WEST COAST 4

The trip started out with the Ron and Paul getting on the road around 1230 on Friday afternoon. We squeaked out of LA with little traffic. The 4Runner ran out of gas just short of Kingsburg and needed a quick refill from the spare can. Then shortly after a storage box blew off the roof rack and sent jackets scattering on the 99 freeway. All equipment was recovered with only some minor 18 wheeler road rash.

Ron and Paul made camp in Dinkey Creek at around 7:30 and Jay and James pulled in about 10:00 or so. I think the camp host heard them arrive. Saturday morning, Vince and George arrived at 8:00 on the money, but we kinda goofed off until a little after 9:00 before heading out.

We headed up to Swamp from the eastern entrance and of course, I made a wrong turn at the same intersection I did last year. Thanks to Jay's GPS and local hunter we got back on track after about ten minutes.

We hit the trail head and aired down. Shortly after starting our climb, Jay had some extra movement out of the rear transfer mount. We assessed the problem and felt it was good enough to make a go at it.

We had a blast wheeling up and threw the re-route and near the top of the granite slab Jay's rear driver's tire bit down too hard on the rock climb and cut a side wall. New tire in short order and back on the climb up to Grouse Lake. Took a short view of the beautiful surroundings and headed into Swamp Lake.

As we scouted the area for enough level ground for our tents, Jay found a couple of four wheelers who directed him down a trail to some lower camp sites closer to the water. (mind you, there are no close to the water camp sights here since the lake is guarded by large boulders) On our way down into the "camp area" we experienced some of the more technical four wheeling with a couple of us finding ourselves high centered at times.

Jay unfortunately broke his pitman arm but the nearby four wheelers had a welder and Jay traded a fuel pump for some welding work. Basically the broken pitman arm was welded back onto the output shaft of the PS box. Nice welding by the way.

Some fishing was had and James caught three and gave them to the other wheelers. It was a nice evening around the campfire and legend has it that a comedian (Jay Man from Tustin) entertained the crowd for hours.

Sunday morning had us rolling out of camp at about 9:00 with a fun hill climb right out of camp. We were having a good time picking our way through the various rocking spots when Vince unfortunately ran atop a large boulder that pushed his radiator into the fan and caused the inevitable outpouring of coolant. George pulled his brother the rest of the way out of the trail.

The trip was a lot of fun and I made some new friends along the way. Thanks to all who attended.