Hello all and thanks for a good trail run yesterday.
I was not even planning on going on this run but at the last minute I found I was able to go and got the permission from my owner who also went to supervise me. We arrived a little after 1300 hours and found Bob (cant remember your last name) waiting at the gas station. Gil and Sherrie our trail leaders were not there yet. They arrived about 10 minutes later. So now we were waiting on just one person and that was Keith Holman. We contacted him via cell phone and he said he was about 15 minutes away. When he got there he mentioned something about the preacher man being long winded or something like that.
“So we started to back up my jeep when I hear someone shout to stop.”
Well at this point I let it slip that I had run this trail with John Hunt from Big Dogs so I was made the trail leader. I have to really learn to keep my mouth shut. We get to the trail head and air down and disco and start the adventure on what we will now call “WALKING STICK TRAIL”.
The first part of the trail is a little rocky but not bad. Our first adventure comes as soon as we go under some tree limbs hanging low and deposits Walking Sticks into the Jeep and on Lorrie who is not fond of bugs to begin with. I stop the jeep and flick them off of her. By the end of the day she was used to them as they kept falling all day long hence the name walking stick trail. I think I have some living in the back of the jeep now.
We then arrive at the power lines that run across the trail which has an off camber spot that pitches you to the right some. Everyone made this with no problems. Right past this we encounter the real trail. There are more rocks and more off camber spots through out the rest of the trail. Right past one such spot and over a hill with rocks the rearend on Bobs truck slid sideways off the trail. Well Gil has the only winch and he was behind Keith who was behind Bob.
So out comes Bobs come along and this is where we had our first minor injury. Bob managed to get the palm of his hand pinched really hard by the come along and we had to relieve the tension on it. The whole time this was happening Bob only said ouch once and he said it so calmly. I would have been whooping and hollering at this point but not Bob. Well we finally got the rearend of his truck back on the trail but not before Bob getting some pretty deep beauty marks right above the passenger door. We then arrived at the spot in Keiths pictures that shows Gil and I taking the hard route. Well Keith decided to use a tree as a parking brake to hold him on the mountain. Keith you are not supposed to parallel park to hold yourself up. We get everyone thru this section. Lorrie is sitting here telling me that she seen the whole thing and that the tree just walked up and planted itself there after banging into Keiths door and she says that is her story and she is sticking to it.
We then go about 100 yards when I noticed the trail looked even less traveled than it had all day. We all stopped and agreed there was no way that Bob and Keith would make it thru the rest of the trail from this point and it looked questionable if Gil or I would even make it. We decided to turn me around and everyone else would back up to the clearing and turn around. Only one problem with this. Bob had to back up a rock and as he was doing such his rearend slipped off the rock putting his tail end facing down hill again. He tried to pull forward but I was in the way so now his front end is facing down hill a little. Not a good place to be on this trail. So we started to back up my jeep when I hear someone shout to stop. Seems like my jeep pushed a big boulder down the side of the mountain and this particular boulder is what I needed to be sitting on as it was holding me on the side of the mountain. So out comes Bobs come along to stabilize me so I could back up without rolling. After about 20 agonizing and anxious minutes I was finally backed up but Bob was still in a predicament ahead of me. Keith backed his vehicle up to let Gil get past him and the winch was put on Bobs rearend while the come-along was put on the front end. We finally got him back on the trail and he was then able to back up with Gils winch still attached to the back until he was past the rock.
It took us about 2 hours to get turned around and headed back in the right direction. Somewhere on the way back Bob damaged his drivers side rocker panel on a rock. Close to the end of the trail Keith got stuck trying to go over a log in the trail. He managed to get unstuck and go across with no problems. Then Bob went and had no problems. Then my turn and I did not make it. I tried a few more times but with no success and managed to get my front diff on one side of the log and my front Dshaft was lying on the rest of the log and I was not able to go front or backwards so out comes Gils winch again and pulls me off the log and I finally manage to get over this log.
We make it back to the trail head and put our discos back on and then go air up and everyone but Keith decides to go to Winchester to eat. I might add it was 2030 hours when we hit the end of the trail and it was around 2130 hours when we decided to eat and finished airing up.
All in all it was a good day of wheeling as we all drove back in our own rigs and no one got seriously hurt. I would have to rate the first section as a 4 or 5 and then the second section a 7 and the section we did not run looked to be a 9. This is all based on a scale of 1 thru 10 rating system. If anyone that was there would like to reclassify these ratings please let me know.
And that folks was our little adventure on Walking Stick Trail.
I would like to personally thank Gil for his Winch support and actually letting me operate the controls on it. Without his winch we would probally still be on Walking Stick Trail.
Swamp Rat and Bambi Basher
Trail report written by Jamey and Lorrie Lawrence