5 Club members, Les, Mark, another Les, Bill, and myself 4 NG members, William, Shalom, Denny, TObject 1 guest, my brother, Jim
I have only listed the pilots by name. Many of us brought our wives and kids, other relations, or various mixes of these. Perfect day, temps in the mid 80s.
Everyone arrived on time at the trailhead, and with introductions, airing down, and other farting around, we were off at 10:00.
All 10 Jeeps, (3 CJ7s, 2 CJ5s, a YJ, a JGC, 3 TJs) made it through each obsticle without any winching or tow straps. A couple needed spotters, and the JGC appreciated the spotting, but did not really need it. The Squeeze was his tightest spot, and I spotted him through just to save the right side from a Close Encounter of theWorst Kind.
HardTop Rock went hungry. Again, the Grand walked right through. There were only two other HardTops in the group, and they had no trouble. There were a few tense moments after the Rock with a steep uphill covered with boulders, but the only real difficulty came from the CJ5 that Denny drives. His CJ5 is nearly stock, and is very clean. It has the stock 3 spd with the 304 V8, so the gearing is pretty tall for rock crawling and he had to ride the clutch a lot. Heart Attack Hill was up to its usual form, steep. Someone has been there and attempted to fill the holes at the top with rocks. For my money, this is not a good practice as the Jeeps tend to move the rocks as they go down, leaving them in a dangerous position for the next guy. Some of us caught some air with the Right Rear as is prone to happen on this hill. The best thing to do on this hill is to ride the brakes without locking them, and the place where you have the greatest desire to mash the brake pedal is actually a good place to just roll on through and hit the brakes a little later. The very worst thing that can happen is to make the decent without power. That is exactly what happened to my brothers. Jim had recently taken his Jeep in for a Calif Smog test, and they detuned it so bad to pass smog, that it really really wanted to stall all day long. Well, the Jeep took a look over the top of HAH, and went into a protracted period of coughing and sputtering. (I think it didn't want to go, but Jim swears it was the smog adjustments.) Anyway, my other brother, Mike, was at the controls and he has done HAH on a motorcycle, and he is pretty adept at off roading. However, the Jeep decided to die just as the decent was getting under way, and the rule about not using the brakes too much went right out the window.
The rest of the trip was pretty much scenic, and the most exciting time came when the kids started crying about food. Sheesh, I gotta stop and feed the kids! Of course, CRWLR decided that the mud hills that we like to play in when we are out that way would be a good time to toast the alternator. Luckily, there was a set of jumper cables hiding under somebody's back seat. It turns out that the alternator is actually in pretty good condition, but the belt was crispy from slipping. Yes Jeepers, the scurge of all motorists is the silent killer of slipping belts.
Sorry for posting a pic, but I just have to get one in. It is a JPG, and not very big. [Image]