by Evan Silverman
Many of you may know that I have
volunteered to write the trail reports for the 2010 wheeling season.
I will try to fill the shoes of some greatness of the past. Jim Guld
and of course Doug Abrams were in my opinion, masters of the key
board when it came to their trail reports. I also would like to thank
Bark for a lot of his insightful reporting.
For me, as for many of the
attending members of the club, these rides are days and sometimes
weeks in the making. Last week my shop was filled with Jeeps in prep.
for the first trail ride of the year. Our main project was getting
Stephanie's CJ back into fighting form after Mat put the CJ to the
test in Dec. at BTC. Well without going into details, we got all
intended vehicles on the trail, not a small feet if you guys new the
work that had to be done. I just want to mention Roy Elfers. Many of
you may not know this but Roy is a master weld, fabricator, portable
hydraulic unit and work table. The gentle giant can hold a rear end
up in the air while you hit it with a sledge to straiten a bracket
for instance. He has super human strength and was key to Stephanie
and Mat's CJ making it on the trail. I want to get my own Roy for the
shop. If I could clone him, I would sell him in Sears as the Roy Mate
all in one shop tool.
The story of the Ted run starts
before we hit the trail. Many of us took the ferry over to C.T. With
my father in front, and me behind him, we lead a large portion of the
run participants onto route 8 with Mike Barbara meeting us on the
highway with his Rock Twister in tow. As I am following my father I
am seeing buffs of smoke blowing out from under his Snow White YJ.
Well we are paying attention to the smoke and the not the road and
miss the split onto route 8. In typical LIOR fashion we have about 10
trucks weaving through the streets and with the help of modern
electronics we find the entrance to route 8 north but not without
first passing the entrance to the highway and every one having to
make a U turn. When we finally make it to the trail meeting spot
where we find out that Bob Blair with the Howler in tow has a flat
tire on his trailer. I don't know about everyone else but I was
hoping that this was not a sign of things to come.
At the meeting spot we see that we
have some turn out. I believe 17 trucks in all We have a beautiful
sunny day and warm by mountain standards (cold by flat lander
standards). Every one airs down and gets their rigs ready as Bob
changes his trailer tire. Bob finally catches up, gets his rig off
the trailer and is ready to go in a flash. After a quick drivers
meeting we head up the road and hit the trail about 30 souls in all.
Due to a lack of heavy snow,
getting onto the trail was much easier than last year and the snow
was not as deep. So with favorable conditions, relatively warm
weather and not too much snow, we thought that the worst of the day
was behind us. A few minutes into the trail we come to our first
obstacle. The winter knocked a large tree trunk down and Garrett in
Hammer Time was stuck and doing what he does best(Hammering Down) .
The tree is laying about 70 degs. to the trail and was stuck
completely under Hammer Time and she was turned sideways. Well in
true Garret fashion he boxed his way out of the situation unscathed.
Now since there were so many rigs and people and that I am going to
be turning 41, I can't remember how every truck did but I will tell
you about some high lights that stick in my head. I now know why Mike
Barbara In Rock Twister needs (and breaks) Dana 60's. With the
biggest tires and most set up truck on the trail, he hit his rev
limiter on that poor TJ 14 times but did make it over the log with
relative ease. Wes and I in the Station Wagon made it pretty easy
except that I did push a large second log that posed as an obstacle
out of the way with my bumper and then got stuck on a small rock five
feet up the trail.(What a dumb ---) I believe we had to pull John
Carter in his beautiful Toyota mini truck(nice to see a non Jeep once
in a while)over the log but in his defense he is open with 32 all
terrains an a lot of sheet metal so we pulled him to avoid body
damage. Prospective member Paul Africano in his silver LJ put on a
good show and mad it over the log with lots of wheel spin, it was fun
to watch.
After the Log, which by the way we
could have cut and moved but what fun would that have been, we headed
to the creek crossing. We all made it with a little spotting,driving
skill and wheel speed and headed up the mountain. The climb up the
mountain had some sections with large boulders that had a tendency to
push the trucks to the right towards trees and ultimately off the
cliff so needles to say we had to fight our way up the trail. This is
where I saw some of the worst displays of trail guiding ever and I
was a little embarrassed because we had some new people with us. The
club elders were just standing off to the side shaking their heads in
disbelief at the awful display. We had moments where two people gave
total opposite directions to a poor guy trying to make an obstacle.
Garrett who was supposed to be the guide for the moment gave a
valiant try to keep things in check but it was to no avail. I am
going to get a blind fold for the next run and possibly go to the
Pink Pussy Cat Boutique in NYC and buy one of those balls with the
bungy cord for the mouth and the leather mask with the zipper to help
stop this 4 Wheeling injustice. Seriously it is not fair to the
person driving and someone's rig could get damaged and people can get
hurt. I know we all get excited and we want to help but spotting only
helps when it is done by one person. If you are a bystander and see
something tell the spotter not the driver.
With the lecturing over, we all
made it up the hill with some snatch strapping and winching. We
actually used a lot of equipment. Snatch straps, shacles, tree
savers, winches and snatch block. It was actually a lot of fun. At
the top of the hill we ate lunch at a clearing where we make the
right hand turn at the intersection . We found a great spot in the
sun. The cooking equipment, food drinks and snacks came out. It was a
meat lovers paradise. Doug you would have loved it.(you have to start
coming out with us again ). We had three grills and a camp stove
cooking hot dogs, brats, hot and sweet sausage, kielbasa, hamburgers,
onions and sauerkraut. We had all the condiment, appetisers of cheese
and crackers, sides of assorted chips and baked good deserts.(No
blondies). There was not a vegetable to be seen, just meat, fried
stuff and things with sugar. Not a thing was politically correct,
just the way I like it. It was great and a good chance for everyone
to mingle which is not easy when you have 30 people on a trail
ride(17 rigs with passengers).
After lunch the trail was pretty
easy with just one hill climb that goes around a snow machine bridge.
All went smoothly and we were out of the woods by 2:30. That was when
John Kelner discovered his cell phone was gone. A group of 8 of us
decided to wheel the trail backwards to try to find the phone. I
think that we did not have our fill of wheeling yet anyway so we were
eager to help John find his phone.
With John in front(loud John)
followed by Glen, Wes and I, dad, Joe, Stephanie Mat and AJ, and
Steve Golub with his son Scott, we headed back. The by pass around
the bridge was tougher in this direction but we all powered up it, we
headed to the lunch spot which we got to pretty fast. We looked for
the phone and even with all of John Acconi's detective skills we
could not find it. We called John's phone but it was on vibrate.
We headed down the hill and with
gravity as our aid made it over all the obstacles with relative ease.
We now approached to creek crossing. John and Glen with there large
lifted XJs on 35 and bigger tires made it with ease. The Station
Wagon got hung up and needed some spotting and wheel speed to make it
through the creek and up the embankment. Dad in Snow White made it
with no mus of fus. John Acconi in Angie's XJ had the same
difficulties that I had but made it through on his own power. Our
fearless president made it with ease in his spotless and hardly used
Clean Jay(CJ for short). The excitement of the day was Stephanie in
her CJ (I have to think of a catchy name. I am open to suggestions).
She battled through the boulders of the creek and tried to hammer up
the now very icy embankment. Well Stephanie and her CJ jumped to the
right and was tipping on more than a 45 deg angle off the embankment
putting her loved one just inches from the icy creek water. Well
after getting her loved one (AJ) and her husband Mat out of the jeep,
we hooked up two winches (Joe's winch and the CJ's own winch) to
avoid a roll, but Stephanie easily drove out of the situation under
her own power. Steve in his TJ had to use his winch to make it up the
embankment(He is open in the front).
The last obstacle was that
dam tree again. John Acconi actually got so stuck he had to winch.
Every one else pretty much powered over the log. We were finally off
the trail at dusk about 5:00. We aired up, said our goodbye's to the
New Englanders and caught the 8 PM ferry home.
I had a great time and although the
trail is not that tough nor long, with enough trucks it can be an all
day affair. With more snow I think we would have been in trouble.
Thankfully nothing broke or got damaged which seem to be a rare event
with our club. We had an excellent barbeque in the woods a really
nice day out during a long winter. Looking forward to more wheeling
and good times with friends.