RC camping and wheeling 10/25-10/27 maybe AOAA one day (1 Viewer)

[Cass007]

Great day yesterday. Nice to see Joe, JJ and Brian again as well as Greg (El Dahs) even though I thought he left us to become a Ford guy. Got to meet Wayne (gearwrench) and his friend Mike and Brian's friend Nate.

The drive up was great. Perfect weather and the leaves are turning ... neat.

Quick meetup in the lot before we got sorted to head out. Then Joe decides at the last min to swap leader and tail gunner spots with Greg. Ok, so let's just all start off with something low key. So many good trails to choose from, which one seems good ... got it ... let's do J. I'm in the middle with no CB just following along happily and then I see Greg take a big dip and then he's gone. Brian and Wayne follow before I'm close enough to see the trail marker and then there we are, committed.

Greg rolls down unassisted and so quick that by the time Brian realizes how tippy the trail is, Greg is walking up from the bottom. We slooooowwwly figure out how to get Brian and his Taco down without damage.

Joe just giving Brian some words of support as he works around the root that likes to crease body panels.

At this point I'm seriously hoping Wayne will take the bypass and then I can as well without looking like a wuss. No luck. Wayne rolls his FJ down and makes it past the root, but a small rock near the transition to the drivers side lean rocks him over and dimples just behind the rear door on the drivers side.

All of us made it down the trail without major incident. Hoping someone has a pic of my truck in this spot. After taking these few shots I was puckering for my turn. so no more pics here.

 

[Cass007]

Other than the trail in to J I don't think we did a single green trail the entire day. All blues all the time, we did a bunch of trails I haven't done in a long while ... since the last time wheeling with Greg when we did the Krawlin For Cops pre-trail.

I did not GPS the route, benefits of being in the middle, but we covered a lot of ground. Here are some photos of highlights from the day.

Pic of Greg's truck after navigating through the bypass part of Milkshake. It looked so easy, but the rock was much larger than it seemed and I had to go way more right than I expected with both lockers on to pop over it and out of the muddy part.

Brian coming through the same spot. Too muddy to get traction to climb the rock.

 

[DrTOGfather]

 

[Cass007]

Up and over ...

Shortly after we ended up on another super tilty trail. Luckily, we had awesome spotting and everyone made it through ok.

Wayne dipping in with the pass side rear ~8" in the air.

Then a quick transition to the other side before the straddle.

Joe making it look easy out the back end

 

[Cass007]

Shameless self promotion post:

 

[DrTOGfather]

Greg dropping in J with no second thoughts
And another shot of how close we really had to get to the root.

 

[Cass007]

Finished up doing Pole Line (personal fav) to another blue to the parking lot. I did the last few trails with a flat driver's side front tire. Turns out the valve stem had backed out and tire went flat (3psi). Luckily, the valve stem was held in by the cap and the beadlocks did their job and kept the tire on until I got back to the lot.

Great day, great people ... I laughed, I cried, I puckered a bunch ... then it rained during air up like usual. Can't wait to do it again.

 

[surfishjoe]

Good two days- weather was outstanding for both camping and wheeling. Day 1 me and Brian headed to the west property to tackle trail 13 - the trail that introduced me to the joys of CV axle field repair. We completed all 3 sections with out incident with some excellent spotting to get through the tricky sections.

JJ getting focused for some 13 action

 

[surfishjoe]

 

[surfishjoe]

This was the exact spot where I heard that special sound of vital drivetrain components failing.

 

[surfishjoe]

I am pretty sure the last section of 13 was new for me, Brian has a video of him doing a pretty gnarly section that had a bypass- I actually thought he was going to lay his taco on its side.
I have no shame admitting I took the bypass!

 

[surfishjoe]

After 13 we hit 14 which used to be a green which was changed to a blue. This would be a fun trial for the guys looking to do an easier blue BTW. After 14 we jumped on 15.

The fall is a great time of year the trees and lighting was sick.

 

[surfishjoe]

After completing 15 we starting making our way back to camp stopping along the way to fill up the tacos with firewood and take an obligatory Tacoma Jeep photo per Brian’s request.

 

[surfishjoe]

Camping next to us was the Eastern PA RC Crawlers which was neat. Very cool group of guys and gals- they were impressed with JJ’s Jurassic park Tacoma and micro Toyota pickup buggy. We did a few missions with them over to the comp course which was so much fun. The night run was cool there were 11 trucks including ours lighting up the rocks- JJ said it was the highlight of the trip! They were very cool the only problem was JJ wouldn’t give me the remote. Unfortunately I did not take any photos- lame!

 

[surfishjoe]

This crazy looking salamander was cruising on the comp course I don’t know what kind it is but it looks pretty rare to my inexperienced eyes.

 

[Crusha]

Nice pics and write ups!

Perfect day for Wheeling. Wish I was there!

 

[surfishjoe]

Crushing stewby lubeys with the local walking sticks.

 

[surfishjoe]

Next day met up with Wayne in his FJ, Greg In his 2nd Gen Taco and Chris in the Camo cruiser. The pictures of J do not do it justice. I will not be doing the first section of J any time soon. After J we did all of 19 to 23 to 11b to 18 into the 10s then to the 12s finishing up with 15! We covered some ground! Around the beginning of 15 something in my head said “Joe, when was the last time you checked your rear diff drain plug”. Well it was there but when I put a twist on it- ugh oh it’s loose as in I had to turn it about 3/4 of a turn to snug it tight loose! Yep the rocks were trying to sabotage me again! Unable to get a socket on it we used a blunt screw driver and a hammer to knock it tight. I had to do that two more times before getting back to camp. Here is my solution for making sure it didn’t come loose on the 3 hour ride home.

yep, I did what all good Italians do when in a jam- break out the duct tape baby!

 

[DrTOGfather]

Here's the harder line at the end of 13

 

[surfishjoe]