This past weekend was the DeJA George Washington National Forest Stocker Trail Ride just outside of Harrisonburg, Virginia. I think at last count we had 15 Jeeps, one Dodge Dakota, and an ATV. The group that left Dover Friday morning met Keith at Holly's (sort of...) and four more Jeeps in Manassas. Everything went very smoothly except for a broken hitch rack, and that slight wobble Troy mentioned at Chris/Erica's place. The wobble was due to the lack of lug nuts on a back wheel, and when cjtaz noticed the fourth lug nut flying off, the group stopped on the side of the road in H'burg to fix it. Luckily Keith had air tools, Carl had hand tools, and there was an Advanced Auto Parts across the street! When I left, Chris K., Keith, Carl... and Troy were working on it.
The hotel group, except Carl who stayed to work on Troy's Jeep, left to check in, and by time we got back, Troy was rolling again. We went on to Kephart in pieces, as some stopped at grocery stores and McDormand's. It was a little dreary, but everyone set up camp and got settled in. Those of us roughing it at the Jameson left at around 6:30pm for dinner, except Jeff and his family, who stayed later.
The hotel group arrived at the campsite the next morning at 9:30, where I sprung on them that I'd changed the route. I'd been on trails here before that were more fun than the ride up to Meadow Knob, but wasn't really sure of where those trails started and ended. With so many people willing, good maps, and Chris's GPS, I figured we had all day to figure it out, so off we went. After most everyone aired down, it was about 10:00 when we left to Keith's new air horn.
We started down the first trail which was a good, muddy, rocky trail with roots. It took us to the crossing at Dry River backwards from the way I'd done it previously. All the stockers crossed a few streams along the way, and got good and dirty. There were a couple of tight spots, especially for that Dakota, and there were a few scrapes (underneath), but everyone kept pushing on. After crossing Dry River, we went back to the same trailhead, ran the same trail to the "T" we'd turned right at, but this time turned left. It took us to a stone landing I'd been on before, again crossing the river at a relatively deep spot. A couple of us got across first to get photos, and everyone then crossed with ease. We stopped here for lunch and I passed out trail badges to happy stockers.
Since it was still relatively early, and we had no damage or nervous drivers, we decided to do the originaly planned route up FR225 to Meadow Knob and Flagpole Knob. The road trip took about 20 minutes, but the pavement gave way to dirt eventually and we were on our way up. This is a pretty easy stretch, the only obstacles being a rut or ten or twenty along the way. We did come to a red clay and stone mound though, and a few tried to climb it without luck. Did you know a two-year old screaming in a closed Jeep can be heard for a tremendous distance? Yup... ask Brian as he tried to climb the mound! That got everyone's attention!
There are a couple of long steep climbs just before Meadow Knob that were fun, and again there we no problems except maybe a few nerves. Everyone made the climbs look easy. Unfortunately Meadow Knob wasn't much to look at in the fog, but the cell phones worked up there so everyone seemed happy. On to Flagpole Knob for more of the same view, a few photos, some fun burms, and then we headed for the campsite.
We got started a little earlier on Sunday, ran up to the trail called "Old Rt. 33" which was so short, we decided to do one leg of Dry River again. This was a much smaller group, and we stopped at the stone beach for more photos. The river crossing seemed deeper on Sunday, but no one had a problem crossing.
Jeff and his family and I left from here to meet Carl to head back home. We left Carl at the I-66/I-495 split, and we drove home through downtown DC, seeing all the sights.
It was great to see so many new people taking their Jeeps out for their first trail ride. Everyone did a good job of driving, we had no incidents of damage (except for Andrew's oil pan and exhaust...how'd he do that at GWNF?). And everyone I've talked to so far is ready to go again.
I'll likely look for some new trails in a different part of the forest, or somewhere closer to home for everyone. While the group seemed to enjoy these trails, doing them again could get boring real fast. Another location to rotate in would be good for us all.
Thanks to everyone that has emailed their support after the trip, I hope we can all do another one in the fall. Tell your friends!
DrJ
:yevil:
rack getting into the camp site. Thanks to all that help with getting our things to the camp site!!! The night went great, nice to see so many happy and friendly people. We really enjoy everyone there. Friday night was not good, our tent was flooded and all of our stuff was WET! We had to go and sleep in the jeep (Well Try to sleep)! The next day was a BLAST with great trails and a great leader and a well planned day! Thanks! We had to leave that night because all of our things were wet well really soaked! With all of my sets full and no more room, Troy and Carl Helped to take somethings back for us. Thank you Troy and Carl for all of your help!! I would also like to thank everyone else that tried to help, and the help with my new tent set-up!!
