To finish off November with some dust or rather mud, we headed out back east and towards Superior to run a trail called Pucker Ridge, and the name was pretty fit for the trail. As usual I found the trail on JeepTheUSA.com’s web site, and it had just the right amount of pucker moments, with a plenty of reward in terms of the views you get as you climb higher.
For this run we had a couple of Samurais and a Grand Vitara show up. It was me in the Grand Vitara, Daniel with his Samurai with Toyota axles and 35’s, and a guy named Rob in his Suzuki Samurai with Old Man Emu springs, 31” tires and a rear locker. Rob is from Mississippi (I think, I may be wrong), he has been following the Zuks of Arizona page for a while, and we extended an invite to him while he’s in the state. Rob and his wife are traveling for the time being in a lifted 4×4 van while towing their Suzuki Samurai on a custom built trailer just for the Samurai, next big stop for them is going to be heading into Mexico and down the Baja Peninsula. Follow Rob’s adventure on Instagram.
Anyway, back to the Pucker Ridge Trail
Since it rained pretty heavily earlier this week, I was expecting the roads to be a mud pit, they weren’t. Granted, there were a plenty of puddles to avoid, and running creeks to cross, the ground was perfect. It was just wet enough to keep the dust completely away, but not wet enough to dig through it.
Pucker Ridge itself was a solid trail, there were a handful of climbs which were on the steep side, a locker and 4×4 low gears came in handy a number of times. Most of the climbs were loose rock, but they weren’t all that eroded which made the trail somewhat on the easier side. There was only one climb which was “puckery”, it was about 35-40 degrees straight up, with a sharp left turn at the top, and you were climbing a ridge, so if you ended up in a squirrely position there would be nothing to fall back on, or an easy place to strap the winch to, but everyone managed to get by it just fine.
Sebastian’s Suzuki Grand Vitara on the Pucker Ridge Trail outside of Superior, AZ. 
Rob in his Suzuki Samurai with Picketpost Mountain in the distance. 
Rob up front in his Suzuki Samurai on 31″ tires, and Daniel in the back in his Suzuki Samurai on 35″ tires and Toyota axles 
Daniel in his Suzuki Samurai getting some body lean on the Pucker Ridge Trail.
We kept on climbing!
The higher we got in altitude the colder it got, we could see snow in the Superstition Mountains and the mountains above Superior. Once we got to the lunch spot recommended by JeepTheUSA.com’s write up, the views were great. All the rain the rain earlier in the week cleaned up the air, so we could pretty clearly see Phoenix in the distance along with Queen Creek and San Tan valley.
A lunch spot with Views
Once we ate lunch with Montana Mountain over the ridge behind us, we continued down the trail. It wasn’t all that busy, we only saw a handful of hunters glassin’ and a few people with side by sides. The trail down forest road 982 was kind of washed out, but wasn’t bad at all. We made pretty good time coming down it, and made a brief stop at the mini Grand Canyon, and the old jail by Barnett Camp.
Rob in his white Suzuki Samurai on the Pucker ridge trail, showing about the worst parts of the trail 
Daniel taking the optional difficult line of the Pucker Ridge Trail 
Daniel in his Suzuki Samurai showing the typical conditions of the Pucker Ridge Trail 
Our group on the Pucker Ridge Trail 
Rob in his white Suzuki Samurai with Superior, AZ in the distance 
Daniel in his lifted Suzuki Samurai on 35″ tires and toyota axles on the Pucker Ridge Trail 
Rob in his Suzuki Samurai on the Pucker Ridge Trail
We were all done, loaded up and aired up by 2:00pm. All in all Pucker Ridge was a great trail and we’ll definitely be back to run it.
All the pictures we took on Pucker Ridge Trail can be seen here in our gallery.