Little run down of our day....I arrived a bit late to RC and had to wade through a cesspool of Jeeps looking for any Japanese iron. Finally saw two lonely Toyotas sitting in back of the lot where the trailers park. Two rigs I've never seen before.
A very blue FJC, and a third gen 4Runner. Nobody was with the trucks, so I headed inside to pay, which went surprisingly quick considering the crowds. I then came back out to the lot to see two new faces. Avi
@YotaFun, with a friend in the 4Runner, and Blair
@dci blair in the FJC. We made the introductions, aired down, chatted a bit, and decided to head over to the West property. Stopped off and hit a blue trail on the way, I think it was trail 1?
We weren't even two minutes into the trail and I was already stuck.
It was a tight little deep ravine, and I pretty much got wedged into it on my bumpers. Avi pulled out my winch line, strapped to a convenient tree and I was up and out. I decided to have Blair bypass it in with the FJC. Avi made it through with no issues...I chalk it up to good spotting
. I turned around and there were about a dozen people coming up behind us...on foot! I was a bit confused until I saw what most of them were holding in their hands. It was guns, they all had guns!!!
Nah, not guns, they had these!
We stayed and watched them for a good five minutes. So cool! I have been wanting to get into these for some time now, but I know how I am and it could get very consuming. So for now, I'll stick with the 1/1 scale trucks.
We carried on over to the West property and hit trail J1. It's a blue on the map, but marked as a green on the trail. I'd say it's a combo of the two. It's also one of the few one way, downhill only trails at Rausch. Nice trail. Then headed over to hit 19a, down to 19B, and up and around 23. It had been drizzling, but this turned into actual rain. Which in turn made everything slippery, and a bit more challenging. Trail 18a/b was next, another blue. It has a short black section I was tempted to take us on, but decided against it. We did climb up Pizza rock, though. Here's a few more truck pics to break things up, don't recall from what trail.
We all made it through "Smoothie" (don't recall what trail), which is a deepish muddy water crossing, lotta fun. However, when I came across "Milkshake", I wasn't so sure about it. I'd never seen it before. I said, screw it, and gave it a shot. My trucks front wheels dropped in, then the rear wheels, and then I was stuck. The rear bumper was pretty much still on the trail. I think my rear wheels weren't even touching the earth, they were just spinning in the slurry of Milkshake. Blair spooled out his winch, hooked to my rear bumper, and winched me out. This was winch event two...for the record. I think this was the winch's maiden recovery, and I was more than pleased to be part of it's deflowering!
Next up was a nice twisty blue, 10A. It was raining pretty hard by now. Hard enough that I closed my windows. We stopped for a brief lunch under a canopy of trees to help protect us from the rain. I had my hair done the day before, and didn't want Mother Nature messing up my new 'do!
. I think it was either this trail, or maybe it was 12 where this happened
Not the upper part of the door, that was already dented from a tree that jumped onto the trail at the Fall Crawl last year. This time the lower portion got caved in by a root ball! The trail was slick and there was a little section that had about a two foot clay ledge with two trees straddling it. It looked like a simple little climb, nothing too technical or difficult. OK, here we go... front wheels up and over, and all of a sudden I hear the sound of sheet metal popping.
I looked at the trees on each side and don't see them anywhere near my truck. so, I back up a bit, hear more unusual sheet metal noise, and notice the tree on the right is now at quite an angle. I called for Avi to come take a look. The ground was so soft, and the root ball was so exposed, that when I backed up, the tree started to come out of the ground. I was still lodged against the root ball. I could not go forward or back, unless I wanted to damage the rear door or a fender...
Avi unspooled my line for winch event number three (for those who are keeping track). He strapped to a tree on the far left of the truck to try and drag me away from the roots. No such luck. However, Avi noticed how soft the ground was and tried to push the tree over. I said "good luck, Hercules". But, lo and behold, he pushed it over which caused the root ball to pivot up and AWAY from the truck! I was in the clear, and drove up the trail. Thanks, Hercules!
We proceed onto 12B and 12C. Real fun trails. It was getting a little later in the day, maybe 3:00 by now, so I suggested we head back to the lot and maybe hit something on the way out. took a look at the map, and saw a nice blue on the east property, Crawlers Ridge (another trail I've never done!). We crawled up to the top, and it was starting to get foggy. This made for some nice photos!
We got over the top of Crawlers Ridge and carried on down the trail. There was a pretty decent sized boulder on the trail that ended up causing Avi to get high sided. We tried to get him unstuck, but the boulder had other things in mind. I had a set of TRED's with me that I have never used(kept forgetting to put them in the truck). Stuffed them under one front and one rear wheel. It didn't get him out, but one of the TRED's broke! Yup, a big chunk cracked right off. Saying I was less than impressed is an understatement. At that point a very large rotund gent in an orange Rubicon pulled up behind him and winched him back (winch event four, and the final, so you can stop counting now). Jeep owner made the usual snide anti-Toyota comments, all in fun..I guess. He did joke around and said, "It's okay, you can make fun of me for being fat". I told him my first go-to would be to mock the fact his truck is bright orange! Anyway, with the 4Runner freed, we stacked rocks in the holes where Avi's tires were previously, and he climbed right over. Jeep guy said "it gets worse up ahead". He was right, and we had to stack a boatload of rocks to get over another boulder. I think we did trail 2, or maybe some of it? I don't really recall. I was pretty beat by this time, and ready to split. It was after four by now, so we headed back to the lot, aired up, said our goodbyes, and I boogied on home. It was a great day, and I was pleased to be out on the trails with some new members. I think everyone had a blast!
I didn't do my usual job of documenting the run, but here's what I have.
Rausch Creek 10/8/2016
