Coast to Coast 2000

The story of my Disco can pretty much be seen by the pictures in the Gallery, but this last April I put it to a much more daunting task. The plan was to drive from Maryland here on the East coast to Moab in Utah, meet with others there for a week of off roading then continue west ending up at the Pismo Dunes in California. The trip needless to say was not your average drive from coast to coast.

The drive out to Utah was not much to talk about, it was simply get from point A to point B as fast as possible to meet with some friends in Moab. When we left the house the Disco had roughly 85,000 miles on the clock. We left on a Thursday night and drove through Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, stopping on the Kentucky/Indianapolis border for some sleep as I was about to slip into a coma.

Friday we got up and managed to get through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and most of Kansas before having to stop again for some rest. Saturday we knocked off the rest of the miles and were in our Hotel room in Moab before Midnight.
On Sunday we got up and had some time to kill before the others arrived so we went out and drove around the town trying to see what was what. Moab is a great little town and a must for anyone into four wheeling, hiking or mountain biking. After a run through town we went up to the area where "Hell's Revenge" and "Fins and Things" are to see what we were in for, we didn't venture very far in as our friends were due in town shortly but we got a taste of what the stay in Moab was going to entail.

Our friends Axel Haakonsen, George Saitanis, Sean Wolf, Kristian Meyers, Sean Arney, Umit Cukurel arrived afternoon and after securing rooms and a rental Jeep for Umit (Our Turkish friend) we headed back out for a warm up.

That first afternoon we ran all of "Fins and Things" and part of "Hells Revenge", although Fins and Things is not the most challenging trail in Moab to be found, parts of the trail will certainly get your attention and the trial is very scenic throughout. The part of Hells Revenge we ran was interesting to say the least. At this point we all felt as if we had a good warm up and the sun was getting a bit low in the sky so we headed back to town for some dinner and much needed sleep.

Monday morning we all headed out for "Poison Spider Mesa". The group was a grab bag of Land Rovers ranging in age back to 88 or so. The group consisted of two Classic Range Rovers (One with 350 thousand miles or so), a Defender 110, Three Discoveries ranging in age from 97 to 94 and a brand spanking new Jeep TJ with only 300 miles showing on the clock.

We spent Monday and part of Tuesday running the three trail combination of "Poison Spider Mesa", "Golden Spike" and "Gold Bar Rim". The combination of these three trails is no walk in the park and done usually for the most part by the "Giant deflated tire crowd". The Rovers (and the little TJ) all came out unscathed on Tuesday, and once again we headed back to the lodge for showers and dinner.

Sometime Wednesday two more West Coast friends were supposed to show up and we needed to be back early to meet them so we decided to do an "Easy" trail. Since I hadn't seen any signifigant water since leaving the coast we decided to run the "Kane Creek" trail. "Kane Creek" was a fairly easy trail with many creek crossings and some tricky climbs at the end coming up out of the canyon. Other then my Disco getting a little damp in the back everyone came out without a scratch (Yep,,,even the TJ). We were met at the Lodge by Paul Kleinkramer a friend from Central California who had driven his high mileage Disco down for a couple of days. Then later that evening Ho Chung a friend from Los Angeles came in as well.

By Thursday morning we had decided to run "Pritchett Canyon", a 4+ rated trail that has a reputation for inflicting carnage and then some more carnage... Right from the beggining the rumors seemed to be true, there is a big drop off just a short ways in pretty much sealing the deal and sending you on your way into the canyon. I myself was thinking "I wonder if I can climb that damn thing if we have to turn back" Its named appropriatly "The big nasty drop off".

On this trail the hits just keep on coming and just when you think you might ride along unhindered by rock steps and climbs, another one materializes. The trail offers very few bypasses, and winching points in some areas leave something to be desired. We made it just beyond the "Hot tub" obstacle before the trail took its first victim.... just before the "Suicide Hill". One of the Classics (Not the 350K miler) broke its rear diff and was rendered front wheel drive. This is not the trail to have a front wheel drive Rangie on and progress was slowed from this point. We winched the last truck over the "Suicide Hill" as the sun was setting and set up camp right there in front of the "Rock Pile". We had come prepared to stay the night and I can't say we were exactly roughing it. We had Giant Sausages and enough Tri-Tip to choke a Horse for dinner (Complements of Chef Ho), sat back and laughed about the days events and plotted our attack on the remaining obstacles and the repair of the Rangie whose owner had to drive it back to Texas.

First thing in the morning, we got Sean and his crippled Rangie over the Rock Pile and Ho took him on to the last obstacle (Yellow Hill) while the rest of us got the remaining trucks over. The last obstacle is a fairly easy one then all that remained was to limp back to the Lodge and try to get the Rangie patched up (or so we thought). After arriving back at the Lodge Kristian Meyers (Disco owner) says to me "My truck is making a noise from the rear" so we take a peak underneath at the "Rotoflex" (A common problem with older Discos) and all seemed fine so I took it for a drive. The sound is one I know well and signified a broken rear diff. So , now we had two broken trucks.

It was about 5:00 PM by this time and I am calling Bill at Great Basin Rovers to see what he has on hand while Sean took the Rangie to a local shop (Moab Off-Road) and we prepared to pull Kristians diff there in the parking lot. After pulling Kristian's Diff it was quite obvious that the same thing that went wrong with the Rangie was wrong with the Disco, just in the earlier stages. By this time the guys down the street had Sean's apart and were welding up the hole that the broken gears had put in the housing. All that was needed now were some parts and it's 5:30 or so on a Friday evening. I called Bill back and told him what we needed and asked if there was anyway of getting it by morning, he said he would try....
Now... when most people tell you something like that these days, all you end up getting the next days is "SORRY", but not in this case. Bill got the stuff together, went and found the UPS driver in Salt Lake City and by 2:30 PM the next day the two broken trucks were on their way home. As always... the service provided by Great Basin Rovers was nothing short of amazing and I can't thank Bill enough for all the help. Infact, half of the trucks on the trip were riding on parts from Great Basin, including mine.

At this point in the trip everyone said their goodbyes to Heather and I and to each other and split. We had planned to leave for the West Coast with Ho and Umit but decided to stay in Moab one more night and wind down from the days events. Now... after driving over two thousand miles and running some of the most rugged trails that can be found, most people would count their blessings and turn around and go home, but we decided to stick to the plan and continue west.

Saturday morning Heather and I loaded up the Disco, drove out of town and said goodbye to Moab. From Utah we got on I70 once again, and again, heading West. We had planned on staying in Las Vegas for the night but the Disco with a loaded roof rack was standing about 8 feet tall or so and wouldn't fit into any of the nice places in town so we decided to scrap the idea and continue heading west. We stopped Saturday night just inside California, right beside the "World's Largest Thermometer" (Oh boy).

Monday morning we continued west stopping by a Ghost town on the way for some pictures and a stroll down memory lane. We made LA late afternoon in the rain which made for a bad first impression of Southern California but after getting to Ho's business and changing clothes we both felt a little better.

We had a very nice dinner at Ho's house Monday night with him, his family, Umit and John Lee. Shortly after leaving the house the rain turned into marble sized hail and Heather and I had to unload the Disco right in the middle of it in a Hotel parking lot. Needless to say, we were not happy. There isn't supposed to be Hail in California dammit !!!

Umit was supposed to catch a flight back to Istanbul Tuesday afternoon and had yet to see the Pacific Ocean, so when we got up and got the Disco loaded again we went and picked him up at Ho's store. Time was getting low but we managed to get him to the Santa Monica beach (actually hit by wave) and then to the Airport right on time. We said our goodbyes and left Umit at the Terminal heading for our goal of Pismo Beach. By about 5:00 that evening the Disco was on the Beach at Pismo and had got his paws wet. We had been Coast to Coast. So now we had been through Hell ... and after camping for one night on the beach and some riding around on the dunes, it was time to go back.

Around noon on Wednesday we left Pismo heading back to LA to see Ho once more before leaving the Coast, we stopped by briefly said our goodbyes and split.

We were starting to run out of time and still had a few things to see so we left LA without too much sight seeing, I am not much on big cities anyway and LA kinda resembled DC from where we were seeing it. That night we stopped just outside of Vegas again planning on going to Hoover dam in the morning and then on to the grand canyon.

After crossing the Hoover dam the following morning we just kinda made a right at the first trail we found, the trail took us back through the desert into a canyon that narrowed slowly then stopped at a foot trail, the trail led down to the Colorado River (after the dam) and it was a big change to the Colorado River we had seen in Utah. Here the water was crystal clear and the scenery was right on par with everything else we had seen but we didnt have time to take it in for long, it was back in the truck.

We stopped that night on 64 just outside Grand Canyon National Park and continued into the park the following morning. The Grand canyon is the Grand Canyon... anything I say about it will pale in comparison to seeing it so I will just say. If you havn't been there... get in the car and go!!!

Prior to the trip there had been some discussion between Ho and I about going down in the Canyon and we had kinda made a loose plan. Ho had contacted someone on the Havasu Indian Reservation and they had told him we could drive down if we came to the Reservation. So ... I saw yet another trail as we left the park and I hung another right. At this point I am pretty sure Heather wanted to strangle me because we soon found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. I drove almost 100 miles in one direction and didn't see a thing, nothing, no cars, no people, no houses, nothing!!! The road didn't remain a road very long and soon we were going down narrow trails and through gates. Without the GPS we would have been seriously lost. Finally I decided to scrap the idea (Lack of sunlight was a serious factor) and head back. But it would prove to be difficult because we had turned so many times and things are pretty confusing out there. Finally we came to a gate, a gate we hadn't come to before. Heather got out and opened the gate for me and I drove through. As she closed it I read in the rear view mirror "Havasu Reservation No Hunting".

So, we had made it to the Reservation... just not to any part of it that had people, maybe next time.

We drove out in darkness and made it to Flagstaff before stopping for the night. There was just one thing left to do before heading home and that was a Deer Farm that we had spotted a sign for. I think Heather was more excited about that then she was about the grand canyon. The following morning we spent getting groped by spotted Deer trying to mooch some food then it was off for the East coast.

The rest of the trip was just you average very long drive down Historic Route 66, then up 81 back to Maryland ending with the Disco pulling back into my driveway with just shy of 94K on the odometer.

Now... at the beggining of this story I was talking about the "High Mileage" Discovery and I am sure you were thinking you were going to get some info on problems along the way. Little glitches, breakdowns, whatever. Well, that's the point, there weren't any, not one. I myself was very surprised, I mean, if someone did that to me, I would break!!! Shouldn't it have broken?? You would think so, atleast a small problem.

Now.... did the sun roofs rattle??? Yep, they did.

Was the gas mileage poor?? Yep, it was.

Was it like driving a 4x4 all those miles and not a car?? Yep, it was.

But the main question is:
Did it do everything a Land Rover is Legendary for?? And I say... Yep, it did, and then some.