Trail Report - Paragon Weekend June 19/20

  • I finally got my computer to let me onto the site, so here's a quick review of Saturday's events.


    We separated into two groups, modified and hardcore. Hardcore was Brian (MOPARTECH) and Barbie; Tom (OC) and Trevor; Chris (quadna) and Icky's brother; Lee (BlackRubi) and his girlfriend Julie; and me (BlueJ) and Erica's dad Mike. (Icky's family came along for the ride after hosting a night of camping on Mt. Lalik.)


    The hardcore team warmed up on Drumstick. Mostly this one went well, although none of us could get up the rock shelf on the right side up the hill (we had done it in previous rides). We also plowed up the rock face at the top of the hill, and then around the top, only stopping to re-seat a bead on Lee's jeep.


    Then on to M trail. This was a fun one. I scooted up to the top, then helped everyone else up. Some had some issues, digging holes in the dirt and hitting trees. I believe at least one taillight and one license plate frame were casualties.


    After the rock field at the top, we decided to scoot on down to join up with the other group for lunch at Voodoo. I sufferred a brain freeze and went the wrong way, wedging myself between a rock and a hard place (a big tree). Pushing through, I went on a severe tilt to the left with the right tires on a BIG rock, and then coming off the rock almost toppled tail over head. If I had hit the brakes, I probably would have gone over, but luckily I had split a brake line and lost my brakes a second or two earlier.


    After the dust settled (I don't remember much more), we took an inventory. It looked like only the brake line was broken, though it sure felt much more should have been. (I did get some matching dents on the other side of the windshield frame.) Brian and Chris crimped off the brake line, and we continued down the hill. Amazingly, Mike did get back into my jeep after our "near death experience". Tom followed my line and squeezed through, but everyone else went the right way and made it down uneventfully.


    We then headed over to Voodoo, WWWAAAYYY the heck over on the other side of the park. We sped up Valley Road and the Pipeline, then debated where to turn. There were no trail markers, so weren't sure where Ridge trail was. I was about to turn into a trail, and Tom said wait, go up that hill, "Ridge trail must be at the top of that ridge, right?". Well, I listened to him and went past what turned out to be Ridge trail and continued on to Muddy Pipeline Bypass. After cirling around for 1/2 of an eternity, we found ourselves at Voodoo. None of us quite remembered what it was supposed to look like, but the "Guide Only" sign convinced us we were in the right place.


    We looked around a while until the modified group caught up with us, and then we had lunch. A couple of us sickos then headed into Voodoo. Brian and Tom completed the trail (see separate post), but the rest of us turned back after repairing my broken front axle shaft (thanks everyone, especially Brian!)


    Now we need a report from the modified group, as well as from the campers and the Sunday trail ride...

    Former Trail Boss (2003 - 2005)

    Edited once, last by ().

  • nice pics I cant wait until I can get back up to paragon. Hopefully I will be able to go on a ride in august with you all....

  • I'll give the trail report for the Modified group for Saturday's run. In our group we had, Nikki (NikkiYJ) with Erica's mom, Scott (DeiselCJ) and his girlfriend, Jared (JBates) and his girlfriend, and Joe Lovett (JoeLove) with his da.


    We started out on the upper leg of Chicken Run. This proved to be a good starting out trail with a little bit of spotting, tree to windshield frame (#5 for me), and a lost bolt on a power steering tensioner. Back on Coal Road we fixed up DeiselCJ's tensioner and Joe beat his fender back to shape (he must really want those PSC tube fenders :rollsmile: ). We then headed over to Rubicon Lake and watched Joe go vertical on us. (Hope somebody got a picture of that). From there we tried a section of Whampom. This proved to be a challenge. Joe went up first to give everyone an idea of how to do it. I followed, along with Nikki with little problem. Scott started to make it up the hill when his front end started sounding like it was binding. We all tried to get him up the hill but decided to back down when the noise got worse. Jarrod gave his try up the rock face and made it without much trouble. From there we made it across the park and also couldn't find the turn off for Ridge Rd so we also went down Muddy Trail Bypass. From there we met up with the hardcore group to watch them on Voodoo.


    Any day of wheeling is a good day. I had a blast and hope that everyone else in my group also had fun. It was also good seeing some new faces on the trails.


    -Chris

  • It was a great weekend! I had a blast both days and the camping was the best!! It was nice seeing so many new faces out on the trails. I had my first real trail damage on saturday, well besides some scraps and dents. On Whampon, I managed to get up the big rocks with some help and on the way down the other side I hit the rock and broke my exhaust manifold. So now my jeep is VERY loud. Oh well. Still a great weekend.
    Thanks to Chris (jeepsahara) for leading us on saturday and to Chris (quadna) for leading us on sunday.


    Dave - nice pics.


    here are mine from the weekend.
    http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4286480743



    Oh and thanks Chris for passing Harry D. on to me. There are some pics in the above link of Harry D. with us on sunday.

  • sunday turned out being a great day for a nice relaxing ride. we ended up with a late start to the park after everyone packed up their camping gear. the total was only 4 jeeps - but it still proved to be a good number for a group ride.


    i made my first attempt at leading a group with Icky as my spotter/navigator. next was mellowyellow, then blackrubi, and finally the sample family riding in nikki's yj. we took the back road out of the lower staging area in order to make a fast run down to see the mineshaft.



    from there we headed off to outer spare tire. with rocky meadow shortly after it would be great way to work out the kinks in dave's new lift. both trails gave everyone a few bounces and scrapes but nobody had any real troubles. we took a break for drinks and sandwiches on the pipeline and just relaxed in some perfect weather. i even tried to convince trevor and bailey that they could move a rock to damn up the creek....well, almost...



    next, we moved on to laurel and boy scout where everyone had plenty of chances to wash their wheels from the days mud. once finished with boy scout i first took a wrong turn trying to find the spring - but it only threw us off a few hundred yards or so. hey, i never said i knew my way around :) finally getting to the spring, all of us played in the water crossing one last time before making our way back to the top of the park. a few of us hadn't had a chance to get to rubicon lake the day before and wanted to play around on the hills :suspicious:


    most of us took the time to play around and pose for some flex shots - dave's 3.5" lift was flexing more like a 4.5" if you ask me!



    eventually the two (the youngest of the three) Sample boys started playing around near the lake. before you knew it tom was following them around the entire lake - getting a great view of us from the other side (see nikki's pics for that shot of them with harry d!). i took a shot at a hill or two on the side - made it up them but still steered clear of the steepest one. "someone" had made some pretty deep ruts near the top and it just didn't look all that fun anymore (joe??? :) ). by that time though we decided to head back to the parking lot. most of us still needed to return to Lalik Mountain to grab our gear and it was a long ride back to delaware.


    see everyone else at the next ride :)
    chris


    oh, here at my pics at imagestation's site - hope you like them :)

  • Great day, and good job :up:


    I'm sorry I missed it, but the group was in capable hands.


    I spent the day at home cleaning the house (10 hours x 2 people = 1/4 cleaned).

  • One of the coolest parts of the 2nd day was when the guy at Paragon gave me full permission to smack Chris throughout the day if he did anything against the Paragon rules....all because I took the trail leader class and he didn't :)

  • I remember that rock.

    Member since 2000

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  • Sounds like you guys had a great day on Sunday. Sorry I missed, but I have to make the "family comes before Jeep" on certain occasions.
    Great pictures too.



    Thanks for the pic Joe. Came out better than I thought.


    -Chris

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