Big Bear Day Run - Report

Trip report Big Bear Run October 22, 2016 We had the following people join us on this run with 6 rigs. Bob Boltner & Tim Regan Joe Picker Rick Fisher Paul Rourman Bob Marshall John Labbett Gary, Tim & I departed the Porter Ranch park & ride at just about 0610 for the drive to Lake Arrowhead. Enroute we picked up Joe Picker along the 210 near Pasadena. We gathered the rest of the group John, Paul, Bob M. at the Cedar Glen Inn for a group breakfast. This a great little place with good food and service. We filled our bellies and mounted up for the short drive to the trailhead of Dishpan Spring trail. We aired down and we hit the trail at 0945. Dishpan has a fun gatekeeper with a nice fun line to the right of center. I was leading and picked a line right up the center. I hit it just right and eased on up. Rick came behind and tried a slightly different line and got a bit tippy a few times. (See Tim's videos) with a bit a repositioning Rick made it successfully. Most of the others took the left line and before long we are moving again. The next fun area is right at Dishpan spring, Its a nice rock garden sometimes called "The Wall or Devils Slide" with a few different lines that make it fun for all. See Larry Mcrae's YouTube video "Crawl The Line" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bvvqpAsLLzA Again the group just made it look like child's play and we only took about 10 minutes to get everyone clear and to the top. I have spent well over an hour here at other times waiting for non OTR groups to clear this obstacle. We continued on and a quickly finished Dishpan at the Crab Flats Campground. From Here its a quick transit to the beginning of the Holcomb creek trail. From the West end Holcomb Creek Trail begins with a rock garden that is about 100 yards long. Everyone cleared that with no issues. HC trail is about 6 miles long and paralells the (you guessed it) Holcomb Creek and also the Pacific Crest trail. Along the way there are a few nice obstacles that depending on the water flow in the creek can be quite challenging. Most of the spots were rather dry and presented little difficulty for a group like OTR. Just after one of the obstacles past the Largo Flat connector trail we came upon a large group of Rigs that were coming in the opposite direction. Luckily for us they waited until we cleared and we kept right on moving. They could have held us up for a significant amount of time due to several of their rigs not being very well equipped. We ended HC trial at the Little Bear Spring Campground. From here we took the 3N08 trail to Holcomb Valley Road 3N16 to a short cut 3N02 to the Union Flat area and the gate keeper of the John Bull Trail. We stopped at the JB gate keeper for lunch. Again there was another group there already eating lunch. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch as well as a near perfect day weather wise. I don't think the temperature ever got above 70 degrees all day. After about 40 minutes for lunch the other group was stirring and we decided to get moving. We politely asked if they minded letting us go first. They were more than happy to let us go and watch our lines. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but wham bam we all cleared the Gate Keeper in short order. On JB there is about a 1/2 mile of more difficult sections, I always forget it goes on for a while. About half way along the trail there's a really nice overlook with a spectacular view of the Lucerne Valley. We remounted and finished JB Trail. End of trail time was approximately 15:30. 3 trails, about 20 miles of wheeling in about 6 hours. Not bad. We made our way down to Big Bear lake and the village of Fawnskin to air up. The group decided that since it was still early that we would just head home. Everyone got home safely and it was another super successful OTR run. Thank you all for attending, I had a great time wheeling with such a wonderful group of people. The End. Bob Boltner Testing video embed...

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