The Ma Bell trail. Y’either love it or fear it. The weekend promised to be gloriously beautiful. Just past peak autumn foliage, the clear cool air that swept in from the north only served to heighten the brilliance of the colors of the trees. It was an amazing weekend.

We met at the parking lot by xxx Concrete in xxx and headed out toward the trailhead right on schedule at 9:30. We did not have a big group: Me and Bark the Jeep-dog in my XJ, the Barkmobile; Bob “Scoutmaster” and Joan Blair in Bob’s Scout, Howler; Mark Silverman in his white YJ; Trevor Bosco and his bro-in-law in Trev’s mighty CJ; Andy Murphy and McDuff the crime pup in Andy’s TJ; Rich Klein in his TJ on new 35” meats; Ted the Fed with Susan and Lucy-dawg in Ted’s TJ with the new rollover sticker on the side; Keith Huntington in his yellow CJ; Young Rob Blair with his pal Heather in his newly lifted XJ; and last but not least, Chen the Madman in his purple TJ with the yellow wheels.

For the first time ever I accepted the responsibility of leading the trail; I figured that my time had finally come. I felt pretty good about my driving by the end of the day. Picked good lines all day, no damage, no major bumps or dings. In fact, I believe that we accomplished a very unusual feat for LIOR: we finished Ma Bell with no significant damage at all, for the whole group! Mark your calendars!

Of course, when you drive up to the trailhead at Ma Bell it is mandatory to get out and to take a look at Monster Rock to see how it’s changed since your last visit. Monster Rock is the opening obstacle to Ma Bell; it is right at the trailhead and in plain sight of the paved road that runs by. It seemed steeper than before, with more of the dirt around its base eroded away, making an even sharper angle of approach. No one even tried the center line up the rock. Last time we were here as a club Evan did a backwards rollover trying the center line on Monster Rock. (See LIOR website April 2001 trail report for animation of Evan’s rollover.) After examining Monster Rock, and determining that there may indeed be a new line up over it to the far left, we all took the bypass way to the left and left this obstacle for the end of the ride. If you are going to try to destroy your truck, let it be at the end of the ride.

Immediately after skirting Monster Rock to the left, the trail curves back up the hill and climbs up over a gradually ascending series of slabs that are almost cracked in the middle, forming an interesting notched kind of stairway up over the first hill. As you come over the other side of the hill a small mudhole lies directly ahead, with a bypass to the left. This hole is not deep, but it is filled with big rocks and today was covered in leaves. If I hadn’t known it was a mudhole I would not have been able to tell. No matter how much fun it is to annoy the neighbors when you come home completely splattered, I’ve learned to avoid mud for all the damage it can do one’s machine, so I took the bypass around the mudhole. I think Trevor might have gone through the hole on the way in.

Directly after the hole the trail curves to the right and then climbs a short bouldery hill. At the top you can go left or right around a tree. To the left is a pile of nasty boulders up to crumbly dirt bank over the top and back onto the trail. The right line also climbs over some big rocks but is much less hairy than the left. Still smarting from the drubbing my undercarriage took on our last Paragon trip, I took the right line up around the tree and pulled way up the trail to make room for everyone coming up behind me. Ted the Fed, directly behind me, took the left line. Even there you have a choice. To the left side of the left line are a couple of 3-foot boulders with a very acute angle of approach. To the right side of the left line is a dirt bank at the base of the tree and a row of boulder almost forming a step kind of structure.

Most everyone else also took the line to the left of the tree, but most who did this also ended up taking the right side of that line to make it up over this obstacle. Keith got himself hung up pretty spectacularly, and it was fun to watch “Young Blair” discover the parameters of his newly refurbished ’84 XJ. From here we continued on up to the next part of the trail, consisting mainly of a series of somewhat more extreme rock ledges. I pulled up to the one we call Garlan’s Hump; its where Willie broke his axle last year and set the record for trail repair with the longest duration. Again, here there are significantly different lines to take over this ledge. The right side, which looks easier, has produced several rollovers in the past, and is where Willie broke his axle. I took the left side, which presents as a nearly vertical step of about three feet in height. My first approach was more toward the center of the ledge and left me halfway up spinning all four tires on rock without much purchase. Carefully backing down from a position I call “tail-walking”, I got out, looked back at Ted who was quietly waiting for me to surmount Garlan’s Hump, and took it a little to the left and popped right up over the ledge. Most followed my line, I know Keith, who is open front and back, ended up taking the bypass around this obstacle, and I think Young Blair may have also, though I didn’t actually see him come through this section.

Further up the trail are two really interesting steep downhills. The first of the two comes after a rocky, twisty up hill with what looks like stumps of telephone poles in the trail. As you crest the hill and start over it drops away steep enough so that you cannot see the trail ahead of you. The idea here is to hug the left bank of the trail as you come over the crest, and as your rear clears it, come across the trail to the right side and then straight down. Scarier than it is difficult (as are all downhills), its followed by a couple of little muddy rock gardens and short hill climbs, and then the big scary down hill. I have always taken the downhill bypass here in the past, but as I stood looking at the hill from the top this day I asked myself what I had been afraid of. Sure it had good roof damage potential, but it was absolutely manageable. I asked Ted the Fed to spot me.

Just down from the crest of this hill a large berm of dirt lies across the face of the hill to the immediate right, and about 20 feet down the hill a very large rock to the left also lies across the face of the hill, forming a deep gully angling off to the right. Major flex action coming over this obstacle! Once you’ve cleared this, its just a matter of avoiding the large rocks scattered across the face of the hill, best done by angling to the left as you come out of the gully and steering down onto the trail at the bottom of the hill. This was Young Blair’s worst moment of the day. As he eased out of the gully (well, he didn’t really ease out, he kind of bombed out of the gully), he kind of ran right over the biggest pile of rocks on the hill and ended up with his front end dangling high above the trail while his crossmember supported the weight of his truck. OOPS!

After several minutes of assessing the situation it was decided that Young Blair was to be winched backwards while lifting his front end with a highlift to clear the rocks. Scoutmaster Blair was behind Young Blair and started down the hill to get to a good winching point. At first it looked like the plan was for Bob to just come bashing down the hill and knock Young Blair off the rocks like a croquet ball, and I was glad to see I was wrong. (The author has an overactive imagination -Ed.) Once freed from his precarious perch, Young Blair easily made it the rest of the way down the hill, and we all headed out to the end of the trail and the lunch/turnaround clearing. It was great fun to watch Lucy and McDuff racing like maniacs while Bark the grouch shouted at the kids to sit still and mind their manners.

The trip back out to the trailhead was notable to me only because I for the first time climbed that hairy hill, the one I always bypassed. Big Eric of the Tangerine Dream truck has rolled on this hill, and I’ve seen the Scoutmaster empty the back of his scout coming up this hill when his tailgate popped open on the way up. Today, the ‘wheeling gods were with us, or me anyway, and everything was a piece of cake. Young Blair also managed to blow the bead on his right front tire coming down those boulders around the tree, but with Ted’s persistence and the help of Keith and a few others, we managed to reseat the tire and all ended well. We all rolled on down to the trailhead, and of course, this is where the silliness begins.

Mark Silverman wakes up sweating in the night thinking of Monster Rock. He did one of the most spectacular rollover of all time here (not captured on film, of course), and gets visibly nervous when confronting the Monster itself. But he cannot stay away from it. He climbed the extreme right side, as did Keith. No one, as I said earlier, was willing to try the middle line, and a number of us ran up the new line up the left side. I advised from below. When the playing was all done, and we were all aired up, some left for home, others left for dinner in Springfield, all were safe and happy. Another great day out on the trail. So this is your pres and ‘wheeling buddy, saying to you, until next time, keep it paint up, rubber down, and please be careful!