My trail reports, while not as refined as Brian's for the VA trip, goes as follows:
Somehow, we all met up on Hwy 421 heading into Harlan. I was driving in when I got a phone call from Stan to stop, they were filling up at the station I just passed. We hit the grocery and headed to the campground in Putney. We arrived at the Putney side after dark, set up at campsite 3 and sat around our impromptu fire pit consisting of an old wheel borrow and a couple starter logs, story telling until after 2 am.
Rubi woke me at her usual time of 7am for her morning "walk". Breakfast was served up with some fine pancakes and bacon from Heather while I cooked the scrambled eggs while Stan got the caffeine started. We had to head down to the office for camp fees, maps and trail passes. We didn't get heading up the trail until after 10a.
We headed up trail 45 with 2 FJC's, 1 FJ60, 1 FJ62 and the truggy/4rnr. It wasn't long before we started having the series of challenges not offered from the trails. Thomas and Mylene started having some performance issues followed by smoke from under the hood. They had a piece of the wiring harness come loose, getting cooked. After figuring out what happened and having a MASSIVE puff of smoke come out of the tailpipe, they went back to camp to see if they could figure it out. Turned out it was a vacuum hose that, once fixed, got them back on the trail.
We continued until it became apparent that Anthony's 62 wasn't cooling down. We stopped at the top of the hill that wound up being the place where Stan and Heather were married. We figured it was a fine spot to take out Anthony's thermostat, allowing it to cool down first by having some lunch in the shade. With the thermostat removed (it was clearly locked closed), we got it fired up and back on the trail. We worked our way to the Evarts side of the park, hitting the Damnation, Grapevine and Shameless trails before meeting Thomas and Mylene. Then I attempted to follow Thomas up Making Time which is where I did my exhaust modifications.
By then, it was getting time to head back to camp and prepare for dinner. The ladies made a food run and the boys cooked it up when they got back. Quite the feast of steak, burgers, chicken, beans, WAY too much food but it made for a nice lunch on Sunday. We retired to the fire pit with plenty of wood thanks to our neighbors who left us their wood when they left.
Sunday woke to the same breakfast. Thomas and Mylene had to leave early and couldn't hit any trails on Sunday. We all packed up for the day and planned to have the "Sunday" rule implemented, no hard trails. As much as that plan was implemented, we still had plenty of fun causing damage. It starts with James' 60 making a nice, high freq grinding noise when under torque load. Best we could figure, it was coming from the front diff, not ring/pinion, maybe spline, maybe ??? It ran well, didn't appear to impair performance, just sounded bad.
Then, Stan leading the trail, nice tight fire road, his slider snags a branch, attached to the branch is a downed tree which swings out and gouges/scratches/creases his passenger side from front fender to the rear, all on his newly repaired, prep'ed for paint, bodywork on the same side. Being the responsible trail stewards, we prepared to drag this tree off the trail and put it alongside. As Stan applies the gas with the log strapped to the rear bumper, one of the roots of the downed tree starts cutting through the tree next to it. This tree was twice the size of the other tree, ~30-40 ft tall and it starts to fall, heading straight for the roof of James' 60, on a path to make the highlight real of America's Funniest Home Videos. We get Stan stopped just in time as the tree rests in some light branches of another tree.
James runs to rescue his 60 and backs it out of the way while Anthony pushes the tree down, clearly rotted completely through. So, we get to clear both logs from the trail. It wasn't much later that we realized an expensive camera (NOT mine) was left on the rocks of an earlier trail so I decide to put mine if 4-Hi and do my best Ken Block rally demonstration. I recover the camera while we all realize its time for lunch so we plan to head back and find a nice shady spot along the way.
Right as we are breaking for lunch, the weather is clearly changing for the worst. Seeing huge, angry black clouds approaching, we decide to go out the Evarts side to avoid being stuck on the mountain in a heavy rain. Then, it let loose. We get off the mountain fine, air up and start heading back to Putney campground to pack up and head home. Then, my turn again. I get the heavy clanking sound of a broken CV axle on the pavement heading out of Evarts. Pull over and all the bolts holding my inner CV to the outer are completely loosened and free. The last bolt to hold on became bent when it let go and the only way I could put it back together was to cut the head off the bolt to push it through.
So, off to town to look for a decent way to do this. The idiots at O'Reilly's were no help at all. I held a $60 IR die grinder in my hands, cut-off wheels, and asked if they had the arbor to install the cut-off wheels to the grinder...all 4 guys behind the counter didn't even reply, one asking if that will be all for me. I said NO, I need the arbor or none of this stuff does me any good. Nobody could answer my question so out the door we went to Advanced. At least they could understand english there and I picked up a cut-off tool and a hack saw, just in cast I ran out of CO2.
Of course I did, I used the CO2 and impact gun to pull the frozen thermostat bolts, filled up the tires and ran out with about 25% of the bolt left to cut through. Stan has a compressor on his winch so I used that to get most of the way through, knocked the bolt head off with the hammer, pushed it through and installed the rest of the 5 bolts. Checked the other side bolts and away we went to get packed up to leave.
Finally got packed and on the road @~7:30p, headed for home. We caravanned until I split for Hwy 81 and got home right around 2:30a. I had a great time even with all the "issues". Everyone had a great attitude and just rolled with the punches when we encountered each issue. James has been wheeling an FJC (sold) and this was his first trip in his 60, as was Anthony, first time wheeling as a driver and in his first off-roader his 62.
We didn't slow to take any pics so the few times I had a chance, I got some but not as much as I usually do. But, here are a few of the highlights, the rest can be seen at:
Harlan July 17 pictures by mtbcoach - Photobucket
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