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Saturday March 14, 2015

 

Print out a Rausch Creek map and follow the bouncing shamrock as I regale you with tales of wheeling and adventure.

So, after it was determined that everyone who was going to be there was there, we had a little longer than usual driver's meeting for the newer drivers and guests while Ryan unloaded the only trailered rig of the group.

We decided that since the weather was so great we'd head straight for Snakebite (high high green rated) to let the bigger rigs play a little and the other rigs could follow along on trail B (green green).  I led the group in, with Marlowe as a passenger, followed by Ryan O'C, Ed, and Scott. Once the Snakebite group intersected green trail B, Rich opted to take the green group to Quarry while we finished Snakebite.

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I'm going to start by thanking everyone who turned out for this, it wasn't our biggest event by any stretch but we all know small groups have their benefits.
 
So after a good nights rest on Saturday, aided by a heck of a lot of good campfire food, ribs, steak, slaw, desert, you name it, the four of us left standing for wheeling on Sunday got a pretty early start.  We were all checked in and paid up by about 8:30, the line on Saturday was hideous, it stretched halfway across the parking lot, we had a quick driver's meeting just before 9:00 and hit the trails.  The group consisted of:
Chip Woods, member, TJ on 33's
Rich Martinez, member, JK Rubicon on 35's, with Brooke and Jay as passengers
Ed Salas, member, TJ on 35's, built for 37's
Virgil Moore, member, XJ on 37's I think, with his son Bradley as passenger
 
So grab your Rausch Creek map and follow along on what you missed.  We headed out before the crowds and went straight towards the south property via green B to green E to green S to run the purple (blue-black) portion of Snakebite, which we were going to run Saturday but opted for another trail instead.  We parked for a bit and walked through black Camelback and all of us said "nope".  After that little stroll we headed onto Snakebite headed west-east and just did our thing.  There was one instance, where I admit, I did giggle and clap my hands, that is a great trail, lots and lots of fun.  I was a little envious of the 4:1 transfer cases in the other three rigs, I was probably 50 yards ahead of them the whole time and practically staying on my brakes the whole time to stay that close.  Other than Ed blowing a bead on his passenger front tire the trail was uneventful.  In standard OCC fashion we had him fixed up and running again in no time.
 
After finishing the purple portion of Snakebite, we opted to stay off the rest of the trail which is black, and headed north towards Lake Christy to let the kids stretch their legs and play around a bit.  Getting down into and back out of the beach area was easy enough, and we continued west, running green S backwards for a bit to hit green 21.  Green 21 is a nice, meandering forest trail, great or taking it easy or for a new driver, and takes maybe 20 minutes or so to run.  It has a few little obstacle which we all handled with ease, as well a short black option towards the end which we avoided.  We had the option of continuing onto purple 22, but since it was past noon at this point we opted to head back towards the east property and hit some trails closer to camp.
 
We came out of green 21 onto S, and followed S north easterly and turned right on green S3, then left onto S again, and followed S northerly to green E, to a right on green D, and followed that to Crawler Ridge.  When we got to Crawler Ridge Rich went first, taking a moderate line on the far right, followed by me, Ed, then Virgil.  Ed took a bit of teasing for showing us what line not to take, and I think this was the only part of the day anybody took pictures.  We all made our way back down Crawler Ridge by a variety of lines, with gravity playing a bigger part of getting me down than any sort of finesse or skill, and ended up back on D.  At this point Rich and Virgil took a right onto blue 2 and headed towards Pole Line and Ed and I turned left onto blue 2 and looped around on the west side of D, meeting up with Rich and Virgil on Pole Line.  This was the first time I've run 2 in that direction and I commented on the CB how interesting it is that a trail can be completely different running it in a direction you're not accustomed to.
It was pushing maybe 12:30 or 1:00 at this point and we were all bushed and still needed to pack up and drive home, so we headed down Pole Line to B, taking B back to camp.  We checked out, packed up, and made our way back to our respective homes.
 
A couple of non-wheeling comments; the weather was great, partly sunny, maybe 60, great doors off weather.  And for the nature lovers, there was an abundance of these really cool looking birds that I felt the need to point out whenever we saw them.  Bright bright fire engine red with jet black wings, they really stood out in the green leaves of the trees.  I did a little research on Monday, here's a link: Scarlet Tanager. Funny part is their song, you can hear it in the link, you could hear either them or some other birds all weekend long, and as we were motoring along you hear one of those buggers start to chirp and I'm thinking "uh oh, what's broken; nope, stupid bird" over and over.


Anyway, thanks again to everyone who came out and contributed to a great weekend.

Chip Woods
2014 OCC Ex-President

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Saturday we had two groups head out on the trails. A Black/Red group consisting of Kevin, Dan, and Matt, and a Green/Blue group that I led. We left out of Camp 2 after a drivers meeting just after 9 am. After heading up Cove Road to the end we entered the 101 Area from the back side. There was a tree blocking the trail that we winched out of the way. A short time was spent playing around the 101 Area and we then headed up Timber Trail to Mesh Mash. Half way down Mesh Mash we turned onto Lower Pucker. At the creek crossing the Rover tried to go over too large a rock, but after a little back up everyone made it past and we headed on towards Log Bridge. Log Bridge led us to an intersection where we turned and went down K2. A little sliding and a few rocks rolling down the hill all got down safely. From there we headed down Trickle and at the North end we turned to the North Upper Road Access trail. Once at the top we turned down hill again on Little Rocky Run which led us to Mine Spring Road (aka middle road) where we drove to the base of Winch Only and stopped for lunch. After lunch we headed up Winch Only to Mountain Trail (aka upper road) and back down Cobra to Mine Spring Road again. Then we went up Wahoo! and got back on Mine Spring Road to get to the U Turns. Up U Turn Easy, across Mountain Trail and back down U Turn Hard which put us back on Mine Spring Road again. We followed Mine Spring Road all the way to Berkley Springs and took that up to Pinnacle Ridge Trail. We headed up to and hiked to the Pinnacle Ridge overlook. After a short time we headed back down Pinnacle Ridge Trail and took Canyon back down to the access roads to Camp 2 just after 5 pm. We traveled on 21 trails and 13 miles in eight hours with 6 rigs. A damaged lens and an over heated trans(due to trying to climb in 4hi) and a couple tugs off of logs were all that slowed us down.

 

Bryan Folts 99 Cherokee 33's, locked - passenger/guest- Jim Atwell
Sean Valentine 09 JKU stock with MT's
Roscoe Primrose the little TJ that could 32's open
Charles Gaplin and the girls 94 D90 33's locked
Terry and Sally Dunlap 2010 JK stock with MT's
Virgil and Bradley Moore 98 Cherokee 35's locked

 

Sunday had Preston join the Black/Red group. Virgil, Roscoe, and myself headed out and hit Cobra then followed Mountain Trail to ET where we saw the other group coming up ET. We stopped while they fixed a broken power steering line and Kevin showed his two tail lamps that got ripped off lower on ET. Our small group of 3 headed on to Death Valley and Hard Rock Crawlers trails. We got a ways down the trail when Virgil got pinned against a tree and a rock. After two snatch blocks running the winch cable to his rear bumper we got him pulled out, but not before his tail lamp lens got pulled off. We hiked a little down the trail to see what was coming up and saw that it lead to another rock fall that we didn't want to challenge on Sunday afternoon. So, we turned around and headed back to camp via U Turn Easy.

 

It was a great weekend for wheeling at The Cove! Beautiful weather. I gave Willis and Daniel copies of the trail maps I've made and talked to them about working on the 101 area. I would like to thank Kevin Patterson and Jim Atwell for helping with the breakfast Saturday morning. Also thanks to all who could make it out for this event.

 

Pictures and videos.

 

Happy Motoring,
Bryan Folts
Off-Camber Crawlers 2014 President
www.offcambercrawlers.com
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
540-229-2855

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OCC Trip Report

Sat May 17th

There were 5 members camping on a perfect Friday night.

Chip Woods (member)

Rich Martinez (member), Brooke (member) and Jaye Rey

Ed Salas (member)

Virgil (member) and Bradley

Saturday arrivals:

Grayden Weideman and Katie

Ed Clark

In the morning we made some delicious coffee and various breakfast foods while we waited for the office to open. We were expecting others to arrive but wanted to be near the front of the line as the parking lot was begining to fill fast. We all checked in by 830 and waited for the other members to arrive. Grayden and Ed C. arrived but had to wait in a line the extended well into the parking lot.

After a very efficient driver's meeting, Rich led the group of six rigs to the West property were we ran Trail 10 (blue) and enjoyed the fantastic weather. Near the end of 10 we crossed Rock Creek and began Trail-13B (purple). We were making good progess when Rich heard a sudden, steady hiss. A quick checked revealed a sheared valve stem with the core completly gone. It looked as if some cut it clean off. Chip provided some duct tape that was stuffed into the remnants of the valve stem so Rich could pull forward 50 feet onto a flat area. With everyone's assistance, the wisdom of having a spare tire became apparent as it was called into service.

We continued on Trail-13B to Trail-16 (purple) and had lunch at the intersection with Trai-11. After lunch we took Trail-19B, then Trail-11 to Trail-23 and Trail-18A. We then jumped onto H to head to the South property.

On the way up H was came upon our camping neighbor in his Ford pickup (he gave us all the details of his truck (pos) the night before). He swears he never bottomed-out but had somehow put a whole in his tranny pan(?) He was with his friend in an older Grand Cherokee and they had just extinguished the fire from the tranny oil getting all over the exhaust. Note: I never looked underneath to verify. I asked them if the had a plan to get out and they said they didn't know what to do. So I asked Ed Salas if would pull his truck to the back exit and to the main road. I thought Ed was the best choice because of his heavy duty axles, lower gears and 4.0l torque.

We hooked the Ford up behind Ed and began the climb up H. We had about 1/2 mile to go and Ed didn't have any problems at all. At the top of H I led the OCC group to parking spots while Ed turned the other direction towards the main road. At the main road Ed pulled the Ford into a turnout in the road and I began to disconnect the vehicles. As I went to unhook the Ford, the tow point hook fell off the truck. The bolts had either torn through the frame or holes were bigger than the bolts/washer combination. Either way we were lucky the hook didn't sling-shot towards Ed S. during the pull.

Once we said our goodbyes Ed and I re-joined our OCC group and headed to the South property. On the South side went down E to S-3 and took the un-named blue trail to the backside of Lake Christy. There is a deep mud hole on this route called "black hole". This is the same hole Doug Masnick sank his Badger in Jan 2013. We got our wires crossed and Ed C. took the same line as Doug and found himself stuck in the middle of the mud hole but luckily it was as deep as it could have been. After a quick tug backwards, everyone made it through and we all had to turn around and do it again.

Now back on S-3 we mad our way to more popular side of Lake Christy and had a quick look. From there we head North on E and took the new Topless for Tatas Trail (blue). This is a fun trail,, not very difficult but keeps your attention the whole way. Plus with a name like that, how could we not run it?

After that trail we were all lookng forward to our planned cookout. Once back at camp out came the grills, ribs, steaks, beans, beans, corn, slaw, Texas toast, and beans. As always nothing taste better than a good camp meal. Katie even brought brownies for desert.

I for own had a great time and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere throughout the weekend.

Thank you to everyone who made the trip.

Rich Martinez

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February 1st, 2014 run in Woodbridge, Virginia

The morning started out meeting OCC'ers and non-OCC'ers at Wawa just a mile away from Red Cloud Off Road. In two convoys we migrated over to Red Cloud. The safety brief was completed near 9am and OCC split into two groups. Scott LeLacheur and Josh Maradiaga took a total of eight rigs while I took a total of seven.

Pete Soski '94 YJ
Anne Ward '12 JK Sport
Billy Simons '96 Disco One
Doug Stephens '00 Disco Two
co-pilot George Mithlie
Charles Galpin '94 D90 NAS
Rachel Crash '98 TJ
co-pilot Marty Farrell
Jason Lavender '94 Defender

We headed out along the power lines towards Hayes Gate and ran down Casper. It was more of a snaking course between the trees then any real obstacles, but the crew had an easy drive. We ran through Tango Down and back into Casper. Once we emerged from the trees we went down to the Western side and ran TumbleWeed, Flyer, Navarro, and Breaker. The only non-Sunday drive type driving we experienced was at SLVR (not sure of the acronym). Doug got fouled in a small mud pit and ended up wrapping his exhaust (muffler, interconnect, and resonator) around the rear axle. After a bit of playing in the mud we were able to extract the exhaust and keep moving. The area around SLVR is the only 'fun' area in that section of the park; in my opinion.

The migration from West side was slowed when Billy's Disco decided to stop. After various troubleshooting attempts, the mysterious solution was to simply put the vehicle on level ground. Billy was able to drive his vehicle back to the central camp area and park it. Billy jumped into another vehicle for the next trail.

We had enough time for one more trail before lunch. Moving over to the southeast part of the property we ran Rat6 to Jun's Creek onto Charlie1 loop and towards the exit of Rat6. The last obstacle; a rather narrow pass between two trees with an off camber aspect posed a little entertainment. I slipped through the opening and quickly found my rear axle sliding off a tree root and 'contacting' the passenger rear corner with a tree. Once clear I radioed back a word of caution about the tree-root-slippage-and-hit-the-tree. There was little regard for the word of warning and rig-after-rig proceeded to bounce of the tree. When Billy took his turn, he incurred a slightly disagreeable turn of events. Billy's rear-axle-slide went a little rougher then the rest and smacked hard into the tree. The passenger rear window shattered and significantly damaged the rear quarter panel. Past the unfortunate event, no one was hurt and the vehicle was still road worthy.

We returned to camp for lunch.

The second half of the day..

Pete Soski '94 YJ
Anne Ward '12 JK Sport
Doug Stephens '00 Disco Two
co-pilot George Mithlie
Charles Galpin '94 D90 NAS
Jason Lavender '94 Defender
co-pilot Billy Simons

After a nice lunch provided by RedCloud; $7 for hot dog, hamburger, bag of chips, and a soda, we headed off to northeast part of the property. We ran Sleeper, Sword6, McGiver, and Moose Slop. Moose Slop was a fun time playing in an off camber river bed. After Charles G. was winched out his perdictiment (departure from Moose was too steep at the angle he was entrenched). The rest of the group made it out with a different departure path and liberal use of the skinny pedal.

After the fun of Moose we proceeded down Walker Hill trail toward Hink's Hill. Hink's Hill is a fun hill, not to dissimiliar from K2; off of Trickle at The Cove. We had several rigs attempt the climb, but only a Jeep; a Jeep driven by a woman, was able to conquer Hink's Hill. Super-Kudo's to Anne Ward and her '12 JK which made the monsterous hill submit to her will!

Shortly after Anne's victorious run, one of Red Cloud Staff thought it would be a good idea to attempt Hink's Hill on a 4-wheeler. In short; looking back at that moment, it was not a good idea to do such. On a good note, no one was hurt and the staff member can now practice his welding and body fabrication skills.

After watching a 4 wheeler do a couple of 360's end-over-end crashing down the hill, we composed ourselves and wheeled the rest of trail and returned to camp.

We worked a little on Billy's stubborn ride and it finally started to run right so he was able to leave; like everyone else, under his own power.

Thanks to Scott and Suzzy for putting this ride together! And most importantly, Congratuation to Josh Mardiaga on his recent completion of Marine Corp Basic Training. Josh is now off to California for his advanced training. I wish him all the best!!

~Pete Soski
OCC Member
1994 Black&Tan YJ
  1. New Year's Trip Report Part 3
  2. New Year's Trip Report Part 1
  3. Colossal Canines 2013 Nov 17 at the Cove
  4. Colossal Canines 2013 Nov 16 at the Cove

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