Well, I really really wanted to get out and do some wheeling on saturday before the fourth, and since I was gonna be in tahoe, I wanted to hit something peaceful yet challenging like the Deer Valley Trail near Blue Lakes. Only problem is none of my friends have 4x4's, and the ones that do are extreme built Toy's that aren't even close to being street legal. So my buddy talked me into heading to moonrocks near Reno for some extreme 'spectating' ... I don't know if Ill be able to do much in my near stock Monty, though I hear there are a lot of wide open desert terrain owned by BLM so all of it is wheelable and some trails beyond the moonrocks. Has anyone ever been there? Have any advice for some neat trails around the area?

I also want to run deer valley trail sometime soon, so you Norcal Monty owners let me know if this is something you might be interested in. Would like to run it down and back for a full day of wheeling.

Ultimately I would like to be able to tag along with my rockcrawler friends on the Rubicon and maybe even Fordyce. Will 33's, some rock sliders and my rear LSD get me through? I searched rubicon in the archives and some of the vets said this would suffice. My buddy has a shop in shingle springs, so I was thinking about raising the gas tank, but I'm not a welder.

Matt, you can only raise the fuel tank if you've done a body lift. No room otherwise.

Oh ok with a 2" body lift could I gain 3"s of clearance w/ the gas tank?

Yes. Might even be able to get closer to 3 1/2" depending on how you mods the mounts.

Had a blast at the moonrocks, it reminded me a lot like pismo with a lot less people and fun rocks to play on. Didn't take the monty on much of the rocks, but had enough time to show up a stock full size who got stuck on a section that I breezed pass. My friend just bought a competition buggy so I was working on spotting passenger side style rather than wheel my rig too much. He has a caged out 4runner but this was the first time he wheeled the buggy. The first day/night we went to twin peaks in tahoe and wheeled some, then the next night went to moonrocks. here are some pics/vids from the short trip.


my boy's new competition buggy. 39" red label crawlers, 6.0 vortec...sounds so dope. who needs drugs or alcohol when you get to ride in this thing. my friend owns axis automotive & offroad in shingle springs if you need a shop for your rig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua3_PbVkM8E
^^this was when my friend tried the infamous vcrack first time. he failed, but thats because i wasnt spotting <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />. as soon as i got in passenger, we made it up mutliple times. Actually we wheeled evertyhing at moonrocks, our plan is to practice enough to be ready for hammers. the buggy has actually already finished hammers. He rolled it twice at the moonrocks and as soon as it was recovered, it fired right up (burned alot of oil of course) then on the third time, he didnt bump the ignition just tried to start it and the starter [censored]. we towed it back to camp at like 10:30, cranked the engine by hand, and were back out wheeling til the sun came up.


here you can see the beefy rear axle and flipped fourteen bolt. it yields enough clearance. The buggy was built by an auto shop teacher, that would have been a fun class.


heres monty getting some in tahoe.


here's a $1000 toyota pickup crawler thats been rolled hundreds of times towing a 24k buggy back to camp <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />

It was a super fun trip, but I still need some friends with more stock-like trucks to run with!! Any nor-cal monty owners wanna do deer valley trail sometime soon? We can do that and then slickrock or run dvt down and back up for a full day of wheeling. Let me know, Im down .