Walker Valley Run
March
11, 2006
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4-Wheelin' News April Edition!
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can pick up a copy at your local 4 Wheel Drive Shop!
Hosted
by Chris Neibauer
Write
up's by Cecil Borg & Chris Neibauer
Cecil
Borgs' write up:
This is the day
we go back to Walker Valley. I always look forward
to running the trails here because it’s an adventure
every time out. This was our biggest run of the
year with 6 members, 1 candidate – Chris, who headed
up the run – and 10 guests. This includes Carl
Jantz in Super Jeep, John Vanhorn in the Unimog and
Larry in his white TJ, just to name a few. We had
16 rigs and over 30 people. Some knew we were in
for a long day.
We started out as
one group and ended up with two groups. Chris, with
help from others, was in the front group and Randy,
Gary, Chad and I were in the slow group in the
back. Chris is going to tell his own story. This
is where mine starts.
We got a slow
start but the fun started right away. This
first hill climb Jason got hung-up in his CJ-5 with the
wide axles, his carburetor was puking, and lack
of traction stalled his assent. It took a few attempts to get his rig
up. At the top of the hill, Carl was airing down
Jasons' tires to then discover he has 16.5s. You can’t
air down 16.5s past 15 psi without having problems
with losing your beads. So we put air back in the
tires.
We started out on
upper mainline. It’s about ¼ mile past the parking
lot off to your left. When you get to the top of
the hill drive through the gravel pit and take a
left on the gravel road to get to the rest of the
trail. This is a fun section of trail. It’s tight
turns, easy up the hill grade with roots and mud all
the way up. This trail hooks up with the old trail
and takes you to Express Way. One by one we went up
to the rockslide and pass the big stump. There is a bypass
that can be fun too. To the right side of the
stump the rock buggy shot right up
the rocks and so did Carl in his Super Jeep. I was
looking forward to getting my tires on the side of
this obstacle. I had hang ups on it in the past. I
tried the line to the right where the buggy went up
and I was stopped by tire spin with no traction to
be had! I
tried a few times. To the left was where Carl in his
Super Jeep sitting on 44's viciously powered
his jeep up between the rock and stump. The best I
managed to do was wedge myself between the rock and
stump. Although this was fun, it was time to move
on.
On Express Way we
stayed to the left on a muddy tight section of the
trail. This is one spot we got backed up. Oooh
yah! There was snow on the ground but not deep
enough to give us any trouble. The white
Toyota got hung up
on an obstacle that others in the front of the pack
were hung up on earlier. This was ok though, we had
a winch, but then the winch line broke. A come-along helped
get the Toyota unstuck only to be high-centered with
his front tires hanging in the air. Larry in his
TJ, after snapping his winch cable twice and tearing
his nerf bar off his jeep, helped tug the Toyota off
his perch.
While we were
waiting on traffic, Jason in his ’63 CJ5 noticed his
frame was cracked and about to come apart. We think
it happened when he got stuck between two trees and
winched himself out. Jason hooked up his winch line
to the frame to hold it together. We all
pulled off the trail to have lunch on a logging road
and had a chance to check out everyone’s rigs.
We headed out to
another new section of trail that wandered through a
clear cut and came up to a nice hill climb. Some
made it up and others were winching. Back on the
gravel and to our next trail, Jeep Cross. This is a
short trail. Easy to run until Aaron and Stacey in
their ’74 CJ5 lost a bead on their left front tire
and then bent their drag link. A little more time
in the outdoor shop and we were moving. After you
get off the Jeep Cross trail, you’re back on a
gravel road. There is a section that is washed
out. Watch your step here. It’s a long way to the
bottom. Kelly and I stopped here to look at some
bear tracks in the snow.
We moved on to
the lower mainline. It is suggested that you run
the lower mainline down instead of up when it is wet
because of the erosion. This is a fun trail –
tight, muddy, trees, stumps and roots. Shawn in his
XJ with open diffs got a couple tugs from cable to
keep him moving and about half way down the hill,
Stacey got covered in glass from the door window
when Shawn’s XJ kissed a large stump. By this time
I had noticed that my lower
control arm was
cracked. My winch cable held it together. As the
sun was going down, Aaron in his CJ5 bent his
dragline again. More time in the shop.
By the time we
fixed this, we were on the trail more than 9 hours
so we left the last section of trail for next time.
On the way back, Larry blew a tire. A can of ether
and a match, we were on our way. I had a good time
at Walker and I want to thank every one for their
help and patience.
Chris Neibauers'
write up:
Rigs started
showing up at around 9:00. I and about 5 other
trucks went up the road to pre stage and wait for
the others, but they were still getting more rigs
down at the parking lot so we left as two groups. We
took the hill up to the gravel pit and then made our
way up the upper main line trail to expressway. The
trail has really been dug out
and rutted since 6 months ago. Our group (the first
group), made it through the rock face and
made our way to a more difficult section. There, we
came to a spot where the path split between a few
trees. To the left there was a large drop which a
few short wheelbase rigs had a tough time and got
high centered, although on the right, it was a tight
spot between two trees and a diff-catcher stump
towards the right. About half of the rigs got stuck
for about 20 minutes each. The leader of the pack had
the most trouble. A few broken windows occurred.
After getting through that, we cut to the right to a
newer trail and followed it down to an area with
stumps. The other group went straight and cut to us
to catch up. We all headed to a spot in the upper
clear-cut where there was a hill climb with some large roots and
rocks. Kawika, in the xj locked front and rear made
it up the 2nd try. I made it in
the 3rd try with some skinny pedal. I
think that I tore it up pretty well, because about
every other truck (the open diff ones especially)
had a really hard time and a few people had to be
winched up. From there, we stopped on a gravel
road and parked for lunch and pictures.
After lunch, we
headed to Jeep Cross and our first group made it
through fine, until Aaron in a CJ bent his drag link,
twice in the whole trip. We fixed it and made our
way on. We came back on the main road and went to
the lower mainline trail. We were making progress, until I
came to a spot between a large tree and a large
stump, where I slashed a 35 and lost the bead. I put
a 34x9.50 on but lost the bead almost immediately
because the rim was too wide for the tire. I
borrowed a 33 from Dave in an XJ and we carried on.
We came to a clear-cut and came down to the main
road. John in the Unimog lost Aaron in the CJ, who
was behind him. Aaron had bent his drag link for the 2nd time. We jumped in the Unimog and
went to see the action. After getting everyone down
we went through the shoe-fly and went home. It was a
good day.
Damage List
6
flats, 2 broken side windows, 1 windshield, 3
snapped winch cables, 2 rock sliders torn off or
broken, 1 cracked frame, 1 broken lower control arm,
1 lost center wheel cap and broken lenses and lots
of dents!
