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- #21
15 hours, but only 90 spots.
Fall Crawl 2021 Registration Going Live 6pm Monday 8/23
- Thread starter Stumpalama
- Start date
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@AWOLDoc todd are you still going? When are you planning on heading up?
@AJR @SFROMAN and I are heading up Thursday after work, hopefully with @raanderson77. @Fort Knox is heading up Thursday during the day.
@AJR @SFROMAN and I are heading up Thursday after work, hopefully with @raanderson77. @Fort Knox is heading up Thursday during the day.
I gotta get my truck done this weekend! New 6 pack nuckles.
Last thing I wanna do is bring the Highlander again. Or maybe I’ll throw some MTs on the Del Sol and have at it!
Last thing I wanna do is bring the Highlander again. Or maybe I’ll throw some MTs on the Del Sol and have at it!
I was planning on heading out Thursday afternoon. If anyone wants to link up to drive up just let me know.
I gotta get my truck done this weekend! New 6 pack nuckles.
Last thing I wanna do is bring the Highlander again. Or maybe I’ll throw some MTs on the Del Sol and have at it!
Are you registered too?!
OK sweet. Looks like Del, Adam and I are gonna meet up in Danville, VA around 5 or 6pm on Thursday.
Secret special vendor registration…. Aka if I go they don’t have to pay to ship the shirts hoodies and hats
Not sure if this will work or not
Green Hell Mustang
Designer, Hack Photographer
One of these days I'm going to make this trip. One of these days.
The photo opportunities are amazing up there at this time of year.
Green Hell Mustang
Designer, Hack Photographer
I know. That alone has me chomping at the bit to get up there.
The timing these past two years hasn't worked in my favor. Mostly just too much going on with work.
There are some tickets for sale on the capital cruiser clubhouse for sale thread
Download the maprika app and download "Cove map by BGORC" for a trail map. I believe that's the only map available.
If anyone wants my spot it’s available. Something just came up and I am not going to be able to make it this weekend. Sorry for the late notice. Let me know if I can assist in transferring it. Not sure how it works. Have a great weekend.
What a trip!! Will be heading out there again for damn sure.
SFROMAN
SILVER Star
Some of the best trails I have been on in the east coast. The best part is they are so close to camp which is great when you brake. Haha
Had some slight issues on the trail. Friday we played in a rock garden for the better part of the day. It must of only been like 50 meters tops but it was pretty knarly stuff. I had to winch abouy 4-6 inches or else I would have had a clean run through it.
After Johny, Adam and I went through, Adam and I decided to try out the backside of the garden which had a killer 6 foot climb between two rocks with a 4 foot deep crack in the middle. Well I fell in and had to get pulled out with multiple winch points. Thanks to all the guys that got me out. I did brake a drive shaft u joint on the crack. Luckily I was barley able to get back to camp in 2 wheel drive with a hole bunch of yanking through some crazy mud holes.
Saturday we took some very cool trails with lots of boulders and with just the right amojny of obstacles spread out to keep it interesting.
Half way through our second or third trail I climb over a huge Boulder in the middle of the trail and when I landed on the back side I broke my driver side knuckle in half. We rigged up my truck to Adam’s 80 and he was able to tow me out on three wheels without any additional damage to the knuckle ball.
The cool part is that I won the worst brake award at the end of the raffle. The event coordinators probably felt bad for me. Haha
They hooked me up with some tow straps from ARB and one of the sponsors of the event, which I thought was pretty cool.
I will post up photos later
Had some slight issues on the trail. Friday we played in a rock garden for the better part of the day. It must of only been like 50 meters tops but it was pretty knarly stuff. I had to winch abouy 4-6 inches or else I would have had a clean run through it.
After Johny, Adam and I went through, Adam and I decided to try out the backside of the garden which had a killer 6 foot climb between two rocks with a 4 foot deep crack in the middle. Well I fell in and had to get pulled out with multiple winch points. Thanks to all the guys that got me out. I did brake a drive shaft u joint on the crack. Luckily I was barley able to get back to camp in 2 wheel drive with a hole bunch of yanking through some crazy mud holes.
Saturday we took some very cool trails with lots of boulders and with just the right amojny of obstacles spread out to keep it interesting.
Half way through our second or third trail I climb over a huge Boulder in the middle of the trail and when I landed on the back side I broke my driver side knuckle in half. We rigged up my truck to Adam’s 80 and he was able to tow me out on three wheels without any additional damage to the knuckle ball.
The cool part is that I won the worst brake award at the end of the raffle. The event coordinators probably felt bad for me. Haha
They hooked me up with some tow straps from ARB and one of the sponsors of the event, which I thought was pretty cool.
I will post up photos later
Fort Knox
SILVER Star
I agree with the others. The trails are pretty awesome. Lots of rocky climbs, some tight trails where the trees tend to bite back, and some mud holes, if you're into that kinda thing. I managed to encounter one such mud hole upon arrival in camp. The first sign for Camp 6 has a left arrow, so I took the left right after the arrow into what would end up being the area where we all camped, but unfortunately that first entrance has a nice little mud hole with a berm that high-centered my trailer. I pulled the 4Runner off the trailer and winched it (with the Tundra attached) backwards out of the hole.
Other than that fiasco, I fared pretty well. I didn't take the bait to hit the craziest parts of the rock garden that Del, Johnny, and Adam hit, so I came out pretty unscathed that first day. The second day, shortly into the trail, my driver's seat decided it had had enough, so it broke. Thanks to some quick thinking by James (I think), we used a ratchet strap between two bars of my roll cage to stabilize the back of the seat and I was back in action. The 4Runner did an awesome job the rest of the day, but I picked a bad line on the way back off the trail and managed to add some new dents to the driver's side on a tree. When I pointed it out to my wife when I got home, she just said "I can't really tell what dents are new anymore."
The raffle went well, as I won the prize that I put my ticket in for, a Viair 300P compressor (along with a couple of other small goodies). Of course, it goes without saying (though I'm sayin' it) that what made the event was the people in attendance. I was super happy to run into several members of the crew that I started going to GSMTR's with back in the early 2000's. Some of them I'd seen at recent events, but a couple I hadn't seen in years. Couple that with hanging out with the ONSC crew and you have the formula for a good time.
Overall, this was an excellent event and one that I'll definitely try to come to each year. Well done CLCC!!!!
Other than that fiasco, I fared pretty well. I didn't take the bait to hit the craziest parts of the rock garden that Del, Johnny, and Adam hit, so I came out pretty unscathed that first day. The second day, shortly into the trail, my driver's seat decided it had had enough, so it broke. Thanks to some quick thinking by James (I think), we used a ratchet strap between two bars of my roll cage to stabilize the back of the seat and I was back in action. The 4Runner did an awesome job the rest of the day, but I picked a bad line on the way back off the trail and managed to add some new dents to the driver's side on a tree. When I pointed it out to my wife when I got home, she just said "I can't really tell what dents are new anymore."
The raffle went well, as I won the prize that I put my ticket in for, a Viair 300P compressor (along with a couple of other small goodies). Of course, it goes without saying (though I'm sayin' it) that what made the event was the people in attendance. I was super happy to run into several members of the crew that I started going to GSMTR's with back in the early 2000's. Some of them I'd seen at recent events, but a couple I hadn't seen in years. Couple that with hanging out with the ONSC crew and you have the formula for a good time.
Overall, this was an excellent event and one that I'll definitely try to come to each year. Well done CLCC!!!!
When I have told folks about Fall Crawl, I mentioned how hard the CLCC guys go...
So in the truest of North Cackalacky fashion, y'all said -
"hold my fúckin' beer."
So in the truest of North Cackalacky fashion, y'all said -
"hold my fúckin' beer."
Last edited:
I didn’t take any pictures so here are a few thousand words. I'll write up Saturday's trails if I have another sleepless night soon...or if I just feel evil and want to make your thumb sore scrolling through another lengthy post.
TLDR: I took some folks on some trails. No real problems. Fun was had.
Fall Crawl 2021 - Day One
While I kept a good distance between the temptation of the hard stuff and myself, since I was in an unarmored truck this time, I still managed to have a blast and got to see a bunch of the trails that I’d never ridden before. I wheeled my stock, white 1996 LX450 with fresh springs and 305/70/16 Toyo AT2's.
I planned my Friday for scouting some easy green trails, alone, to lead a group on on Saturday but 10 trucks had lined up behind me before I had a chance to depart in the morning. That meant I’d stick to what I knew Friday then just wing it with Saturday’s group after getting trail reports from the other folks. So, we had our long winded driver meeting where I checked radios, made introductions, explained some rules, and repeatedly explained that I’ll treat everybody like noobs not out of rudeness but out of caution, at least until we’ve spent some time on the trail. I’ve always felt this is a good attitude for me to have while leading, especially when there are some shiny, expensive trucks behind me; I think it helps pacify the guys who might be lying (about experience, or equipment, or whatever) and shows that I’m considering all as equals from the start with no expectations, or lack of, of anybody. There’s no shame in asking for a spot or some advice when it’s made clear that I want us all to be safe and cover ground instead of wasting time making a recovery or a repair - especially on what should be a simple ride on the easy trails.
We spent the first half of the day going pretty slowly because of this methodology but the second half went much faster once we all got comfortable and drivers learned to pay attention to the lines of the trucks in front and back of them. Even the absolute beginners were feeling really confident by then. We had started by entering the trails on Canyon near the ATV parking lot close to the main office. It threw a small rubble field at us early on that most of us walked right through without any thought but it provided a good lesson for some in the group who had likely never had to pick a line or driven off road. We continued along Canyon with me getting nervous because we'd had a couple hours of rain the night before and were heading to one of my favorite hillclimbs. Now, that part of the country has what us Southerners would call topsoil for dirt, so there was no fear of something like Uwharrie's "red clay fiasco" after a rain but this climb up Canyon starts with a narrow twisty section of hard pack weaving through trees before becoming loose stones on loose dirt before becoming solid rock slabs before ending in even looser dirt and larger rocks, getting steeper the entire time over it's approximately 3/4-mile [placeholder to insert elevation change]. We have nothing like it at Uwharrie, so I was a little nervous to see the condition as we approached. My fears were set aside when we saw that it was dry. I scouted the three options for the proper route entrance then radioed down for the group to proceed with caution...it wasn't a good place to have somebody stop for any reason. Antonio from VA was driving a 2-door Prado diesel and was having some fuel delivery issues that forced him to get out of the truck, open the hood, and manually prime his fuel pump, and he fought like hell to get to the top. I was walking down to the staged group behind me as he was cresting the top in a wall of smoke that was the result of him pushing that engine so hard! Ah, good times and diesel fumes. The rest of the group was able to cautiously walk up the hill and finally relax their fingers.
As we turned left onto Pinnacle, we ran into the ONSC hardcore contingent playing in an area called Bunny. Not a trail so much as a 1/2-acre pile of car-sized boulders. I had mentioned this spot to @GLTHFJ60 the night before. As I approached his truck on the side of the trail I was surprised to see him smiling at me while standing next to the severely damaged remains of what was recently a perfectly fresh and shiny FJ60 driver side body. I prepared to run as I asked him how it was..."Dude! That was EPIC! Thanks for telling us about this place!" Phew. Crisis averted. @Fort Knox , @AJR, @SFROMAN , @mwalls54, @jamesurq, and maybe some others continued to play there while my crew took the Pinnacle trail to the highest spot in the park. We would also see them there on our way back down from the dead end at the top.
The rest of our trip to the “mini-Top of The World” was an uphill climb about 1 mile long over rocks of various sizes. It was also probably the straightest trail in that quadrant of the park. It was a rather uneventful climb, and we parked at the top for the 1/2-mile walk through the tree canopy to the boulders that make up the overlook. I say uneventful, but I did take pause as I drove over the spot where @1428Mike had last year crawled under a 40 to help replace 4 missing driveshaft bolts with @FJCowboy ; that was the last time I got to wheel with him before his passing last month. Our reward for the climb was probably the clearest skies I’ve ever seen at the Cove so the pictures, from those who didn’t leave their phone or camera in their truck, are probably pretty good.
Our trip back down Pinnacle towards Bunny was almost effortless. A different group had radioed me to ask our location because they wanted to make the singletrack climb up the hill and we found them waiting on us at Bunny watching the ONSC hardcore guys still going at it. We arrived just as @sfroman’s bobbed mini was starting his fateful final run of the day. You’ve likely seen the pics by now (posted somewhere above in this thread)
From that point, my group continued our loop and turned down Berkley Springs to the first mud holes of the day. There were a few hidden rocks in there but the mud was mostly shallow water and presented no challenges to any of us. Turning left out of there, we drove service roads to the (thankfully closed) rifle range and eventually picked up Easy Way Down (now aka Not an Easy Way UP) after I scouted what the map said was the trailhead - my broken mirror, side marker, and taillight say otherwise - I thankfully was stopped by a large fallen tree and backed out to find a different route to the trail by cutting through the right side gravel field at the range. NEWU climbed uphill with a few super tight bypasses for anybody who wasn’t lifted more than a few inches; a single ledge halfway up was the chief offender to ‘easy’ status from this point on but the bypasses were still a great challenge for the wide 100’s and the 200 in our group.
A left turn at the top took us away from the blue trails that I’d normally run at the Cove and had us on the easy Mountain Road. Not a twist or turn in sight but some great views of the blues, blacks and reds on the left below us. The only hard part of this trail was finding a place to pull off in the event of oncoming traffic.
We then dropped down onto Moose to start the trip back to camp. Loose rocks and dirt on a pretty steep descent with more than a few tight twists between trees kept us on our toes until we hit the bottom and used Mine Spring Trail to come out below the rifle range to get back to camp. Again, the range was closed, and any trail approach is supposed to be gated if it’s open, but one should always be cautious, and the sudden appearance of the 300-yd targets will definitely get your attention.
That ended the first day.
TLDR: I took some folks on some trails. No real problems. Fun was had.
Fall Crawl 2021 - Day One
While I kept a good distance between the temptation of the hard stuff and myself, since I was in an unarmored truck this time, I still managed to have a blast and got to see a bunch of the trails that I’d never ridden before. I wheeled my stock, white 1996 LX450 with fresh springs and 305/70/16 Toyo AT2's.
I planned my Friday for scouting some easy green trails, alone, to lead a group on on Saturday but 10 trucks had lined up behind me before I had a chance to depart in the morning. That meant I’d stick to what I knew Friday then just wing it with Saturday’s group after getting trail reports from the other folks. So, we had our long winded driver meeting where I checked radios, made introductions, explained some rules, and repeatedly explained that I’ll treat everybody like noobs not out of rudeness but out of caution, at least until we’ve spent some time on the trail. I’ve always felt this is a good attitude for me to have while leading, especially when there are some shiny, expensive trucks behind me; I think it helps pacify the guys who might be lying (about experience, or equipment, or whatever) and shows that I’m considering all as equals from the start with no expectations, or lack of, of anybody. There’s no shame in asking for a spot or some advice when it’s made clear that I want us all to be safe and cover ground instead of wasting time making a recovery or a repair - especially on what should be a simple ride on the easy trails.
We spent the first half of the day going pretty slowly because of this methodology but the second half went much faster once we all got comfortable and drivers learned to pay attention to the lines of the trucks in front and back of them. Even the absolute beginners were feeling really confident by then. We had started by entering the trails on Canyon near the ATV parking lot close to the main office. It threw a small rubble field at us early on that most of us walked right through without any thought but it provided a good lesson for some in the group who had likely never had to pick a line or driven off road. We continued along Canyon with me getting nervous because we'd had a couple hours of rain the night before and were heading to one of my favorite hillclimbs. Now, that part of the country has what us Southerners would call topsoil for dirt, so there was no fear of something like Uwharrie's "red clay fiasco" after a rain but this climb up Canyon starts with a narrow twisty section of hard pack weaving through trees before becoming loose stones on loose dirt before becoming solid rock slabs before ending in even looser dirt and larger rocks, getting steeper the entire time over it's approximately 3/4-mile [placeholder to insert elevation change]. We have nothing like it at Uwharrie, so I was a little nervous to see the condition as we approached. My fears were set aside when we saw that it was dry. I scouted the three options for the proper route entrance then radioed down for the group to proceed with caution...it wasn't a good place to have somebody stop for any reason. Antonio from VA was driving a 2-door Prado diesel and was having some fuel delivery issues that forced him to get out of the truck, open the hood, and manually prime his fuel pump, and he fought like hell to get to the top. I was walking down to the staged group behind me as he was cresting the top in a wall of smoke that was the result of him pushing that engine so hard! Ah, good times and diesel fumes. The rest of the group was able to cautiously walk up the hill and finally relax their fingers.
As we turned left onto Pinnacle, we ran into the ONSC hardcore contingent playing in an area called Bunny. Not a trail so much as a 1/2-acre pile of car-sized boulders. I had mentioned this spot to @GLTHFJ60 the night before. As I approached his truck on the side of the trail I was surprised to see him smiling at me while standing next to the severely damaged remains of what was recently a perfectly fresh and shiny FJ60 driver side body. I prepared to run as I asked him how it was..."Dude! That was EPIC! Thanks for telling us about this place!" Phew. Crisis averted. @Fort Knox , @AJR, @SFROMAN , @mwalls54, @jamesurq, and maybe some others continued to play there while my crew took the Pinnacle trail to the highest spot in the park. We would also see them there on our way back down from the dead end at the top.
The rest of our trip to the “mini-Top of The World” was an uphill climb about 1 mile long over rocks of various sizes. It was also probably the straightest trail in that quadrant of the park. It was a rather uneventful climb, and we parked at the top for the 1/2-mile walk through the tree canopy to the boulders that make up the overlook. I say uneventful, but I did take pause as I drove over the spot where @1428Mike had last year crawled under a 40 to help replace 4 missing driveshaft bolts with @FJCowboy ; that was the last time I got to wheel with him before his passing last month. Our reward for the climb was probably the clearest skies I’ve ever seen at the Cove so the pictures, from those who didn’t leave their phone or camera in their truck, are probably pretty good.
Our trip back down Pinnacle towards Bunny was almost effortless. A different group had radioed me to ask our location because they wanted to make the singletrack climb up the hill and we found them waiting on us at Bunny watching the ONSC hardcore guys still going at it. We arrived just as @sfroman’s bobbed mini was starting his fateful final run of the day. You’ve likely seen the pics by now (posted somewhere above in this thread)
From that point, my group continued our loop and turned down Berkley Springs to the first mud holes of the day. There were a few hidden rocks in there but the mud was mostly shallow water and presented no challenges to any of us. Turning left out of there, we drove service roads to the (thankfully closed) rifle range and eventually picked up Easy Way Down (now aka Not an Easy Way UP) after I scouted what the map said was the trailhead - my broken mirror, side marker, and taillight say otherwise - I thankfully was stopped by a large fallen tree and backed out to find a different route to the trail by cutting through the right side gravel field at the range. NEWU climbed uphill with a few super tight bypasses for anybody who wasn’t lifted more than a few inches; a single ledge halfway up was the chief offender to ‘easy’ status from this point on but the bypasses were still a great challenge for the wide 100’s and the 200 in our group.
A left turn at the top took us away from the blue trails that I’d normally run at the Cove and had us on the easy Mountain Road. Not a twist or turn in sight but some great views of the blues, blacks and reds on the left below us. The only hard part of this trail was finding a place to pull off in the event of oncoming traffic.
We then dropped down onto Moose to start the trip back to camp. Loose rocks and dirt on a pretty steep descent with more than a few tight twists between trees kept us on our toes until we hit the bottom and used Mine Spring Trail to come out below the rifle range to get back to camp. Again, the range was closed, and any trail approach is supposed to be gated if it’s open, but one should always be cautious, and the sudden appearance of the 300-yd targets will definitely get your attention.
That ended the first day.
