Great day of wheeling, blue sky, no rain....although it was hot enough that a little rain might have been a good thing.
At the trail it was Don and his son in one of his Fj40's, Trevor and a friend in Trevor's Fj40, and me and my wife Heather in my 'whole lot of sheet metal' '95 4runner. A guy by the name of Mike, whom I gave a card to while out on Brighten the Sangre's also showed up, but didn't want to run the trail because he was out of spare birf's. He helped me out with spotting quite a bit while walking with us though (thanks).
We all met up at the start of Independence, at which point I had to convince Don that I showed up to run Liberty and had NO intention of taking my 'runner down Independence.
Everyone talking about all the parts they've broken on this trail was not helping at all. We got to see some rock buggies come up and out the trail while chatting, which was cool because they made it look like anyone could do it. At the end of the day we also got to see Joey Archuleta bring his multi-thousand dollar KOH rig out the exit of patriot. Even this rig had to use the winch to exit, but It wasn't because he was scared to give it some skinny pedal. He beat that rig for a while before almost going over and pulling the winch.
Liberty wasn't too bad, we made it all the way to where patriot and Indy separate, walked both trails, me with my mouth hanging open in awe. Those trails are NASTY!! A-hole and Bunker hill are insane, I watched some videos on youtube when I got home, and still don't believe you can drive something through there. I'll stick to Liberty any day, since there was minimal damage from this trail. I re-arranged my passenger side rocker......again, on the same rock as last time, and put a nasty dent in my front axle (suprised my ring gear is not rubbing). I don't think anyone else had any damage to speak of, but Don's spare tire carrier broke at the end of the day.
Did I mention that it was hot? My wife and I went through a whole gallon jug of ice water. She was spending all her energy gathering rocks to put in our yard, lol. (shhhh! don't tell the forest service)
That's about it, Trevor and I both forgot our cameras, so if there's gonna be pictures, It's up to Don (hint, hint).
