|
|
|
Jeff and I met Mike, Carl and Landon at the Golden Stake for breakfast at 7AM. Carl and Landon didn't show up until 7:30 because that's what my note said and they made sure they showed it to me! Oh well, keep them confused. After breakfast, we went to the trail line-up for "Cliff Hanger" and were close to the front, mainly because about 10 or 12 rigs had lined up on the East side of Swanny City Park instead of the West side. We departed for the trailhead at 9 AM. The trailhead was approximately 5 miles out of town. Our first casualty was about a hundred yards down the trail! A Jeep CJ5 started down a series of rocky ledges only to find out he had lost most of his brake fluid. He bumped and bounced all the way to the bottom and finally got the Jeep stopped. He had more problems than low brake fluid and had to pull out of the run. This was really a shame as he had come all the way from Minnesota for this week and hadn't made it through a run yet. We crossed the creek and started up the canyon wall, traversing some difficult obstacles that created problems for some of the unlocked rigs, although some walked right through. Carl had a little trouble at the first big obstacle, due to his high gearing, but after knocking over a dead snag and bending his license plate, he made it. The reason I mention this is because 2 years ago on the "Poison Spider" trail he did better than I and never lets me forget it! Actually all the "Lost Coast" members did great and had fun doing it. We wound our way up to the ledge and stopped for lunch with a view of the Potash Plant, approximately 800' below us. As we got under way after lunch, we encountered a rough section with a sharp drop off in the trail. What made this more challenging was the fact that it was on a narrow ledge with an 800' drop into the canyon on the left. A couple of rigs decided to wait for the group to make the turn around, which was only about a mile up the trail, rather than risk some body damage. After the rest of the group got past the obstacle, we went up to the turn around and started back down the trail. We now had to climb the steep drop off! Thanks to great spotting by our trail leader, it wasn't too bad, although a few had to take the strap. A Jeep YJ broke a front axle and had to be towed, also A Jeep Cherokee had a flat but was fixed on the spot. We wound our way back down the Canyon, through the obstacles, across the creek and back to the trail head. It was a great run with a good group and excellent leader, waist gunner, and tail gunner. They did an outstanding job. I would like to have went into greater detail, but since the obstacles had no individual names and it is after midnight as I am writing this, (thanks to the Raffle Drawings at the Arena) I will have to let Jeff put the photos & captions on to tell the tale. Thanks to all the people who asked about our website after finding out that we were taking photos for the daily update! Jim Boyett
|
|
Webmaster:
James Thompson |
