Cheva Falls
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Story and photos by
Anthony Blair

Cheva Falls
Tucson, Arizona
Trails Rated 3.5

Cheva Falls

Our group started off to Cheva Falls early Saturday morning. There was a total of 5 Jeeps and 2 Blazers. We all met at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. After talking for a few minutes and meeting new people, we headed for Cheva Falls. It took us about 30 minutes to finally get to the trailhead. Once we arrived, we all regrouped and started prepping our vehicles for the trail: airing down, sway bar disconnects and what have ya.

Most of the rough stuff had bypass trails. We sometimes had to work for 10 to 15 minutes to get some of the stock Jeeps up the rock ledges. We even had to winch a few vehicles. There were two vehicles that were equiped with lockers. The white CJ-5 which is owned by Gary and the black CJ-7 which is mine.

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Gary's Jeep is very well-equipped. He has a Dana 44 in the rear and Dana 30 up front. Both axles have 4.56 gears. He has a Detroit Locker in the rear and a True-Track in the front. He is running BFGoodrich 33x12.5 on 15 x 10 inch rims. Gary is getting ready to upgrade to 35 inch tires in the near future. He has the 258 with a header and duel exhaust. This motor sounds and runs like a V-8. He has all the other essentials for four-wheeling like the hi-lift jack, tow straps, spare parts, .... You can view the specs on my Jeep at http://members.aol.com/ablair3386.

The blue CJ-5 in the middle has gotten a 4 inch lift since this photo. This Jeep is owned by Chris and has a 304 under the hood. This Jeep did really well on the trail considering that he has open diffs and no lift. Allthough, that will change in the next few months. Chris is upgrading to 4.56's and lockers.

Cheva Falls

When you really evaluate the trail, Cheva Falls is great for Jeepers that have slightly modified vehicles. (i.e. small lift, larger than stock tires, limited slip) The trail really isn't that hard to run. It's a good trail for people that are weekend warriers. There are only a few places that can really challange a well equiped Jeep.

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The white Wrangler is owned by Rick and the blue CJ-7 is owned by Jeff. Both vehicles are stock. Rick had to work kinda hard on the trail a few times. He made it through most of the obstacles. He did get winched a few times. Rick has also caught the Jeep'in bug. He has already installed a lift and swaybar disconnects since these photos. His stock suspension didn't give him much wheel travel so he was always getting hung up. Like Rick, Jeff also made it through most of the ruff stuff. He took the by pass trails a few times. I'm not sure if he has anything planned for his CJ. I did hear him say something about sway bar disconnects.

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