Calico Ghost Town

All, Unfortunately I’m up in San Simeon for work and won’t be able to attend the monthly meeting. I wanted to thank everyone that came out for the Calico run this year. It was a blast. Below is my recount of the events that took place. The trip started Friday for most of us with the exception of Dwayne and John which braved the wind and spent Thursday night out there. Friday morning Myself and Dan (100%) arrived and we loaded us some toys to plink off a few rounds with John and Dwayne. After a couple hours messing around John and Dwayne decided to go and run Duran. I’m guessing everything went smoothly and we all met back at camp around 5 to start some appetizers and getting ready for our potluck. Once everyone was settled we started the BBQ and put the heat to the meat. It was a very successful potluck with everyone chipping in something; Rick and Lisa made some BBQ veggies, John made a very delicious shredded chicken hot wing dip, Bob and Judy made a Baked Brie and Kahlua spread, and John L and Mary made some mash potatoes too. All in all there was way too much food for us to finish. Once dinner was over and everyone was slipping into a food coma we decided to get after a short night run around 830pm. The original plan was to head up Duran bypassing the Gatekeeper and turn around at a rock pile about half way up the trail. At the first obstacle John L lost a bead which we fixed quickly and proceeded up the trail to the rock pile. Once we reached the rock pile it was decided to push on up the remainder of the trail as to not have to go back down one of the larger waterfalls that we climbed. We reached the top of the trail and headed over to the plateau at the top of Duran and stopped to take a look down into Yermo at night. After 15 mins of taking in the view Bob B and I discussed a trail out that would be easy at night. We foolishly headed over to what we though was a passable trail (Wall Street). It was at this point that everything went wrong. With some miscommunication our group got split in half with 4 out of the 7 rigs heading down or up (not really sure) another mining trail. Just so you all know the place is littered with trails that go in every different direction making it difficult to distinguish what the correct trail is even with GPS. Bob, John L, and I went down to Wall Street and found a pretty tight obstacle that we didn’t want to run in the dark. Once down there we realized that we didn’t have the rest of the group. It was only then, roughly 15-20 mins later that the second half of the group realized that they had taken a wrong turn. Thus begun a fruitless search party by Bob to locate the other half. Needless to say there was a lot of I think I see you, o wait that’s a Plane or Nothing!!!. This continued for what seemed like eternity (1.5 hrs). During this time Dwayne somehow managed to get two front flat tires which I assume got fixed. Finally John C comes back on the radio saying he found the top of Duran Trail and he is taking the other half of the group back down. Bob headed back from the overlook and met up with John L and I at the bypass back to Wall Street Trail. We then foolishly headed down Wall Street only to reach the 200’ waterfall. Once we realized our mistake we took the only road we knew for sure would get us out without any more rock crawling. It took us all the way to the east side of Calico and out the paved road back to camp. Both groups arrived back at camp shortly after 1am and went to bed thus concluding our epically long warmup run. Saturday morning everyone got up a little later than usual and got breakfast started. At roughly 11am we loaded up and headed out to run back up Duran and over to Wall Street. The ride up Duran was a lot easier in the day and we all made it down to the obstacle we bypassed on Wall Street the night before. There was a group of 4 door JK’s attempting the narrow obstacle. We all piled out of our rigs to watch the carnage. To our surprise two of the JKs made it down the extremely narrow and windy obstacle albeit taking an hour between the two of them. Then Jedd, John C and myself ran down it in a bout 5mins with the rest of the group heading around the bypass and meeting us all at the bottom of Wall Street. We found a nice spot with shade and took lunch. By the way all of the caves at the bottom of Wall Street are now sealed off now. After lunch we all loaded up and headed back towards the east to find a place to shoot. We stopped about 5 mins from the exit and set up a little shooting area for clays and targets against a large hill backstop. After everyone had their fill of shooting we headed back to camp for potluck dinner round two. John made some chicken and I BBQ’d some leftover tritip from the night before and everyone else brought more sides and some tasty margaritas and bean dip from Rick and Lisa. Once finished with dinner we loaded up and headed out for Odessa and Mule Canyon. Odessa trail was awesome at night with the narrow canyon walls. We made the ledge obstacle in no time and I placed my tire in the narrowest part of the ledge and let everyone drive pass. John C stopped and let me winch up what felt like a 15’tall wall but we all made it and continued up to the start of Mule Canyon. From there it was dirt trails out and back to camp by 11. Once back we gathered for a little camp fire action and then off to bed. Sunday I loaded up first thing and headed for home. I hope everyone had as much fun out there as I did and I look forward to doing it all over again next year. (Maybe minus the long warmup run). Thanks to all who came. Regards, Scott Morse