The Gauntlet

by Jason Hickey

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The Gauntlet trail is located in Coyote Canyon, which is approx. 10 mi. north of Alamogordo, NM. This trail is part of the Southwest 4WD Association's winter meeting and is usually run one day (Thursday) for this meeting. The trail is kept up by the Desert Mountain 4WD Club of Alamogordo. These are some pictures taken from this years winter meeting along with some other trips made into the canyon.

The first obstacle encountered is Pucker Rock. This is the only obstacle that has a bypass. This rock is an almost guarantee of rocker damage. When this rock gets a little wet it's impassable! Here Mike gets slightly airborne trying to correctly navigate the rock.

On up the arroyo with many ledges to go over, this double ledge presents a challenge. Much like the Double Whammy of Moab, both axles seem to hit at the same time, requiring a bit of finesse to persuade the vehicle up and over. Here I am giving the Jeep a small bump to overcome the ledges.

This is the Swimming Hole. It always has some water in the area right below the rock outcropping. This was our biggest challenge to build thus far in this canyon. Having been rebuilt 3 times because of floods (hence the tree limbs) it continues to be fun. The beginning of the ramp is off camber and tapers out to be level, but is just wide enough at the top to accommodate a full size rig. That's about a 10-12' drop on the drivers side, for an adrenaline rush. This is Mike in his '72 Bronco going right on up the Swimming Hole.

The Wall. This has probably given the lower, under geared, vehicles the most problems. As you can see it is better than a 60 degree angle and about 6' tall.We've had more breaks, fires, you name it, here, than anywhere else in the canyon. This is Monte Hoover's worked over Scout, making a successful attempt.

This is Bruce Holmberg's Scout, he came down from Moab and was thrilled at what the canyons of the Southwest had to offer. Here Bruce gets a little close with his rocker panel in his attempt at another unnamed ledge, in the Gauntlet.

Here's a picture of a small portion of the arroyo. You can see that once you're in, there's nowhere to go. If you break hard, better find an airlift of some sort. There is an emergency escape ramp just to left of the blue Bronco.

This our 2nd Swimming Hole. Much like the first but, on the opposite side, so the passenger gets a good look at the long way down. Here our Pres. Bill Lance takes his highly modified Scout II, right on up, although his shotgunner doesn't look too thrilled.

We haven't come up with a name for this obstacle yet, other than The Last One, Phew! This Bronco from Colorado came down for the winter meeting and was awe struck by the amount of ledges and obstacles in less than a mile of trail. A thumbs up for The Gauntlet.

We've had the Las Cruces Club come up and drive The Gauntlet and get their praises; Definitely a top notch hard core trail. We've even heard that this trail is as hard or harder than the Guardian trail in 'Cruces. To get more info on this and other trails in the Alamogordo area contact Bill Lance by mail at: P.O Box 4221 Alamogordo, NM 88311, or Brian Blessing at briantb@wayfarer1.com.

Submitted by Jason Hickey, '82 CJ-7

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