Big Bear

March 27

By Wayne Flower

 
I guess I should start by saying that I was bummed at the lack of trips planned for March, so I bugged Jeff M. to lead a run up to Big Bear (or Calico). Jeff got this fine honor because he was a club member and was silly enough to sit next to me (within “volunteerin’ range”).

Jeff did a great job of getting the word out and organizing the trip.

The morning of the trip started off a little slow. John (Black Cherokee), Tom and his buddy Steve (Green(ish) Scrambler), Aaron and his son Gordon (Black Samurai) and myself (Red Samurai) were waiting for our leader/club member/guide, Jeff and his son. After waiting a while we decided to call our missing leader. I was a little surprised when he told me he was still at home. Yikes! We still had other people to meet up on the mountain.

Seems Jeff got his Jeep a few blocks from home before his rear storage rack failed, he decided to stay home, so we loaded up and hit the freeways to meet the rest of the group.

Our next stop was up in Fawnskin where we met up with the rest of our intrepid explorers for this little adventure. Joining our pack was Scott Gomez (Silver Samurai), Morgan (Silver Hartop Samurai), and Mitch and his friend in a stock TJ.

We ended up with 7 rigs; 4 Samurai (SPOA locked and geared), a Scrambler (Big and heavy), a Cherokee (lifter locked and geared - amazing articulation) and a stock TJ (with sway bars attached).

Somehow I was elected as trail boss, I guess because I was the only one that knew where Gold Mountain trail started. I wanted to take Gold Mountain to see how the clubs trail is doing.

I’ve only taken the trail once before, so I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that there was a section that used to have some wire blocking it off, and that the large tree at the bottom used to keep people from going past it..? Otherwise the trail appeared to be clean, and in good shape. We came across a full size Chevy Z71 that commented that he thought we were much better equipped for the trail than he was.

I was able to get rid of my trail boss job when my cooler fell over and killed my occasionally working CB. This was fine by me since I wanted to watch some of the other vehicles hit some obstacles. (Hell, I don’t know why they would want someone with the nickname of “backup” as their trail boss anyhow?)

I don’t think anyone else in the group had taken the Gold Mountain trail before, and I think they liked it once we hit the area that offers some challenge. Nobody had any real trouble with this trail, but the TJ with highway looking 31” tires and open diffs did need to attack things a time or two to get past them.

After Gold Mountain we headed over to John Bull. This trail was a little more fun for the group, right up until we had our first problem. Tom’s big and heavy (compared to a Samurai!) Scrambler smashed a steel rim and lost the tire bead. Some nudging with a large axe and some air pressure and we were moving again. The TJ slipped and slammed across the larger rocks, but did alright thanks to his skid plates and a great attitude.

We had a late lunch on John Bull and had done the normal chatting at every stop along the way. It was starting to get late by the time we got off the trail and Aaron needed to head home, and the Scrambler guys decided they were going to setup camp before it was to dark. But the rest of us decided it was still to early to call it a day. (Especially since three of them drove up from San Diego where they are based on Navy Subs.)

We headed over to Holcomb Creek (spelling?) and took the entire trail. The TJ went out the easy way once we got to the first boulder field. I had never been on that section of the trail, so it was a lot of fun for me.

We played around on some house sized boulders for a while getting some wild air under our tires. The Samurais were just about sitting on their spare tires as the slope was that steep. John showed off the amazing articulation and grunt power that his Cherokee has while Morgan tempted the axle Gods with some bouncing while trying to get up the rock face.

We eventually left the play area and headed down to catch Mitch in the stock TJ at the end of the trail. With night falling, and one more turn into the last boulder field, John failed to see a HUGE boulder and bent his tie-rod. So off came the tie-rod a for a quick rebending, and it actually came out pretty straight!

At this point John and I had originally planned to go pick up our fire wood (we dropped it off at the start of the day) and find Steve and Tom that had gone off to set up camp earlier. The rest of the guys were heading home. We didn’t want to take John’s rig down any tough trails since the tie-rod was already weakened and it was now night. We decided to take 2n13 (I think that’s the number..), but after getting onto the trail, we came across a locked gate part way up the trail. We studied the map some more, and debated on what to do. We weren’t really sure where Tom and Steve would be, so we decided to head on home instead of running around the trails all night looking for them. Heck, for all we knew, they had headed home too. (As it turns out, they did!)

I found out later that  Aaron headed back up  on Sunday hoping to find us. He checked the camp sites and hit some trails. He reported that only one campground was open. Needless to say he didn’t find us, but I understand that he had some fun on the trails anyway.

I think that everyone had a great time, and I know that I’m looking forward to hitting some more trails. Maybe we can get some club members to join us next time. :-)