Day 18: 21 Road The Famous 21 Road, Grand Junction, Colo. Air down, lock in. Dave, Randy, Gary and me. Things were going smooth 'till we got to a small waterfall where between Randy, Doc and me as spotters, we got Dave stuck really bad. [Yeah - my spotters did it all - not my fault - not me - no sir. Only took one winch line forward and another sideways to get me out. It was a really good stuck and we certainly had fun laughing at ourselves. -Dave] We finally figured a way out for Dave, just to watch Doc drive over with ease. My turn looked like a good stuck. Couldn't back up, no traction forward. Just sat there for a while, bumped the starter and my Jeep mysteriously drove over the rock without any problem. Go figure.

The next couple of spots resulted on minor body damage on all three Jeeps. The last big rock climb hung me up hard on my rock rails. Couldn't move, so decided to winch rather than dig out the high lift. After a bad bounce I banged the gas tank hard. At the end of the trail, which was only 7 miles long, we ended up taking two wrong turns out of three possibilities. It was 55 miles back to the trucks. As we loaded the Jeeps we decided to check them over. Gary found a bolt missing on a front hub and Dave looked at Gary's Jeep to find a U-joint cap gone. We drove into Grand Junction to find a room and order some pizza. Gary got up early to install a new axle joint.

Day 19: Montrose and Calamity Canyon On the road to Montrose Co. to find Trevor at McPherson Off Road for directions to Calamity Canyon and Die Trying. After several attempts to find Calamity Canyon and after a few hundred yards into the trail, Gary had another axle joint go bad. We stopped to repair it. We decide it was too late, or we are too tired to go on. Back to Montrose for some refreshments and the thought of Die Trying. [John is being kind. In an effort to find the trailhead, I took them on a tour of most of the Western Slope and then some. Once again, I had a GPS and knew exactly where we were - it was the trail that was lost … .. - Dave]

Day 20: Die Trying With better directions to Die Trying, we proceeded to the trail head. Gary is leading, Randy and I in the middle, Dave tail gunning. About 10 feet into the trail, Dave lost a valve stem. Randy and Gary walked up to take a look at the trail, Dave and I pulled the broken stem out, and with a little WD-40 we pop in the new stem without dismounting the tire, air up and move on. The trail looked like it had not been used in a while, and later we found out the last time it was used was Oct. 99. All of the lines were changed from winter snows.

Roc Doc led the way to the first big waterfall. After a couple of tries to find the right line, the Roc Doc went right up. My turn. I couldn't keep on the line. After balancing on my rear tires for what seemed like a minute but was only a couple of seconds, a small branch on a cedar tree saved me from going over backwards. I thanked the tree and winched over the spot. Next up, Woodpecker has the same problem keeping the tires planted, and after some body damage from our little tree, hooked up the cable. We all crawled over a lot of major rock hazards until Roc Doc hooked his left door jam hard on a boulder. If the boulder didn't have a name before, it does now.

The three of us with Randy doing triple spotting duties made it up a strewn 30 degree climb out of the canyon to the last waterfall. With all of us learning tire placement, the waterfall lost to our Swampers abilities. We ended the trail with handshakes and a couple of yells for the fact that we conquered Die Trying in 5 hours, no less! Roc Doc never spooled his winch, Woodpecker did once, I twice. After witnessing Doc's finesse on the rocks, Dave and I are thinking seriously about round springs in our future.