Hell's Revenge Trail

by The Flatlander for

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Summary: The 4+ rated Hell's Revenge trail exposes great expanses of "Slick Rock" (sandstone) with slopes so steep you will wonder if your tires can maintain traction. The very steep climbs and descents on the slick rock are not for the faint of heart and cannot be bypassed. Hell's Revenge crosses the famous "Slickrock Bike Trail," a mountain-bicycle trail.

Location: The Hell's Revenge trail head is a little over a mile northeast of Moab on Sand Flats Road. Don't miss seeing "America's most scenic dump" (the Moab landfill) along the right just after you top the ridge and the famous Lion's Back on the left just beyond.

Scenery: From high points on the broad expanses of slick rock, views include the La Sal Mountains and more and more slick rock. The lunch break is often taken on a breathtaking overlook of the Colorado River gorge above Highway 128.

The Trail: The first optional obstacle is just off the paving of Sand Flats Road. The "Dump Bump" is the most difficult way to mount the sandstone fin that begins the trail. Your tires may slip a little even on the bypass. After passing through a low area that often stands with a foot or more of water and passing by a ridge that overlooks Lion's back and the Moab Dump, the slick rock fun begins. Steep ascents, sharp turns and steep descents will be the order of the day. Keep the vehicle in front closely in sight or you can get into serious trouble fast. A steep hair-raising descent on a narrow ridge allows no room for error left or right. As you start the decent your 4X4's hood will drop a long way before you can even see the narrow ridge top in front. After that is the Tip-Over Challenge which has seen many a 4X4 rise to the challenge and tip over. The Rubble Trouble Hill leads the way back toward smoother roadway and civilization.

Your trail leader may offer to let you go over and play on Potato Salad Hill either before or after the the main portion of the trail is completed. He will probably advise you that it is no longer an official part of the trail and is very dangerous. Listen to him. Several 4X4s roll there every year and countless more break gears, driveshafts and axles. Potato Salad Hill is a series of gravel covered rock steps that just gets more difficult every year. The name comes from a Potato Salad that bounced out of the back of a pickup that tried the obstacle years ago.

Flatlander's Trail Report, Monday, April 1, 1996:

Click the small pictures to view 640X480X16 million color versions.

Another gorgeous day in Moab. Do they have any other kind of weather? Here we are parking for lunch with the La Sal Mountains in the background.

The view from our lunch stop. Is there any end to this fantastic scenery?

Here we are headed up more slick rock. Hell's Revenge is almost continuous slick rock. The up and down slopes on this stuff that your tires will stick to will amaze you and get your heart pumping too. :-)

Where's the driver? Not in the vehicle. That's him back below taking video of his truck as it crawls up this extremely steep slope. He did the same thing on the steep slope on the way down. This is Marlin of Marlin Crawler showing off his ridiculously low gears that he gets with his special transfer case conversions for Toyotas.

This is Tip Over Challenge. There were a couple of heart stopping moments when two members of our group nearly rose to the challenge and tipped over. Straps and winches were required to get them up upright. But not Dean Waters of the 4X4 Web Page and Offroad Digest shown here in his FJ with 35" rubber. He came up very cleanly and was also one of the few to come up Potato Salad Hill later on.

Here's a front view of a 4X4 coming up the Tip Over Challenge. Nice front wheel travel here. It's much steeper than it looks. The next vehicle back isn't far back horizontally, but he's quite a ways down.

This is the driver's head on view of Potato Salad Hill. It's even rougher and steeper than it looks. This driver is getting strapped up. Potato Salad Hill is no longer an official part of the Hell's Revenge Trail since it is getting so dangerous. One 4X4 already rolled this week.

This is Marlin with his crawl gears again. But you can't crawl Potato Salad as Marlin learned. He keep trying though until he blew his rear differential. I watched about a dozen 4X4s try it while I was there. Three broke (rear diff, drive shaft, rear output coupling), a couple got strapped over the top and one had the sense to stop trying before he broke. Only about half eventually made it. Who was dumb enough to try?

Dumblander er... a... I mean Flatlander makes it! It wasn't real clean but I got up with a little ground guiding from Dean Waters. Dean also made it up without damage.

We had about 50 vehicles on the Hell's Revenge run today. More than 10% will be spending the night seeing if they can get their 4X4s fixed for tomorrows trails. But we all had fun and no one got hurt.

1999 Hell's Revenge Report
1997 Hell's Revenge Report

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