Like so many things this year, Easter Jeep Safari was canceled, but it was one of the first things off the list for off-roaders. We caught up with George Schultz, a member of the Red Rock Four Wheelers to talk, not only about EJS, but also about trail building in Moab. As a second generation wheeler in Moab and part of the founding families, it’s a little bit different perspective. Come take a listen, there is some great insight here.
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to Conversations with Big Rich on your favorite Podcast Player
3:46 – the formation of the Red Rock Four Wheelers
6:45 – Easter Jeep Safari, the early years
11:08 – Slick Rock bike trail was for Motor”bikes”
13:26 – Did you know Potato Salad Hill was part of Hell’s Revenge??
17:17 – digging holes…
21:58 – lesson for today, never trust your older brother
25:57 – trail ratings and how they change
30:34 – the lesson taught by “built or bought”
35:04 – flying through an arch
40:04 – we should all, maybe, follow the rules for wheeling we share with others
51:28 – where do you wheel now?
The record books are going to have an ** next to 2020 as we continue to work through the off-road cancellations. In all the years, EJS has never been canceled and only one trail has been. 2021 needs to be a banner year for our industry to keep everyone and everything afloat. Start prepping now!
We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:54.090]
Big Rich Klein: OK, George, thank you for joining us on Conversations with Big Rich. We’re here to listen to your history and your upbringing in a Four-Wheel Drive family. Tell us about yourself, where you grew up and how you got started and your relationship with your dad and Moab Wheeling.
[00:02:13.170]
George Schultz: Well, I grew up in Moab, Utah. My dad spent quite a few years in Moab. He was a geologist. But before that, he worked in the oil industry, in the geophysical industry, looking for oil. So he spent quite a few years in southeastern Utah, Hanksville, other places, Moab, Blanding, Monticello, that whole area. Even up towards Price, probably during the probably early 70s, mid 70s.
We moved to Texas for a while, then came back to Moab permanently. I’m trying to remember the date probably. Seventy six, something like that. About that time, he kind of switched over to uranium from oil and, you know, he knew most of the area like the back of his hand because of all the exploration. So he kind of he enjoyed that, that aspect of it. It spent time in Alaska and Saudi Arabia where they just trailblazer, you know, where they where they just need to go somewhere to to put down geophones.
Or in that time, they had big, big trucks called vibrators. So they’re just a giant truck that sets down a pad and it vibrates and it creates a signal, sends it back to geophones. It reflects off of of oil. So they you know, geophysicists can tell you where there’s oil. So they were used to just going where they needed to go. Their trucks were just crazy, amazing. Back even back then, they built them to go anywhere.
So when you got to Moab, he really wanted to continue that as a hobby and get other people involved. The uranium downturn kind of caused, he kinda saw that coming. And he loved Moab. We lived there a long time, so he didn’t want to see Moab kind of fall off. So he wanted to get the four wheel bug started and everybody thought that would help tourism as well. So started the Red Rock Four Wheelers but even before he started the Red Rock Four Wheelers, we would go out and scout trails.
So he knew of a two track that went to this claim or went here, went there. And we would try to tie those two together. It was it was every weekend, every day after school, I’d get out of school. Me and my dad would take off in a jeep or whatever, whatever vehicle we had at the time. Truck tried to tie these these things together to make trails. Hell’s Revenge was a big one that took years to put together.
So, yeah, I mean, that’s that’s kind of what probably didn’t cover a lot there for from the beginning. But it took quite a bit to get the Red Rock four wheelers going. It took a lot of momentum to get a few people together and it was always kind of a let down. You know, we would put out a we’re gonna we’re going to do this run or we’re going to go out and do this and we’d get three people. READ MORE
