By John "Lone Star" Strege

I would like to start by thanking everyone who came out for the run, and also for their patience. What was to supposed to be a day trip, went into the night. We had a total of 17 vehicles ( 5 from Fun In The Sun, 4 guests, and 8 Dirt Devils). At the start of the trail, my ARB air compressor failed, so I had to run the trail with open diffs (the next day I found a loose wire and fixed it). This was only a sign of what was to come on this day. WOW, El Nino made the trail much harder than last year! Even the bypasses were as tough as the trail in some cases. After going through some of the rock gardens, we had the next canyon victim. Robert Lamont broke a left rear shock mount. After removal of the shock, we were on our way. As we went farther into the trail, it got really rough. Calls came over the C.B. radios for help. It seems that people needed spotters after high centering their vehicles on the rocks. Unfortunately for Robert, his day was not over for trail repairs. He backed into a rock and pushed the rear diff cover into the ring gear, which quickly sawed through it, and oil began pouring out. Just about everyone came to help Robert's CJ. What would have been a one hour fix, turned out to be around three hours because of two stubborn bolts. So while the CJ was being fixed, we had our lunch break. By now, it was around 4:30pm and the group from Fun in the Sun needed to get going. One of their party had a later appointment. I told them how to get to the gate and gave them the combination for the lock. They said this was one of the toughest trails that they had been on. As we started up the trail again, calls over the C.B. radios came in. People wanted to know how much longer the trail was. I told them that we weren't even half way through yet. The usual spotting of vehicles went on, but everyone was in good spirits. We were moving slow but sure when over the C.B. Kory Merrill said something was wrong with the steering on his CJ5. It seems that he bent his tie rod playing on some large rocks. Corey made quick repairs (ten minutes at the most!) and we were moving again. As the sun was dropping behind the canyon walls, the vehicle lights came on, and it was time for a night run. By this time, three of our guests needed to get home. After some discussion with Quinn, Dan Delp and I led them out of Santiago. With a smaller group of vehicles, we made good time and quickly got out of C.B. range with the second group. No one in my little group had been four wheeling at night before, but they all loved it! We came to the gate around 8:30pm, unlocked it, and aired up our tires. Dan and I stayed until about 10:30pm, waiting for the rest of our club. Dan even used his cellular phone to call Dean Kako at home, to see if he could contact Quinn on the Ham Radio, but to no avail. Later, I found out that the club got out and back to camp by about MIDNIGHT! As I said before, I thank everyone for their patience. Until next time, See Ya, JS.