POISON SPIDER MESA TRAIL 4/22/08
April 22, 2008
We get to the head of the Poison Spider Mesa Trail at a little over 9:00am. The vehicles are all placed into Rock Crawl Mode. Suspension is raised for maximum clearance. Low gears are selected. And we’re off.
My LR3 floats forward, rolling over the first large boulders in our path, skimming over them. The sound of loose rocks can be heard scrunching under the treads. And then an occasional moment of silence as the tires grip the sandstone.
The rock formations are simply stunning. Exotic, petrified sand dunes lift up next to us like the backs of sleeping mammoths. We move over them, around them, up and down them. In the lead LR3, Burns shifts to a manual gear setting as he declines. He also makes use of a special brake/acceleration technique that places both feet on both pedals simultaneously. Control, I quickly learn, is the essence of good off-road driving. And control is what Land Rovers effortlessly provide.
