Thorpe Trail
September 25, 2010
by Ed Marcucci
This is my attempt at writing a trail report, obviously I would never even try to fill Evan "Paul Revere" Silverman the great story teller's shoes. It started with a small group of five (four trailering) at the gay truck rest stop near exit 49 off the LIE. When me and my son pulled in at the pre-arranged time of 5:30 a.m. Mark S. was already there, soon after, Warren pulled in, I was in phone contact with Dimitri who was picking up Blain in Hicksville and would later pick us up on the way. Mark's patience was growing thin as we waited for the last rig to show (Jake and Amanda) Finally at around 6:00 they showed up an we were on our way.
Now, remember, I'm just doing this because it's not fair that we brake the newest tradition of LIOR of writing trail reports, by no means do I expect it to be entertaining, Just reporting what I saw.
After an uneventful 3 hour drive or so, we reached our destination. A few other members were there waiting and
getting ready, a few more arrived after. Cannot remember the exact time but I think it was about an hour before we headed to the trail head, I had never ran this trail with or without snow so it was completely new to me.
I was towards the back of the pack behind Bob with the black two door Rubi (Jimmy's son) and in front of Mike Sussman who was the last of the pack. The trail seemed not to be very challenging, with not too many obstacles, just some rocks and some dead tree trunks and branches. I couldn't tell you what was going on in front, but outback, Mikes Zuk started to run hot, he said he hadn't had it out in about a year, and that he had checked everything out except the antifreeze. His temp kept going up, first we topped the rad off with some of my antifreeze, it didn't seem to help much. Next, the thermostat came out and we filled it up again. Still no good.
At this point we had reached a point where everybody was talking about lunch, so out
came the grill and the meat stuff, I think there was so much stuff that even the "coons" ate well that night.
After we went up this ledge, we all turned around and lined up to head back the way we came in. Now I am second or third in line so I have no clue what was going on behind me. We moved swiftly back towards the trail head, again, uneventfuly (except for the time when my front wheels got lodged between these two fairly big rocks
and apparently not having power to my front axel, I think I was the only idiot that had to stretch winch line[thanks Dee and Blain who helped with the tree strap and the cable])
When we finally made it back to the road, Mike drove back to the meeting spot, got a ride back and rode with somebody else to the next trail. My son and I decided we were too tired and didn't want to drive back at night so we were the only ones not to run the next trail. That will be somebody else's report.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
P.S. I know I'm leaving a lot of stuff out, I was tinkering with the idea of writing this all week unless someone else beat me to it, as I was wondering about a report and photos. Evan's question gave me the final push.