Our May 8th trip proved to be very exciting and a great challenge. We had 7 total jeeps in our group which consisted of Andrew (BlueJ) with Chris (Quadna71) as passenger, Donnie (DCC), Stetson (dmaster) with his girlfriend as passenger, Brian (mopartech) with his wife as shotgun, Ed (2000Sahara), Kevin (UrbanCrawler) with his Minnesota friend Mark as passenger, and myself (JeepSahara) with Dave (DaveH) as passenger.
We started out on Rabbit Run which consisted of a long, very rocky, downhill section along with a curvy rock garden with body damaging trees. From there we hit Sleepy Hollow. Donnie showed everyone that he can do anything with his jeep, sporting his new 4" lift with 30" tires. He attacked those rocks like it was his job, keeping up with the 33er's. Then we hit Headless horseman and made our way down to the Spring for lunch. After lunch we made our way over to Rocky Meadow and Laurel. When we entered Laurel there was a group of slightly smaller Jeeps making it through a technical section of the trail. Brian, Andrew, and Chris gave them a hand spotting them through, then stuck around to spot our group through. After that, we headed up Turtle to hit all three legs of Chicken Run. Everyone had a blast on the big rocks, off-camber positions and huge downhills on these 'legs'. We still had a little time left so we decided to Drumstick which is a black 1 rated trail. Donnie decided to sit this one out since some of the ledges were not 30" tire friendly. This trail seemed to prove challenging for everyone. Brian started everyone out and chose the hardest line possible. He made it all the way up but decided to try this last rock that was the size of a small house. He got the front tires up but seemed to get lodged between a tree and a rock with no way forward or backward. After tons of effort he decided it would be best to winch the rest of the way up. Stetson, Kevin and myself all seemed to end up with some sort of body damage on this one. Andrew finished up showing us how to "Krawl" up it . We finished up and headed to the Exxon to gas up, air up, and connect.
There was no mechanical damage on this ride, a good thing. Some minor body damage on most of us. (par for the course). Everyone seemed to have a blast. Donnie amazed all of his traversing all of the blue 2's and 3's with his newly lifted jeep. Chris (Quadna) did a great job doing the majority of the spotting. And thanks to Andrew for giving me another opportunity to lead a great group.
Can't wait for the next trip.
-Chris
Here are the pictures: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4286922017