Farmington New Mexico is one the best Wheeling spots I have ever been too. Chokecherry Canyon as it is referred too, is a massive area combined with slick rock and sand. Located off of Pinion Hills Blvd it is easy to find.  The climbs here are as big as they get. The area is mixed with hard to find trails, and open playground areas. I had been there a couple times before, and just drove around and played in the open areas. It was not until we met some locals, we discovered all the trails throughout the pinion and juniper forest. Most of the trails are short and technical, my favorites include, The waterfall trail, RJ’s trail, Harold’s Highway, and Gladiator, but there are so many more, including the Highway trail, which is pretty burley!  Last spring we made it down for a weekend of wheeling. The day started off on the Garage trail.

Here is a nasty little gully that will fully flex you out, and put your cage into a rock at the same time. I ended up shearing off one of my high steer bolts, sticky tires combined with the extreme traction of the Farmington slick rock make it hard on parts.  We found a bolt, fixed my steering and headed on over to the waterfall trail.

Brad and Nate started heading up the waterfall trail.

 

Doug is in his TJ with 35’s, despite usually being the smallest rig, he never lets it slow him down.  This is a line near the bottom of the trail that worked best for Doug.

 

The trail starts with a couple big ledges, different wheelbases will hit them differently .  After this the trail heads up to another section that gets tougher, with some broken rock and ledges, it may take a little maneuvering to get through.  Next is the premier obstacle on the trail, a climb that requires stratteling a big crack, while climbing up a steep slick rock climb  .  Everyone started heading up and were doing great , until it was my turn, I remembered having to stay driver pretty far, but I went in pretty hot and ended up way too driver and slid down into the crack sideways!!

Oops, I was on my side hard, and my tranny was sucking air, I needed to be winched out, but I was wedged pretty hard.  After finally getting out, I was glad no oil got into the cylinders in the motor, I topped off the tranny fluid, and did it right this time.

 

 

Up next is a big optional climb to the right, unfortunately Nate broke his pinion out of his rear Dana 60, he took a hard hop and the pinion popped, that’s wheeling.

 

After we all finished the waterfall trail, we headed over to Gladiator, this is a really cool trail, it starts off a series of short steep ledges and climbs .

Once we all up the first section, we made are way to the premier obstacle of Gladiator, which is a very steep climb with a crack on the middle, you will be fully vertical on this obstacle.  Brad from Jimmy’s 4×4 went before I could even take a picture and drove right up.  Seth was next, he came in a little hot and drove right into a backflip!!

Recovery went pretty well considering the situation!  We used one winch to pull him straight up, and another to pull him back.

Once he was back flat we had to pull all the plugs, and clear the engine of oil. We also found he broke his power steering return line off in the flop. We debated running back to the trailers for parts, it was getting late, and Brad had a great idea, let’s use duct tape, so we tried it. Since it was a return line, it had low pressrure, the duct tape worked!  Success! So Seth figured he would try it again?!?

Seth started up it again with only duct tape keeping the fluid in the power steering system, we hooked a strap to him for safety, as he got into the second part of the obstacle he got sideways, we tried everything, but then that horrible sound of the front Dana 60 35 spline outer and joint popping, after looking, he took out his outer stub shaft, and u joint!!  Luckily I was able to stick my hand in and remove the broken parts without tearing the entire hub assembly down, at this point it was dark, everyone was tired, we winched him out and made our way back to the trucks.