After getting to the park-n-ride we aired down and headed for the trail. Once again I missed the turn off to the trail, so I was no longer leading the group. We got straightened out and headed on in. There was a fair amount of snow on the access road and once we got to the turn off for the trail it was also pretty snowy. The mini rock garden wasn’t as difficult as it usually is due to the snow helping fill in some of the ruts.

It wasn’t until we had to head more up the hill for the ridgeline that we slowed down. The snow was pretty deep and so it became a snow bashing run since no one else has run the trail by the looks of it. Eric in his wide axle CJ-7 was leading the way until he had major engine trouble, like he blew a head gasket or something. All you could see was white smoke coming from the jeep so we winched him to the side of the trail and then Eric in his "Tangerine Dream" (so named by Four Wheeler Magazine, Ed.) and Jay in his Toyota mini truck took over the lead.

They decided to try the trail off to the left that heads on up to the rocky hill climb that is near the top of the mountain. The rest of us went off to the right. It was a bit of snow bashing and slipping and sliding on the ice so it wasn’t easy even with lockers at a lot of spots. Near the top of the hill where we usually stop for lunch, near the "bear den" was a snowy section that had a dry spot just before cresting the hill. You had to give it a bit of throttle to get past the snow but then could let off it as you hit the dry stuff and then just crest the hill.

Well this worked well for most but Mark Z. in his Ford powered Toyota mini truck decided to go full throttle all the way up and just use his brakes at the top. Well that doesn’t work well on the snow and especially when it was pretty crowded at the top of the hill. He could get the toy pas Dan’sYJ and he rear-ended him. Lucky for Dan it didn’t do any damage to his jeep but Mark wasn’t as lucky. He crunched his left front fender a bit and the radiator and fan met and we were then greeted by the sweet aromatherapy of ethyl glycol. After doing a trail fix of routing the two radiator hoses together to get him off the mountain it was decided that Mark is the winner of the first Bonehead sticker. Unfortunately Bob had to leave earlier in the day due to carb problems on the Howler so we have yet to award the sticker. Hopefully we can have a ceremony at the next club meeting.

After lunch Jay, Eric, Yaron, and Trevor tried to do the side rocky hill climb and after Yaron busted 3 hubs on the hill and Trevor had his fuel pump die we finally decided that we had enough for the day. We also tried to get up mini MaBell rock but it wasn’t happening. You couldn’t even get to the rockface. The approach trail was just covered with just too much snow.

We then made it back down the hill with Mark’s rig making it about half way until it was too hot and he was then pulled out the rest of the way by Doug in his XJ. Earlier Eric and Keith left with the smoking CJ leading the way and I guess he made it back without any major difficulties since we passed them on the way back to the park-n-ride and it was back up on the trailer. So until next month’s adventures at MaBell, which is always colorful, this is Wilbur saying happy trails to you. The few that are left...