The Gluches - April 21st...Dual Ride with Midlands Cruisers

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Well, the two other Midlands Cruisers that were coming up with me had to back out at the last minute...so...I'll be the only Midlands guy coming up. I'm afraid that you guys might uncover my plot and discover that I am the only Midlands Cruiser and that I have masterminded a ghost club.
 
Had a great time. Gulches has a lot of potential. Hill climbs, mud, trails for everyone in a nice compact area. It was good seeing everyone out.

As far as how we did. Well I left early but there was lots of action. Nathan got stuck in a really nice mudhole, Dan lost power to the submarine and had to be towed out, I got covered in mud and almost fliped the cruiser on it nose up on a cliff. I'm sure there will be more stories. Thanks everyone for coming and thanks Nathan for representing the Midland Cruisers, our first official meeting.

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It was great to meet everybody! Wow, great job on getting some of the pictures up already. I'm glad to see that there is plenty of evidence that I was the only one that got stuck in that mudhole.
 
I'll be going down tomorrow with Jimbo92. Any advice on what trails I should try, what to avoid?
bw
 
I'll be going down tomorrow with Jimbo92. Any advice on what trails I should try, what to avoid?
bw

The map of the site is pretty poor. Next time I go there for at least a whole day I am going to GPS all the trails w/ a professional grade GPS so we will have a good map in the future.

Its only 80 acres (I believe) and is very 'trail dense.' The most difficult trails are marked as such pretty clearly. Some of the mud holes aren't too deep but are very soft on the bottom. Besides the mud holes the place is pretty dry right now.

Others can probably chime in with better info.
 
The map of the site is pretty poor. Next time I go there for at least a whole day I am going to GPS all the trails w/ a professional grade GPS so we will have a good map in the future. quote]

I was there a few weeks ago with work, and we had a VBOX. The satellite reception was pretty good (6-8 satellites almost everywhere, including the mudhole down by the river). The only thing is if you are using anything that determines speed using the Doppler effect, the map won't come out. In our data, the j**p would be moved laterally 100ft in .01 seconds. Since I was riding along, and am still here to talk about it, I know the trail doesn't do that.

May be best to stop every little bit and take a waypoint... Just my $0.02. But I do agree that the current map stinks.

Looks like y'all had a blast. Wish I coulda made it. Maybe next time I can tag along.

David
 
David - I have a sub-meter professional grade GPS I use for work that I am going to start mapping trails with. Your position might jump a few feet but not a few hundred. I'm going to try and start doing this on all the trails we run and produce maps for everyone.
 
Well, we ATL folks just got home (Rick, Cat and Dan are probably still driving). We had a great day today. Since I am a bonehead and didn't bring a camera, we'll have to wait for Rick and Dan for more pics of today.

We stuck around and rode for a while yesterday afternoon, then settled in to watch the competition. It was WELL worth the price of admission. A jeep sheered it's studs and the rear wheel fell of going up an obstacle on "Shipwreck." If you are running big enough tires, that would be a great trail to run. One major boulder and a big off camber climb into a 20 foot long rock.

After the festivities were over, we headed to camp and had dinner, then did a little night run. Although we were beat, so we only stayed out for an hour or so. We could, however, hear everyone else all over the place for hours. I guess they were out until about 2. This morning after a lesiurely breakfast, we hit the trails, played on "suspension junction" (which is a pile of concrete pipes), met up with a few jeeps and a monster taco and headed up "heartbreaker" and a few more of the trails. We did find Bill and company and gave them some advice on the trails and then headed for home.

Skip, the owner, is a super nice guy and was really welcoming and happy to have us there. He has a welder, tools, etc. for people to use if carnage occurs. He'll also come winch your butt out for $20 per winch if needed. Good folks, great times, as usual!
 
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David - I have a sub-meter professional grade GPS I use for work that I am going to start mapping trails with. Your position might jump a few feet but not a few hundred. I'm going to try and start doing this on all the trails we run and produce maps for everyone.

Sounds great! Would love to get ahold of a map of that place. Keep me posted.
 
I'm glad to hear that the ATL crowd made it home safely. What was Heartbreaker like? I've seen some video, but that doesn't ever really seem to do any trail justice.
 
Had a great time at Gulches. Not the walk in the park you get at Cullowhee and most of Tellico and URE. The site is extremely dense and you're into another trail about the time you clear the tough part of the previous one.
I met Jimbo92 at Ware Shoals with his friend Sam in Jim's open/open 40. When we got there we hooked up with a couple Holly and John in Her open/open H3 and a guy Lauren in a built locked Cherokee and hit some trails. I don't know where we went, we pretty much had the park to ourselves but the other guys knew their way around so I just tagged along. The #s 7 an 17 and 56 and 8 and maybe 4 come to mind. I know I saw several black signs and at least one double black.
I got a little ding over the LR flare on a root in the approach to Heartbreaker but a gulches-aid sticker fixed it. I tore off a bit of RR rocker tupperware somewhere but a zip-tie fixed that. When I was driving out something sounded funny and hahaha my RR control arm was bent up and half broken so I limped home.
The Hummer wasn't as lucky. Holly got hung up half-way up a hill climb and John took over. When he gave up and rolled back down he had some nasty sounds from the front end and also got wedged between some trees and a hard place but Bonnie's new winch yanked him sideways out of that jam.
At that point we gave it up and headed out. The H3 probably has it's third broken front diff. By the time I got home my control arm had finished breaking in two.
A good time was had by all. We watched the Cherokee make it most of the way up Radical Ravine then some well-built heeps have some problems there.
I like Gulches. It inspires me to get my TRAC back on.
Holly and John are from Chapin and don't get much companionship from the Hummer community so I invited them to trail with us. Nice couple, good drivers. They may come in on this thread with some pics, I carded them.
Fun fun fun.
b
 
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definetly a good time ill get an album together on photobucket and link it cuz i got 60 pics but it was def fun

bill its a shame to hear you broke that arm wonder where it got bent..palmetto crossing maybe or the last rock obstacle who knows but definetly fun
 
we ran heartbreaker 23 as well 23 was pretty scary thats where bills tire is lifted both of us got em bout 4 feet off the ground... also we ran that rock garden at the bottom of heart breaker where we saw the other cruisers this morning
 
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