First Tank Trap Trip

We took another weekday trip this past Friday. Maggie's brother and sister in-law came up for a rare visit to see what rock-crawling is all about. I had been wanting to go to a place just outside of Santa Fe called "Tank Trap". The only frustrating thing about the Tank Trap trail is it is a mere 3 miles south east of White Rock. If I could drive strait there it would be a 20 min trip. However due to a small river (the Rio Grande) and an Indian reservation, it is inaccessible except through Santa Fe.

So on Friday morning we drove down to Santa Fe, and out to the Santa Fe National Forest east of town. Finding the trail was an experience as it hadn't been wheeled on in a while. I actually thought ahead and brought some coordinates for the trail and we used the GPS to find it. It worked really well.

Once we got on the trail we quickly realized we were following a dry stream bed. This created a lot of "boulder fields". basically stretches of trail with big rocks that were the stream bed. The trail was relatively flat. This combination made for more of a technical crawling trail. There were only two significant climbs (or drop offs from the direction we drove, and one place where I almost flopped it. The first drop is down a sandy step in the river bed that water has eroded out. The second is at the end and is a pretty big step:


The only hairy spot was when I tried to stay up on the beach side of a water hole. The passenger side tires were in the soft mud in the shallows of the hole, and my drivers tires were on the rocky shore. With everyone in the truck as I climbed over rocks it tipped the passenger side toward the water. It made for an entertaining few moments before I turned into the water and drove out.


Taking Nick and Claire out rock-crawling for the first time was fun. Claire was very scared anytime the truck was not perfectly level and so she decided to watch from outside most of the day. This helped keep the dogs away from the truck. Our two dogs and Nicks dog ran outside for the whole trail, making for some tired, wet and happy dogs.

As you can see in the video, the water is pretty deep. I think I'll leave this trail for the dryer summer months. It was still a great trail that is short enough and close enough to do in an afternoon.

Deuces,

Leni