALOT of pictures! :D

 
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#178 ·
Haha, you are up pretty late! ;) Thanks! If you ever come back out here to visit your family let me know and we can go get hit some trails :p
Will do. PM me your phone #.
 
#179 ·
Next up is the side trail, before heading to our destination we decided to hunt down something my brother spotted a few years ago while on foot. We would have to follow an old trail that is mostly grown over (don't worry I believe in treading lightly) we would head up as much of the trail as we felt comfortable and then walk the rest of the way into the canyon...

Following the heep who clearing couldn't see the road from over his hood :p I eventually got him off the grass again


After getting pretty far up on what still remained we opted that was far enough parked the trucks and began the hike!


We ended up in a canyon that had some pretty high walls but were a bit interesting, felt like something was watching us ;) Bat's most likely!


Believe it or not this shot was w/ my 55 - 200 mm lense at max! :D I loved this shot when I was looking back


An interesting little cactus by it's self


What we found was a big hollow rock which had neatly stacked on top was a bunch of rocks, my brother swore there had to be a treasure chest or something under it! Only way we were going to find out was dig! So we did a little digging and found these!


Don't think they are human but we could clearly see where there had been a fire under the rock, sorry no pics after getting dirty I didn't want to get my camera dirty... So we replaced everything back in it's original spot and cleaned off our hands and started heading back to the trucks but I had to get a shot of this huge bolder on the edge it had to be 3 times the size of our trucks


Finally back to the trucks we started turning around and I snapped a pic of my dad's winch for whoever it was who asked, I don't have a winch but he does and it's a warn power plant 9500! The top is an air compressor!


Getting turned around in the brush


My dad almost tipped his jeep over right after this, he couldn't see a big loose rock on the right side right infront of his tires and the jeep litterally was on two wheels!


I will post more in just a few!
 
#180 ·
Next up we hit our final location and our main spot, the sun was almost down and we had to hike alot to check it out so some of the pics turned out pretty bad so sorry!

We parked the rigs and started on foot about half way up I could see it, the mine shoot we wanted to get too!


The road was impossible so much of it had been washed out and rocks have rolled down it that I wouldn't even try offroading that road unless I was in a buggy! But as we continued we spotted this and was baffled by it!


The walls were almost an inch thick! I have a pic of my brothers finger next to wall so you can see how thick it is but it blurred pretty bad, should have been more careful with shots :/


My dad thinks it has to do with drilling/mining as it has a squared thread on one end which he said they do on drilling rigs (he use to work for a company called boart longyear who did some diamond drilling and mining all over the world). My brother thought possibly an old bunker bomb casing (the dugway test range is just north of the area and slightly north of that is the air force test base)... I am going to agree with my dad


As we climbed the view was incredible when I got around oneside of the mountain!


Getting close!


And here we are!


So much old wood but we did spot once piece that looked like fresh wood that you would see at a home depot or something which was odd after realized people have not been to this mine in ages!!!


Pretty awesome seeing all this red dirt everywhere!


My dad found this odd rock that had this triangle shaped spots cut out! Sorry blurry pic


At the top above the shoot


Looking in! The rock fell quite a long way! Just a side note if someone thinks a body is down there I wouldn't doubt it, there are sooooooo many mines like this one all over this range and no one would ever know. My dad laughed at one point and yelled "Susan Powell! Are you down there?"


Looking at the back side of the shoot


We then noticed the road that kept going up the mountain almost to the peak and how much effort the put into it!


Looking back down at the canyon, notice the small little house down there! That is where the miners stayed, we found some newspapers in there from 1970! But we did not go to this house this time we did last summer in my blue X before I sold it...


We are only half way up the mountain and this gives you a small perspective of how high we are... remember camera's dont always give you that sense of height!


After going around the area my dad spotted this!


Any idea what it is?


Well realized it's old miners pick wedge in the rock and left there! No handle anywhere around! We talked about it and decided to remove it because this area has been up for debate as being taken over soon by the dugway testing range and we would hate to see something this cool left here and then see the whole area get bombed :(


Gives you perspective of size!


So my brother and I decided to make a mad dash to climb to the top so we could see this interesting road which still goes above even the pic, my dad worked his way down!
 
#181 ·
Night was coming quick and we didn't have time, luckily my brother and I do have some pretty cool flash lights :D I have an LED Lenser that does 90 lumens on 1 AA battery and my brother has a Fenix that does 180 Lumens on of those 1 of those CR-something batteries! We spotted these poles and didn't know what they were at first...


Cool balancing rock


At the top we found this mine and sorry not many more pics... I will get more the next time we go back!


It suddenly became apparent to us what the poles were, they are for a telegraph line! Seriously!


Looking back at the other mine where we found the pick


A view from the top!


Here you can see the telegraph poles all tipped over, we want to follow them down sometime!


Found this old can... Notice no bullet holes? Shows you how remote this place is :D


Looking out toward Nevada!


And thus ends our awesome adventure, hopefully next time the clouds will let me get some better pics and I will have some more fun stuff to report! :D
 
#184 ·
goneMOAB sure thing! :D Need a new lense for that, maybe an all range or something like 18 - 200 mm :p professional aperature! Thanks guys I don't have anymore yet but hopefully soon, when the snow settles!
 
#185 ·
First of all, you did a great job with the photojournalistic approach. It tells a great story. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to take more pics of the people you are with, though. Those are the shots that you and your friends (and more importantly, you and you father) will look back on years from now and re-kindle great memories.

On a side note, did you happen to take a landscape version of this shot? I'd love to use it as a wallpaper on my laptop...

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo200/KUMA-26/KUMA Tactical/11-11-11 Veterans Day/254.jpg

I'm so jealous of you guys that get to live near the desert like that. Being on the east coast is great for some things, but we just don't have the open land like that around here. I'm glad to see you're taking advantage of it, though!
 
#186 ·
I went out on Monday with 3 other Xterra's all of which were 2nd Gen Night Armors ;) ...and 1 jeep who was friends with one of the X owners. The plan was to go all the way around the Great Salt Lake. Here we all are meeting at the Flying J gas station in Tooele... From left to right maXTERRA, KUMA, Blind_Io, Sindicatex, and not sure the jeeps name.


After fueling up we headed for the bombing range, a military base that has 1 road through a live fire range (they close it off when they are doing runs with the jets), this is where we aired down


Next onto the causeway, we stopped to let a train past and it was sure freezing cold when it did


This picture was wayyyyyy over exposed so know that I played with it in photoshop just to show the scenery and liked the way it looked after


We stopped at the Pumps (these were built to move water from when the Great Salt Lake started overflowing one year back quite a number years ago and really haven't been used since... just every once in a while they fire them up and keep them ready)


While we were hanging out and resting for a bit a few of us talked out in the cold


We noticed they put huge amounts of grease in the sections where the cement is, dunno why really but wasn't tar like I thought it was originally


Just about to head out, we go north from here and head towards some cool look outs!


The first look out we got to was this little peak, I am starting to get better at the stitching pictures together... :D this is two pics I took and stitched together manually not bad without a tripod!


Over looking the Great Salt Lake which is very very low at this time!


I got a few shots of each the trucks like this but I figured I would show maXTERRA's custom bumper here


Next I switched to my zoom lense (55 to 200 mm) and snapped this of the little islands out there, it's interesting because this picture without any photoshop you can't see anything because of the bad inversion but with a little adjustment it looks amazing I think


Dog!


Looking back to your right you see The Newfoundland Mountains which is one of favorite places to explore and is pretty remote!


Next up to the next destination, here is Justin about to reach the turn off


Blind_Io looking at me like "What?"


Jeep caught up! :D


The grass was pretty golden it was really nice but still not much color out there... The sky looks great in the pictures but it was pretty gray in some areas.


Hanging out for a moment


These are Pathy rim's that are stealthed, I like it!


More pictures to come later!
 
#187 ·
First of all, you did a great job with the photojournalistic approach. It tells a great story. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to take more pics of the people you are with, though. Those are the shots that you and your friends (and more importantly, you and you father) will look back on years from now and re-kindle great memories.

On a side note, did you happen to take a landscape version of this shot? I'd love to use it as a wallpaper on my laptop...

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo200/KUMA-26/KUMA Tactical/11-11-11 Veterans Day/254.jpg

I'm so jealous of you guys that get to live near the desert like that. Being on the east coast is great for some things, but we just don't have the open land like that around here. I'm glad to see you're taking advantage of it, though!
I think I do somewhere I will look for it and thanks for the tip. My dad and brother kind of hate being photographed usually and my dad thinks I am always bad talking his jeep on the forums which I love his jeep but that trip I didn't photograph as much as I normally do...
 
#188 ·
After climbing a nice accent we ended up on a huge hill where we parked and ate lunch...


This is the view we had of the northern part of the lake!


I walked down the trail and snapped this pic of the jeep so you can see how high up we are on this hill


Great shot of Blind_Io's rig


I really like this one in full size because everything is blurring but when I reduce the size it gets a sharper :( So maybe I will post a full size as a wallpaper for anyone who wants a generic background screen that says offroad.


After a nice little lunch we headed back down and on to the gator mountains I believe is what it is called... Snapped this one of maXTERRA at the top


Everyone following up




I know there isn't much scenery really in these pics and they are mostly the vehicles close ups but at this time of the year there's isn't a ton to really look at until spring


At the peak of the rocks was this nice little survey marker, Dave pointed out this was a place where an eagle likes to come and we could see fur around the area


This time this is the top of the lake which is now dry looking towards promontory point or golden spike.


Turned around and snapped a shot of my rig, I am really digging these lights but am going to drill new holes and move them back a bit when I start wiring them which may be this next coming saturday...


We got some nice dust :p


I like this pic


Finally we reached Kelton which use to be an old ghost town but not much is left just a few stones and an old graveyard


Yet another of my rig


Someone had brought out fake flowers and posted them around each grave area


Stay tuned, post more in just a moment!
 
#189 ·
This was next to the entrance as you enter the fenced off area


William H.




A really old one that is almost gone...


Wood tomb stone


Most of this has been weathered so much you can hardly read it up close you have to stand back


All lined up ready to play


Thinking about submitting this as an XOTM?


Here is a fun picture for you guys, I really played with the lighting on this one :p


Close up of my spare tire, love the Duratracs!


I really like this pic at Elephant rock.


Just something while we were checking the code on Blind's truck


New found friends :p




By the way if you are wondering what Hammer Tone Powdercoating looks like up close here you go...


To end the day we aired back up and then headed to ATK to see their rocket display, they build a lot of the solid rocket motors for most of the NASA rockets and for most of our Military's missles such as the patriot missle I believe...


Quite a collection they have




I should send this one to them :p


I like this one because I caught the birds flying in a V north, I have noticed they are starting to fly north in January that is a not a good sign... seriously I have counted maybe 10 or 11 groups flying north just in the last week I guess we wont get much more of a winter in Utah


Crazy one


All in all a great day!


Welp until next time enjoy these pics :D
 
#191 ·
Have you ever been out to the Spiral Jetty? Its a fun little drive, you go right past ATK to get there.
 
#196 ·
Still editing?
 
#198 ·
They are coming soon... Got my new screen last sunday which makes a huge difference now that I can actually see the picture, just working on getting them all edited before I start posting but it's coming I promise! ;)
 
#199 ·
Alright it has been a while and for good reason, just trying to enjoy summer a little and relax. I will soon be posting pics from goneMOAB! I just wanted to let everything die down but I will try keep post pics over the next few weeks to give an update for everyone too look forward too! :D

So lets start with my most recent adventure, went up to one of my favorite place in American Fork canyon and did Lake Forest Trail with a friend of UXOC. It was a gorgeous morning and crisp!


Stop at Tibble Fork reservoir to air down before hitting the dirt. The mountain in the background is Timpanogos.


The water is soo clear you can see the undergrowth...


Air down


This is Don's rig


Heading up the trail


It looks rocky but it's much worse then you might think


Stopped for a second and talked to a guy who owns Moab Outfitters, he was very nice and asked how we liked the Xterra's and a little bit about the locker.


Working our way up the trail snapped a few pics of Don climbing over a few rocks


I liked both these sooo much that I decided to use both pics. I love my 35 mm prime lense.


Even in late July the green is blooming!


This is almost at the top!


But first we would have to try and get around this... The jeep barely made it through with touching his side on the wall...


We found another way that had a stump in the way we tried to cut out but the wood was soo dense neither a saw nor an axe worked! We had to hug a tree, this after we squeezed past.


Finally we reached the top and setup for lunch next to the lake


Such a perfect day, we had lunch for an hour two in this spot!


I snapped this picture in the water its the reflection of the clouds!


Walked around the lake and looking around


The water was full of these! You would think that it's fish but nope!


Tiger Salamanders!


Butterfly's were out everywhere!


On our way down we took a nice little detour




I ended up snagging my rear diff on a rock and it started leaking. Didn't know until my brother pointed it out the next day, I bought a new BlueTorch Fab diff cover should be here this thursday!


I will post more up later! :D
 
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