As I begin this trip report, I'm still not over the euphoria of the great time I just had this past weekend. This was my third Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari and each year it seems better than the previous year.
I began my weekend on Wednesday night. Brad Dokken (hereafter referred to as "Dok") and I headed into the mountains and reached S22 heading towards Borrego Springs just as a beautiful moon rose over the peaks of the desert mountains. Once we got to the east side of these mountains and onto the desert floor the wind kicked up. Fortunately at our backs. By the time we reached Truck Haven the wind had died down a bit and Bud Boren had a nice spot picked out already. We set camp, had a beer or two and not long afterwards Mike Simpkins, towing his Early Bronco, could be seen in the distance with his spotlight blaring from his motorhome. Somehow we lost track of time throughout the day and/or evening. Someone asked what time it was and I was astonished to see a dimly lit 2:30am on my watch. Holy Cow! Honest to god we all thought it wasn't even midnight yet. Well that scared us all off to bed.
Thursday morning was typical SOCAL desert weather. I wonder if they even have weathermen out there in the desert? What would be the point? You could tell your audience it was going to be sunny and warm every single day without so much as looking out a window and you'd still be right more than 99% of the time. Although warm is an understatement in the summer months.
Round about elevenish, Brad Kilby showed towing his very well built white TJ. Brad barely had time to settle into a chair when an older fellow walked into our camp and asked if we wouldn't mind giving his buddy a hand. We said sure, what's up? He said he and his buddy got into a predicament and they could use a couple of winches. I thought, "A couple of winches? Must be some stuck." So the fellow hopped into Pokey with Bud, Aileen hopped in with me and Dok headed out too. Not long after we were in motion Brad could be heard over the radio "Hey, wait for me!" He closed in and caught up just before we got into the hills. I'll tell ya, this guy had to walk a long ways on some pretty tough terrain before he got to our camp. Once we got within view we all just kinda went "huh?" There was an old Toyota Land Cruiser stuck down in a crevice much deeper than the TLC. It would be kinda hard to explain how it wound up there without a bunch of hand gestures, so we'll just say it wasn't intentional and get on with it. The guy was right though, it did take two winches. Bud hooked up his winch to attempt to minimize the damage to the top and I hooked up to the front to pull him out of the crevice. It went exactly as planned, so we had a beer with our new friends and celebrated.
Once we were in motion, we decided to hit some cool stuff we new was nearby. We hadn't been in motion 10 minutes I'll bet when I blew a bead (1st of 3 for the weekend). A little air and we were on our way. After we were through playing around we headed back to camp. On the way, Aileen spotted a very large uprooted tree trunk laying in the dirt. This root obviously didn't come from the desert and was very very dry. So Aileen and I decided we'd hook a strap to it and drag it to camp. In route, Brad decided to lend a hand and hopped on. Sort of a Dehesa brand mechanical bull ride. Aileen set the root afire using one of her special fire starters and that was the only piece of wood we burned that night.
During the rest of the day, Charles and Jim (aka The Raison Brothers) showed with Brett Culpepper. Jim was Jeepless this year but Charles brought his immaculate CJ-7. Well, immaculate except for maybe a tear or two in his top and doors. And there could have been a little body damage. And just maybe he had some paint scratched off. Oh, and the bumpers were pretty beat up. But otherwise it was immaculate. Brett brought his orange YJ. It was a damn nice YJ till Charles hit the license plate holder. Really messed up the whole Jeep. Brett tried frantically to fix it but it was FUBAR. I'm pretty sure that damage nagged at Brett all weekend. If you haven't checked out any of Brett's website pictures, be careful of neck injuries. You'll have to turn your head sideways to look at his Jeep in most of them. He can't seem to put pictures up correctly. Or maybe he takes his pictures sideways or something. I ain't sure, but most of the pictures seem to have his Jeep sideways or upside down.
John Stewart of the TDS club made an appearance in our camp. John always comes by, has a beer or two with us, and fills us in on the scoop for the event. I don't think we fed him anything this year though. Hope that didn't mess things up for us next year! I doubt it though, I don't think he comes for the food. I think he comes to watch the Bud Boren Variety Show!
My wife, Steve Mckay and Al Bsharah (Jeepaholic) showed that evening. Al has the details on his arrival and that evening. Take'r away Al.
I (YJ), Vicky Osburn (ZJ), and Steve McKay (Motorhome/CJ) arrived at camp on Thursday a couple hours before dark. I was anxious to see what my brake-line issue was, so I popped off the disconnects and headed out to play with both Brad and Dok. Brad lead the way over some little play mounds and ended up in a perfect little twisty-rut that would no-doubt max my flex out. After watching him play, I crept into the crevice. Low-and-behold, after a few minutes of tweaking, the issue was found. My bleeder valve and caliper end of the brake line was smashing into my shock tube upon compression and outside turn. Readjusted the steering stops with a few more shims, but that didn't quite fix it. So, I mumbled and gumbled a bit, then the next day just took the shocks off. As Matt Brookins says, "Shocks are overrated, anyway!" Gonna have to relocate 'em later, at an unregularly scheduled JeepFest!
Made it back to camp a while later, starving. Steve and I borrowed a grill and polished off some killer burgers and dogs, followed by a standard vegging-out by the campfire. After a few Heineken's and meeting and greeting all the new faces I encountered, talk of a night-run was the hush. The Raisin bro's (Charles and Jim) and Brett Cullpepper were off to hit the trails. Steve decided he was up to follow, and I hopped in the passenger seat. Charles was driving a CJ and Brett was in a YJ (Jim was riding passenger with Brett because his Jeep was in the shop or something...) Off, blind to the night, venturing out somewhere into a 20x20 square mile area of cliffs, ruts, sand, rocks, and Corona's. Charles was in front, followed by Brett, then us. After flexing around some ravines for a while, Charles popped up a sand hill. Brett was having difficulty with it, so he backed down to air his Boggers down a bit. Steve and I worked our way up and over and waited for Brett. After airing down to probably 7 or so PSI, he attempted again while I watched from the top of the hill. No luck. "Time to air-down some more!" they said. I climbed back down the hill as we watched numerous sets of headlights bobbing up and around the hill, then finally over. But none of them were Brett. In fact, we saw a couple Jeeps more than once. I think they were doing laps around Brett just to show off! Finally, the square headlights came over the top with a "Yahoo! TWO psi!" Finding the fun stuff seems to be natural for this clan, as Charles managed to work his way around a cylindrical-cone shaped mound after digging through some twisty stuff. The thing is, he was laying on his side, dragging his way around it! After pulling forward some more, the right side of the Jeep finally made contact again with Mother Earth, and he kept on going. I guess a roll isn't a roll if you can drive out of it! This being my first run of the trip, I was amazed at the flexy terrain of the area, and stoked to get my shocks off so I could run my own rig out here! Later on in the evening, Brett went down this pretty steep cliff (that no one else wanted to go down...Charles had the family in the Jeep and Steve just said, "No way I'm going down that!") and tried to get back up a very soft mound of sand. His left side was wedged into a sand rut he was trying to climb up. He was workin' it for a while, but it wasn't until he had the rear end dug down enough that we could actually see from the passenger side that he had popped a left rear bead. This was gonna be a tough one, especially since that was the tire that was buried. Brett decided to try and run with it since he was making a little progress and it would be quite difficult to get to. He had his left front tire practically digging sideways up the sand, when it finally gave way to the pressure and popped off the bead as well. Ok, maybe 2 psi is a little low.... Ya gotta learn somehow, right? Charles worked his way down a bit and put the winch on him to get him to a better fix-point. After jacking, digging, kicking, prying, airing, jacking, digging some more, prying, kicking, airing, and kicking..... we finally got the left rear back on. Then we did the front...again....kicking, prying, jacking, you get the idea. Up and off we went, to call it a good run and a good evening. Steve let me drive the CJ, which, by the way, impressed me tremendously. Very stable and responsive, not to mention capable for the size lift on it! Great bunch of guys, by the way.
After removing my shocks the next morning, Dok and I went out to the same crevice from the evening before so I could show that crack who was boss. Got my wheels WAY up in the air on one occasion, and actually had to climb out the TOP of the Jeep to see what it looked like. Steve was tooling around camp and happened to spot us, so he came over to play as well on a little ditch to my right. After pulling myself through (who needs lockers, anyway?!), Dok was ready to climb the rut. Meanwhile, Steve managed to get his CJ stuck in the little ditch he was playing in. <chrrrrk> "Dok, Al, Dehesa, anyone out there? This is Kilby." <chrrrk> "Yeah, what's up, dude?" <chrrk> "I'm at the entrance, and I can't keep my t-case in gear." <chrrrk> "Ok, I'll pull Steve out (you should have seen the smile on my YJ's face) and Dok's on his way." I gave Steve a tug, and Dok helped Brad limp his TJ back to camp. Not sure what the issue was with it, but they managed to have it fixed a couple hours later.
Donald showed up in Beethoven (his newly recovered roll-over victim) which was recently sprung-over and perched on a set of 35" Swampers. You could see he was anxious to play around a bit, as this would be his "new" Jeeps' maiden voyage. So, he invited me to drive it around (NO power steering by the way!) and we did. After a few boring spots I said, "I know a great spot to flex this thing out..." and we were off to my favorite crevice. I got out and said, "There it is, have at it!" He had aired his meats down to about 5 psi, and attacked the rut. Fleeexxx......fleeexxxxx....fleeexxxxxxxx.....PPPFFFSSSSSSTTTT! I looked around to see if Matt was in the area, but quickly realized that Donald had popped a bead. He pulled further up, and PPPFFFSSSSSTTTT.... The other one started losing a bit of pressure as well. Anyway, he pulled through and we aired him back up after frantically looking for the valve stem fitting in his Jeep. Would have been embarrassing to have to call for help when we had everything but the right fitting! Eventually he had to run them tires at about 10psi so they wouldn't pop. Best to learn whilst playing.
I'll pick up again. As Al pointed out, we had more of our group show on Friday morning. Such as Matt Brookins and Donald Clark. Also, Donald finally got his Dad, Gary clark out there with us. Gary and his son Gary, showed in their Scout. Gary has been building on a couple of Scouts over the years and Donald has been promising us he would show sometime. It was good to see him get out there with us and not hear he's working all weekend again.
Once enough of us were ready to go, we all took off for the hills with Brad's Toyota buddies (I only got two of their names, Grant and Shawn). We found one hill that was pretty tough to begin with, but was getting looser and looser with every vehicle that went up. Unfortunately I was at the end of the line. I attempted to crawl but only managed to dig four holes into the hill. Eventually I backed down and Brad and Grant came back around to show me how it was done. Momentum. I remember a thread on Jeep-L awhile back where somebody said if you were using momentum you weren't doing it right. Bullshit! It didn't take a lot of momentum, but you couldn't crawl this hill. You had to have some forward speed or the tires would just dig in. This little lesson proved very valuable throughout the remainder of the weekend. I've never been a fan of banging it. But there is a technique involved here where you can use a little momentum without beating the shit out of your rig. Thanks Brad and Grant. I definately learned something. Well after that little bit of excitement we all headed back to camp. Well except for Donald. He went on his own way at the bottom of the hill and the few that didn't go up the hill with us were following him. On the way back to camp, we were dropping onto a trail. Basically dropping off a ledge and turning directly right onto the trail. I was right behind Shawn in his 4 Runner. As he dropped off the ledge and turned right, the Toy started to tumble. But as I watched in amazement, Shawn stepped on the throttle and abruptly brought the vehicle back down on 3 tires. It was a very cool move. Probably saw them rock crawling championships.
Once we got back to camp I drove over for vehicle inspection and registration. Bud and Mark Alligood were already in line and were just wrapping up their inspections when I arrived. Inspection went quickly and I was soon in line behind Brad for the RTI ramp. I radioed to everyone the ramp was set up and to get on over. Brad scored an amazing 1326 (I think that was it). The only reason he didn't score higher is he ran out of ramp. Dok ran his TJ up the ramp with the exact same results. Ramp kings for sure. I scored a satisfying 1123 with my SOA. I suppose I could have loosened my shackles and done better but I was damn glad to get over 1000 with everything just the way it was. I run my shackles fairly tight for stability. Bud got on the ramp and did somewhere in the 12s. I can't remember exactly. Ok, now here is the most noteworthy ramp information to share. Al ran his 2.5" OME, 1" shackle lift and 2" body lift on 33" Thornbirds (Ok, maybe not everyone hates them tires) up the ramp and scored like 1100! That is amazing. I've run a 3.5" Superlift and a 4" Procomp up the ramp and the best score I got was 812. There's no doubt them OMEs flex. He's gonna have to put them on top of the axles though cause his lack of clearance is gonna kill him in the future. Now you can't talk about an RTI ramp and not talk about Donald. He ran up the ramp and scored 12something. That wasn't good enough though. Donald was seen on that ramp at least two more times over the weekend after airing down his tires a few more pounds each time and loosening anything that might improve his score. I don't know what his final tally was. I know last year he went up that ramp several times over the weekend and each time his score got lower.
Friday evening we decided to take a ride. Brad's Toyota buddies came by and joined us. Brad was in the lead and it didn't take him long at all to find trouble. I was bringing up the rear and I hadn't even hit a hill yet when the line came to a halt heading into the first bit of the hills. Brad was obviously in some sort of predicament. I decided to go around the path everyone else was headed and come up on the other side of the hill. What a sight I did see! Brad's Jeep was pointed straight down. His driver's side rear tire musta been in the air about 4-5'. He had stopped too late to avoid the situation he was in, but not too late to avoid the situation he would have been in if he would have kept going. I don't think Brad was stuck. I think he could have backed up, but no guarantee it wouldn't tumble. He could have gone forward, but that my friends would have been quite a drop. Grant, hooked up the winch from his Toy and pulled Brad's butt backwards until all four tires were on the ground again. It only took Brad 30 minutes to back out of there once the winch was unhooked. We went on from there that evening hitting some pretty cool stuff. Probably the coolest part of that evening was watching this fellow in a fairly well built CJ-7 wheel for the first time. From what I gather, he turned his Jeep over to Mike Duncan (FourXDoctor), had him build it up for him and was hitting trails for the first time ever that night. Damn fine job for a newbie. Guess it ain't too tough when you have a well built Jeep doing all the work. We eventually made it atop one of the mesas out there. The camp area was an amazing site. Wednesday night there might have been a total of 12 motorhomes there. Over the period of a few days, a city had sprouted in the desert. We made it back to camp afterwards without even a close call.
Saturday morning. Event day! I rolled out early to watch as the line goes by in the morning. Ok, maybe not early. But 8:00am is early when you're "on vacation" (Copyright Will Robinson). I always enjoy watching as the 800 some odd rigs go by in route for whatever TDS has layed out for them on this fine warm sunny California day. Every vehicle imagineable is in this line! Except, I didn't see any Rav4s! There was at least one last year. Even saw Rick Russell hustle by up near the front with all the vendors. Ain't Rick like the closest thing we have to a rock crawl'n celebrity? While I watched the rigs go by, I heard Mike Radovich over the radio. Excellent, I knew he was coming on Saturday and was just hoping he would arrive before we all headed out for the day's ride. I crossed when there was a break in the line and found Mike and guided him back to camp. He setup camp and everyone helped getting him aired down and disconnected so he'd be ready to go.
We set out that morning, pretty early by our standards, probably around 10:00am. Everyone was eager. We hit our first hill and Bud observed that one of Matt B's rear wheels was not cooperating. Matt had recently installed full floaters into the AMC 20 on his YJ and it would not lock in (I wonder how many people read "AMC 20 in his YJ" and thought that was a mistake?). Bud knew the solution, it was a tie wrap. Matt installed the tie wrap and all was well for the remainder of the weekend. Not long after we hit the first of the hills we came across a stuck Bronco. This separated the group a bit while some stayed to assist. We were pretty spread out but everyone knew where everyone was and all migrated towards some palm trees the leaders were waiting under. Once we were together again we continued on. It was funny because many times we would cross the path of the official run. Once there was this line of vehicles on the trail and our group was alongside making our way thru a nasty little crevice just below the run. On some occasions we would wind up mixed in with the official run. While we were mixed in with the official run once, we managed to stumble across Tony Bothwell. He joined us for the rest of the day. On one occasion we all made our way mixed in with the run on top of a mesa. The two routes down were both clogged up with Jeeps. Brett, not one to bat an eye at the impossible, looks for another route off the mesa. I would have said there's no other way down. Not Brett. He takes a nose dive off the mesa and arrives down on flat ground. This drew quite a crowd of onlookers. Next went Mike S. in his Bronco. As his Bronco dove down the cliff, his right tire hit a hole and the entire rear end lifted and shifted to the side a bit. Very scarey to watch. At this point, I've made up my mind I'm not going. I figure, so has everyone else. Hell, Brad and Tony already said, "I ain't go'n down that!" But, Charles is on top of this mesa and no little cliff dive is gonna scare him. He starts down and has a nice smooth fall to the bottom. Well, I'm next in line behind Charles, so... so... well... hmmm... ok... I'll go. I hop in the Jeep, start it up and the crowd looks back like they see an idiot. Must have been someone behind me. Oh well. Not half the idiot that Bill Duty is. Hell, he coulda just stood there, watched me tumble down, then walk down and hop back in (Bill was my passenger for the day. MsVicky had stayed back at camp with Aileen, Pat Mckay and Diane <Brookins>. They must have had some hen party. Beer, chips and salsa and I from what I hear all of us husbands out enduring this ride, were the brunt of some awfull jokes. Hopefully they talked about Bud a lot.). Anyway, Bill wasn't going to miss out on the fun and hops in and belts up. I headed down. I couldn't believe how far down I was pointed and still couldn't see the path I was taking. Finally the path appears over my hood and I just have to steer it a bit to keep it from going sideways and I'm on the ground again. Ha! Now of course I'm at the bottom egging on the people standing at the top shaking their head, "No!" Eventually every single person in our group went down that drop off. Nobody got hurt. No Jeeps got damaged. Everyone got a huge thrill!
We continued along, in and out of the official run. The official run is labelled with green (easy), red (moderate) and blue (hard) arrows. It seemed at times when Brett and Charles would turn onto a trail where it would let up a bit, there would be a blue arrow on it. Then Brett would turn up a hill or into a crevice and things would get hard again. Brett and Charles are excellent fellows to follow at Truck Haven. At times we would get split up into two groups or more. Basically just keeping our group of about 15 vehicles from being our own traffic jam. Mark had gotten way ahead on the main run and calls over the radio he had found Jorge in his stock Sammy. About half us grouped up where Mark was and welcomed Jorge. Someone spotted Mike S. up on a hill somewhere and we all headed over in that direction. Once the entire group was together again we started off for more fun. We wound up at the top of a hill right alongside that tallest mesa out there at Truck Haven. I know Steve Friend knows the one I'm talking about. Steve, I know how to get there now. From the top of the hill we were on, you could see the trail that lead to the top of the mesa. We were going to take a lunch break and then that was to be our next destination. I was tickled. I've always wanted to get up there but didn't know the way before. Word has it there's a nasty razor back you have to cross to actually get on top of the mesa. Nobody likes razor backs. Especially razobacks this high. Anyway, much of our group hadn't caught up to us yet and we watched as everyone picked between the three different routes to the top of the hill we were on. Jorge in his stock Sammy was definately the most entertaining. That young man needs some gears, some lift and some training. Lockers wouldn't hurt either. Bud and I were standing together watching Gary manuever his Scout to the top of that hill. Amazing what he could do with open differentials. So we're up there enjoying the view and Mike R. for some reason needs to move his CJ-7. Starts her up and there's this god awful noise and coolant spews forth. His fan, from all the twisting of his Jeep, had flexed right into his radiator and it was not pretty. We had some stop leak, some of that putty that hardens like stone, water and we had time. The putty needed at least 30 minutes to harden, so we got as many of the group that was willing to go, to head back to camp. We knew we would want to thin out the group some to prevent us from slowing Mike's trip back to camp. And there really was no need for everyone to wait on top of that hill. While we screwed around with Mike's radiator, Brett scurried up to that tallest mesa. Nobody else got to make that excursion. Next time. Once enough time had passed to allow the putty to harden we filled Mike's radiator with water. Still leaked pretty bad but he and Mike S. tore out for camp like a whirlwind to beat the leakage. The rest of us just stayed on top of the hill and watched the two Mikes dashing across the foothills and into the flat. While we were watching Mike, Brett diverted our attention as he tried to build a new trail where nobody would want to go. He worked it and worked it. Finally his YJ softly tumbled onto it's side. He was able to somewhat drive it out with Charles assisting by pushing on the rollbar and eventually hopping onto the top of the rollbar to add stability to the Jeep. I don't think there was a dry eye watching. It was hilarious seeing Charles just above Brett's head clinging onto the Jeep. After the healthy laugh, we all made our way down into the canyon where these fellows were performing their circus act. We waited while Brett got his tire back on the rim. Once we were just about ready to pull out, a convoy of TDS club members came through batting cleanup. These guys were picking up all the arrows designating the main trail. I guess we were the last people out of them hills. They told us "Get outta here! The runs over!" With a big smile of course.
I got back to camp and Brad hopped into my Jeep and instructed me to drive him over to Mike Duncan's camp to take him my impact wrench. Mike busted a front 44. We got there and he was already past the point of needing the wrench so we headed back to our camp. While we were still in the hills, Brad found Mike R. a brand new 3 core radiator for $150. What a deal! Mike scooped that bad boy up. Once we got through with dinner, Vicky and I headed over for the raffle as did just about everyone else in camp. We had one winner in our camp again. This year it was Gary Clark. He won a Tuffy center console and a Jeep Trunk kinda box. I asked him later if he was going to give his son Donald those Jeep boxes. He corrected me and said they were Scout boxes. John Stewart went up for his annual win. Nothing to speak of as I remember. Some really cool prizes went out this year. A Dynatrac rear Dana 60. A rear Dana 44 with an ARB from MIT. Numerous winches. I don't remember too many sets of tires going this year. Where was Dunlop? Al's ticket was within one number of a winch. Boy was he dissappointed when that last number was called out. He's still bitching.
Al has done a fine job of recalling the rest of that evening. I know after the raffle that Donald had rounded up some strangers and a few people from our camp for a night run. Al went on that run and will fill you in from here.
After we all lost miserably at the raffle, we crept our Jeeps back towards camp. We had noticed a few pickup trucks (and various diversions of them) that were playing on quite the steep hill, so we all decided to drive on over and check out the excitement. After Brad K and I both accidentally fell into the invisible abyss with our Jeeps (amid a few rounds of applause), we parked and watched numerous monster-truck type vehicles unsuccessfully claw their way to the top of the hill. Eventually, a vehicle with the only form of sheet metal surrounding it being the doors came blasting around the spectators, getting a good line for the hill. One was spotted, and without hesitation, the small pickup-truck-turned-sand-rail was flying towards it. Now, the hill ramped up quite severely, and to make matters worse it had what seemed to be a vertical lip towards the top of it where everyone else was getting stuck. Not this guy! Momentum carried him up, launching his frame-on-wheels into the air, up and over the lip, while his see-through-projectile-vehicle slowly righted itself to be parallel with the landing zone. After a momentary silence from the crowd, the vehicle landed squarely on all fours to an erupting of "Yahoo" and "Holy SHIT!"s from the crowd. No one else seemed to want to follow this act, so we all headed back to camp.
Yet again, another night run was being organized. Some friends of Donald's were circling their wagons around our camp, so naturally a few of us hopped in our eager vehicles to see what these Jeeper's had to offer. From our camp was Donald, Matt B, Steve, and myself. Donald got the nod to lead from his buddies, and we were off. Donald seemed to know his way around quite well, as we twisted and turned through some gnarly stuff, leading like a champ. I went over my first razor-back, which was quite an experience for me driving without a copilot. The razor back when down off the mesa, then up...down again, then back up to the next mesa. The first "up" had off-camber holes in it, and after watching Matt B in his locked SOA BOUNCE up and over it, I wondered how my open diff's would handle this, not to mention my stomach. Turns out the holes were not as bad as anticipated, and I flexed right through it. Dunno what the hell Matt B was doing. <grin> Probably just scaring the crap out of Mika (sp?), which he managed to do most of the evening!
After tooling around some more, Matt B was definitely getting antsy...riding up the side of hills, giving Mika a good look at the ground to his immediate right. Donald seemed to be stuck at the top of a twisty-ravine, so we hopped out to see what the fuss was. Donald was sitting practically sideways looking to his left down another ravine he was trying to navigate. The ravine he came up had to be followed by an immediate left u-turn in order to make it back down. Didn't seem that his power-steering-less vehicle made the cut, and backing up was causing him to slide further down without gaining any angle to the hill. So, we slapped a winch on his rear end, and that gave him the support he needed to make the turn without sliding over. This hill was all technique, creeping, and positioning, being smart and listening to spotters. Another fellow that was riding with us in a YJ that had recently gotten a brand-new American Flag paint job (quite nice looking) was a little over-anxious to show us he could do the hill without any help. Not to put Donald down, but this was totally possible if you knew what you were doing. I give Donald credit because he's turning 35's without power steering, not to mention the fact that he was the lead on a night-run, going practically blind into everything. So, that said, American flag YJ (the guy's name was Hoolio <sp?>) was making his way to the turning point of the obstacle. As he was climbing, one of his friends says, "Don't f*ck up your girlfriends Jeep!" His reply was, "I ain't gonna f*ck up anything." Apparently this wasn't his vehicle, and his girlfriend wasn't at the event. Anyway, he made the turn, hauling ass around the corner without stopping and was practically flying down the hill. His first attempt at hitting the brakes was futile, as his initial momentum was already in control of his vehicle. The rear end slid to the left as he turned towards it and HIT THE GAS EVEN MORE trying to right his vehicle down the rut. Well, it swung around to the right and popped that side of the ravine. Lifting the left rear end into the air. The left front end was heading for a hole, and eventually hit it. Hard. His right front side was also climbing up the side of the ravine which caused the vehicle to nose down, rear up, twist counter-clockwise and come crashing down on it's top. The nose was facing slightly to the right, and the top was resting on the left side of the ravine. It was in a pretty precarious position. Hoolio climbed out and I handed him his hat that had fallen out, which had been knocked off his head by a large chain he had stored loosely in the back. Wonder if he knows they make nylon straps these days? I'm betting that's not the only lump on his head he'd have after he got home. Anyway, I got tired of looking at this Jeep ready to roll the rest of the way down the hill, so I started gathering supplies to sturdy the vehicle. One of his friends with a winch was summoned at the top of the hill, and with Matt B's help we managed to climb up the Jeep and attach the winch and strap to rear of the vehicle to keep it from rolling. Donald drove his YJ up the side of the ravine so he could get a good angle to roll it back over with his winch. After strapping it in, the two winch-doctors worked their magic to bring the Jeep back to its feet. This was fun to watch, actually, as the force of the Jeep wanting to roll was continually lifting his friends Jeep up at the top of the hill (his friend had to pull from the side due to the terrain) and the right side of that vehicle kept popping off the ground. Good thing there was a solid mound of dirt to keep him from rolling down the hill too. Finally, we got the Jeep righted, and our boy Hoolio made his way down the rest of the hill with no more visible damage than a dented hood and a bent spring. Amazing, considering how violent the roll looked. Matt B and I goofed off in the distance as the rest of the Jeeps organized, and it seemed most of the runners were ready to call it a night. I wasn't quite ready to head in, and I had a feeling Matt wasn't either. Next thing I know, <chrrrrk> "Al, you ready to go in, yet?" <chrrrrk> "Not really." <chrrrrk> "Cool! Let's play some more!" I pull up next to Matt, and as we decide which direction were going, he tutors me, "I wanna have fun, just make sure you don't roll!" <ahem> "Ok, dude!" We're off, twisting, turning, climbing, just playing around basically. The rest of the crew is off in the very near distance, heading back to their respective camps. Matt B ends up in front, and I'm tooling along behind him. <chrrrrk> "Hey Matt, where's your passenger Mica?" <chrrrrk> "Uhhh, I dunno. Hey Don, where's Mica?" <chrrrk> "He's with me." Guess Matt finally scared Mica away! Talk about timing... We end up on this flat spot, and Matt starts veering over towards a hill on the left, lifting the left side of the vehicle considerably. <chrrrk> "Dude, careful, you're gonna tip." <chrrrrk> "I ain't gonna tip." <chrrrk> "Dude, you're gonna roll." <chrrrk> "No way." <chrrrrk> "Dehesa, we have a rollover." As I finish that statement, GreyMatt'r slowly releases her left tires from the ground, teeters, and falls to the right side as does a tree when it passes on. I wonder if Matt's Jeep fell over in the desert alone, would anyone hear it? Boy, Mica woulda had a close-up view of the ground then, huh? I think Mica's lived through enough rollovers as of late, anyway... So, winch-doctor #1, Donald, popped up on top of the hill to the left of GreyMatt'r and strapped to the rollbar. I had one of the other guys put a cable on the bottom end of Matt's Jeep so we wouldn't just drag it along. In quick-time, she was right again, and had donned herself with a few oils, a cracked windshield, and a nicely dented right-rear quarter (Matt managed to fall on the only rock in the entire area!) Ok, NOW it was time to go home.
Thanks Al.
Sunday morning we rounded up the group again for the last run of the weekend. Steve's buddy in the UniMog showed up to join us. We headed out in the general direction where we had finished up the day before. The UniMog is an impressive vehicle. The massive axle clearance is just incredible. I don't know if I'd enjoy being so far forward in the vehicle though. The Mog's tires were not in the best of shape and we capitalized on his weakness. Not intentionally, really. But I'll bet it appeared that way to him. Brett had found many twisty climbs for us to run through. We got to one and it was fairly soft. I managed to get to the top with Brett and we watched as Mike S. in his Bronco just couldn't get past the soft turn at the top and continue on. He backed up a few times to run at it again, but lost more ground each time. Mike pulled to the side and the Mog stepped up to the plate. That fellow must have tried 20 different gears and 100 different approaches, but he wasn't joining Brett and I at the top. While he spent 30 minutes or so tearing the crap out of that hill, most everyone waiting turned off and found another route to join us. All except for Brad. When the Mog finally gave up and got out of the way, Brad simply drove up the hill to the top. He really made it look easy. By the time this little obstacle was over with, the wind had picked up, it was past noon and we all had a camp to pack, so we decided to head back. We returned to camp to find it thoroughly engulfed in a wind/sand storm. It was terrible trying to pack in these conditions but we all managed to get packed up and ready to go.
Al signs off.
After everyone was packed up and had finished their share of dust-sandwiches, the train headed home. For me, it was a phenomenal experience. I got to wheel for the longest continual time ever, four days! I was doing so much wheeling, I didn't spend much time at the campfire. Quite alright, though...my campfire was over the air-waves. Every day, every night, every opportunity that arose. I met a slew of great people, on top of the ones I arrived there with, and I don't think the weekend could have been much more fun. Honestly, I expected it to be so crowded that I would end up watching most of the time, but this was not the case. It was INCREDIBLY crowded, yet there was plenty of room for everyone to do their thing, and if you ran into another crew....you smiled, waved, and maybe met a new friend or two.
My turn.
This, of all the TDS Desert Safaris I've gone to, was my favorite.
Seems I say that at the end of every single one of them. And it's
really true. Our group just keeps getting better and the event keeps
getting better. I want to thank TDS for all their efforts and pat
those guys on the back. The size of this event is unbelievable.
The club members are always cooperative anytime you need to deal with them
and "they understand!" This is one hell of a good time! Thanks.