On the way up to the meeting place at the truckstop off I-91 the rain finally stopped, and turned to snow. Heavy snow. When I rolled into the truckstop Mark Silverback, Evan the sunshine bear, and Bob Two-Jeeps with Ann Marie were already sipping joe in the diner. As we huddled inside, projecting thoughts of warmth and sunshine at the gray and dismal near-blizzard that raged outside the windows, Danny K rolled in, he’d lost Marc R. and the Tan Whale somewhere on the road up. Roarke the Turk appeared, and then in rolled Bob Scoutmaster with Joan in Howler and Young Blair in his XJ, which earned the nickname Thrasher by the end of the run this day.
After procrastinating for about an hour, moaning about the lovely New England springtime we were experiencing, we finally pushed ourselves out of the diner and into the snow. Evan stumbled around trying to decide whether or not to brave the elements and complete the day on the trails: EE Rex essentially has no top, and Evan would have been in the full effect of the weather the whole day. He finally decided to roll EE Rex off the trailer, and on the way over to the gas pump it died on him. All, except Mark, agreed that this was most likely an omen, and a few of us were quietly envious of Evan’s plan to just get EE Rex back on the trailer and head home for a rainy afternoon of couch-potato and TV; a warm, dry afternoon. So, as we headed out for the 20-minute drive to the trailhead we had with us Bob and Joan in Howler, Me and Bark in the Barkmobile, Mark in his YJ Snow White, Young Blair in Thrasher, Danny K in his big black YJ, Roarke the Turk in his Toyota, and Bob Two-Jeeps in his TJ, his Lil’Jeep.
We finally wound down off the road onto the powerline right-of-way through which this trail runs. After pulling away from the road we stopped to air-down and lock hubs, and Scoutmaster took the lead here as the trail was under water of indeterminate depth and he was on 35’s. The water was about hub-deep, including crossing a stream that flowed across the trail with a pretty stiff current. We came up on the first obstacle, which is rocky little gully-trail up an incline with a twist to the left. At the top is a pretty large rock ledge and step; insurmountable to the right, but by straddling the gap between the dirt bank on the left and the rock face, a not very difficult climb to the left. Looked way tougher than it actually was. Over the top of this the trail ran parallel to the power line, into some twisty off-camber ditches.
Meanwhile, the snow was coming down harder than any snow I’d seen all winter. Many of the trees were clothed in the delicate lace of early spring leaf-growth, and it was all being pounded by this driving snowstorm. Every time I got out of the Bark-mobile I got wet from the thighs down, because all the trailside growth, so verdant and lush in the fertile New England Springtime, was covered in thick layers of wet, heavy snow that melted as soon as it encountered body heat. Even though the snow was sticking well, by noon there were 3 inches on the ground, a lot was melting and the trail was a running stream of water most of the way.
Here the trail spilled down over a steep crumbly bank into a long winding gully about 4 or 5 feet deep, strewn with rocks and boulders. Today it also had a stream a good 3 to 4 inches deep running through the bottom of it as well. Navigating this gully required some careful negotiation of the rocks, with multiple short ledges and a lot of sidewall riding to avoid ablating the sides of our rigs on the gully sides. Climbing up out of this we continued winding though the snow up over the summit of this trail, and down over the other side. Just before cresting the trail, Young Blair came up flat, at first we thought he’d just blown a bead but, after remounting the tire, we discovered he’d cut his sidewall thrashing through the rocky parts of the trail. As soon as we got him set up in the front, we also discovered he’d cut the sidewall on his right rear tire at the same time. It was a small hole, and it was plugged just to get Young Blair off the trail. We decided to continue on to the first paved road we’d cross and head back out from there, in order to get Young Blair back home.
We crested the rise over which the bulk of this trail climbs and stopped for lunch where, had the weather been a little more clement; there would have been a magnificent view of the mountains fading into the hazy distance of a ripe New England Spring afternoon . . . except for the driving snowstorm in which we were enveloped. The air in Young Blair’s patched tire was holding reasonably well, and so we started back down over the ridge. The trail from here on was rocky, bumpy and a little like riding over a choppy bay in a small flat-bottomed boat. Silverback began to complain of getting seasick from the rocking motion the trail encouraged our trucks to take; the trail was covered in boulders big enough to stop a regular car and to rock your truck around, but not big enough to be fun.
We made it down to the paved road, across which was the last good obstacle on the trail. Most of the guys slid over the bank to do the obstacle, while a few of us waited by the road for them to finish playing. After crossing over the road the trail dropped down a steep sandy hill, curved around a few boulders and dropped into a rocky stream crossing, to a steep uphill climb out of the ravine cut by the stream. By now the snow had tapered off into a misty rain, and though up top of the ridge we just crossed there were three inches of snow on the ground, down here off the heights there was no snow visible, the sky was beginning to break up and it seemed as if we were in a different state altogether.
We got everyone back up to the shoulder of the road where we aired up for the ride back to the truckstop, where we had left our trailers. Back at the truckstop we reconnected sway bars, re-trailered rigs and headed out on down the road. As we drove the sky cleared and by suppertime had turned into a beautiful if slightly chilly Spring afternoon. An uneventful ride home, droning highway all the way, but arriving safe and not too late, it was a good ending to a pretty good trailride. So this is your pres and fearless leader saying to you, until next time, stay well, get enough sleep, and keep it rubber down and paint up.
