AZLRO Land Rover Rally
March, 2010
Tucson, Arizona
The 2010 AZLRO rally was our first event with the Arizona Land Rover Owners club, and our first time visiting the Tucson area in southern Arizona. The downside was that we didn't know the area and ended up setting the rig up in an RV park on the opposite side of the city. This meant a twenty minute drive to get to the rally headquarters early in the morning.
Staging for the trail runs usually starts at 7:30am, and the earlier you get there, the closer to the head of the line you get behind the trail leader. This means you eat less dust if you want to run with your windows open, something we like to do unless it's raining.
Morning Staging
Taken from across the valley on Redington Road with a 600mm lens.
Chivo Falls Trail
As the name suggests, this trail's terminus was at a small falls (by our standards) located just into Coronado National Forest. The shot of the falls to the right was actually taken several days earlier when we were on our solo amble along Redington Road.
This day's trail run was a perfect example of why you need to be prepared for anything when going out into nature. As you will see from the photos below, the day started out as a beautiful sunny day with warm temperatures, but by about 1:00 in the afternoon it had started clouding over. By the end of the day when we were backtracking along the trail to get back to Tucson, it was raining heavily and cold.
The door lock victims Land Rover Discovery.
On the way back out on the trail we also had an incident that could have been expensive for the vehicle owner. When we got back to the difficult rock climb, most of us got out of our vehicles to go and see how we wanted to ascend the rock face. It was going to be different now because the terrain was drenched, and therefore harder to climb. The problem came when one of the drivers got out of his vehicle, his hand brushed the door armrest where the door locks button was located, and the door locks engaged as the door swung shut. His car was now totally locked, and his keys were still in the ignition of his vehicle.
His question to the group was, "Does anyone know which is the least expensive window to replace on a Discovery?" It was seemingly his only option to get back into his car. Interestingly enough, some months earlier when we were still at home in Vancouver, I was in a store called Princess Auto. They sell everything related to the automotive area. When I was there I saw a tow truck driver kit for breaking into cars. It contained all the bits needed to open the locked door of a vehicle. The kit was only $15.00, so I bought one and just threw it into the Defender for the heck of it.
I told the driver to hang on for a minute and I went back to the Defender and dug out the kit. Pulling out one utensil that is commonly known as a slim-jim, I walked back to the locked car. The driver said that the device I had in my hand wouldn't work because his model of vehicle was built in such a way that it was impervious to attack by such a tool. Now here's the fun bit... my only experience with this tool was that of watching a tow truck driver use one on our vehicle after we had done the exact same thing of brushing the lock button as the door closed. When I got to his vehicle, I bent the end of the slim-jim the way the tow truck driver did, slid it down inside the door and twisted it toward the back of the door and pulled up. The door button popped up and the vehicle was unlocked. It took all of fifteen seconds to do the job.
Well, I was the hero of the day. Everyone thought I was the king of lock breaking. I didn't tell them it was my first ever try at it, and just got really lucky. But by the time we all got back to rally headquarters, everyone in the rally had heard about it. Our trial leader had radioed ahead to spread the news. I was the talk of the rally. It's amazing what a $15.00 piece of China made junk can do for you in the right circumstances. It's been eight years since that fateful day, and I've never used the kit again. But it's sure nice having that piece of kit in the vehicle.
Photos from the Chivo Falls Trail
Gunsight Pass Trail
Bill Burke with his renowned work vehicle.
We chose this trail largely because the trail leader was Bill Burke, a legend in the area of off-road training. Whenever we have the chance to go on a trail with Bill, we take it. There's always something new we can learn from him, and he's just a great guy to hang out with.
Gunsight Pass is not a very difficult trail, but it does get up to an altitude of almost 5000 feet, and has beautiful views of Gunsight Pass and Lopez Pass at the top of the Santa Rita Mountains. Unfortunately a recent mine application in the area has seen the company involved installing gates on the trail road, and blocking access to the full Gunsight Pass Trail. Something that has made the off-roading community very upset.
The view from the top of the Gunsight Pass trail.
