By Quinn "Macgyver" Thomas

During the July meeting I decided to offer another Big Bear run. Since we didn’t get to run much on July 3rd, and the only other trips in July were Colorado and Don-a-Vee, I figured another Big Bear trip would be fun so we could run our trail. July 17th was picked for the day. I arrived at Denny’s at 5:45am. For once I thought, since I was running early, that I might be the first there, but Tim in his Land Cruiser was already there. So after saying good morning to Thor the dog, who was on parking lot duty, I went in and ordered breakfast. Then shortly after that John Strege arrived in his TJ, as did Jules in his ZJ, Steve Salisbury in his TJ, John Morgan and his wife Lisa in their TJ, Ralph Schorbach in his Bronco, and last but not least, Douglas in his Toyota truck. 8 vehicles, not bad for a pick up run! Big Bear is always popular. After Breakfast and being teased by John Strege for actually driving my CJ5 to a run, we left Denny’s at 7:15am for the trail. The drive up highway 18 was a bit chilly with no top on my CJ5, and I was hoping it would make the trip under it’s own power, especially after telling John, "oh ya it will make it!" This was the first time the CJ5 had been more than 20 miles from home under it’s own power in over a year; I usually tow it. But I think I finally have all of the bugs out again, and my old CJ is back! Everyone made it up the hill without any problems. And since everyone was fine on fuel, we went straight down Hook Creek Road to the trailhead to 3N34. We arrived at the turnout next to our new sign at 8:00am! After airing down and hanging out a bit, we started down the trail. The creek crossing of course was no problem, but we did stop to play around in the rocks on the other side. Wet tires and rocks are always fun, and a few decided to play a bit. Tim used the more power approach with his new Tuned Port 350 in his Land Cruiser. Douglas was hung up a bit, but he drove through without any trouble. Then John Morgan came through and decided to go up the rocks on the far left. He had to show his wife what the TJ could do! After trying a few times to climb up the big rocks on the left side, he was up. After seeing John go up there, Ralph decided to give it a go also. Without as much flex as on John’s TJ, Ralph ended up taking a very different pass trough there. After some careful spotting, he was out, and we were on our way. By now the Sun was shining and it was a beautiful day on the trail! We all idled up the trail and everything was smooth and very relaxing. Then we came to the Devils Slide! You know the place. That obstacle is starting to get very steep. It seems like this year's erosion took away about 3 to 4 feet from the bottom of the waterfall, making it even steeper than before. No wonder that CJ5 rolled there over the holiday weekend! After a quick ribbing, I took the bypass to the left. Even the bypass has a large rut in the middle making it hard. After my first line resulted in a wheelie and one of those almost tip overs, I quickly backed up and tried a different line. My next attempt was fine and I drove right up. Next was John in his TJ. John’s TJ just wasn’t getting any traction. Since his ARB’s weren’t working and his MT’s weren’t gripping, he took the bypass as well. Jules went right up in his ZJ. That long wheel base sure helps! Tim did the more power method and went right up too. Then came Steve in his non-locked and AT-tired TJ. He started with a little bit of momentum, and drove right up the waterfall! Good job Steve! I guess AT’s have some advantages in some places. Douglas wisely went up to the left, and even managed to get the right rear tire about 2 to 3 feet off the ground! After getting out of the rut that he was stuck in, he made it up. So that leaves John Morgan and Ralph in the Bronco. John was taking the hardest possible line he could find up the waterfall! After playing around on the waterfall for awhile, he ended up driving up the right side like everyone else. Then when he got to the top, he decided to play on some of the large boulders and test his articulation. After posing for some impressive pictures he got stuck on top of this large rock! In the process of trying to free himself from the rock, he chipped a section of the rock off. So everyone started calling John "Jack Hammer" for a new handle! After deciding he couldn’t get off the rock, we got out the towstrap and just tugged him off with my CJ5. It only took a small pull to free him from the rock. Then it was Ralph’s turn. He pointed his Bronco up the falls and started up and it lost traction about half-way up and started to slide off to the side. We quickly hooked up his winch and all would have been well, but I dropped the wing nut that holds the winch power lead into the deep unknown of the Bronco’s engine compartment. I was trying to hook it up and everything was very hot under the hood, and it slipped, oops! Meanwhile, Ralph is in there pushing on the brakes trying not to let off. With the power lead in place minus the wing nut, John Strege ran the winch in to take up the slack. Then as we started to winch the Bronco up the falls, Tim’s Land Cruiser was sliding down. We had anchored to Tim. After getting him re-anchored, we finally got Ralph up to the top. Whew, everybody was up! After packing everything back up, we started up the rest of the trail. The rest of the way was pretty easy and we reached the end about 11:45. We stopped for lunch at the clearing at the end of the trail near the top sign.

After lunch, we decided to run the part of 3N93 that was supposedly open. After getting spread out on 3N16, I stopped at the rock pile to wait for the others to catch up. Some people from another club were over playing in the water next to the rockpile. They came over to see the vehicles. While talking with them they said the trail was open all the way through! Cool! So we started through the rock pile and played on the way through. Making quick work of that we started down the trail. Everything was great on the trail. Everyone just idled along without any trouble. We did have a few stops so Tim could air up a leaking tire, but it wasn’t a very long stop each time. Everything was going fine until we came to a large trail backup. Some people standing around said there were vehicles coming, so we all parked on the side of the trail and walked up to see what was going on. We walked up to the rock pile section in the middle of the trail to find a bunch off people grumbling about which group would go next. There were about 10 vehicles in each group. A few of each group had gone through and were waiting for the rest of their group. They had been there for an hour and a half when we got there! They were standing around and waiting for one vehicle to pass (at a time) each way. It was a fiasco! First a description of the groups: One group was just a group of people who were, well let's just say they were pretty well "toasted" and very grumpy! Lots of glass bottles around, if you know what I mean! The other group was a commercial tour type group, whose trail leader was very unprofessional. He was just watching his group's vehicles bash and pound into the rocks and then after they were stuck, he would go over and help a little. So that should give you an idea of what we were looking at! Instead of just taking one group at a time, they would argue a while, then one person would walk up and get a vehicle across. Then the next group would do the same. This took another hour and a half or so before we even moved. They should have followed each other through, but most weren’t very friendly. So I was tired of waiting and thought "to heck with them". So I got in my CJ5 and followed one of the Jeeps down the rock garden. If all the other Jeeps had done the same, there wouldn’t have been a back up. They got upset when I broke their little pattern! Oh well. I got out my chair and watched the rest of the grumpy people clear out and wait for the rest of our group to come down. Total time spent was about 2 hours there. I wasn’t impressed by this tour group, and I hope that someone will fix that in the future. That is a whole other story in itself. The real funny part is it only took our group of 8 vehicles about 10 minutes to get through there! We wheeled right through as we always do! Good job Dirt Devils! After that little delay, we finished off the Holcolmn Creek trail with out any other delays or problems. Once off the trail, we aired up in Fawnskin and then some of us went over to Frogs in Fawnskin for some grub! After dinner we all drove down the hill and made it home safely. My CJ5 even made it home under it’s own power! Thanks to all who made it out for the run, it was a great day of wheeling and friends. Until next time, C-YA! Macgyver