FITD

Fun In The Desert 2010
Attendees:
Rich & Corky Wohlers
DuWayne & Tina Larson
Jed Cunningham and Colin
John Cary
Keith Lyon
Damian Smith
Tony Pellegrino, his son and the GenRight Boyz
Ric Freymond
Mike & Laura Whittington

I pulled into camp on Thursday night at 10:00. Rich was already there and had just gone to bed. Just after Laura and I turned out the lights, I heard Ric pull in. Thursday night (as every night while on the lake bed) was nice and cool. On Friday morning Rich, Ric, Rich's friend Stu and another friend, Steve and I headed out for the West Coast Loop. The loop is made up of parts of several different trails including the bottom of Wrecking Ball, then up Bender Alley, Upper Jack Hammer then after we passed the mailbox at the official top of Sledge Hammer, we continued on upper Sledge (past the sand dune exit). The only mishap we had was Steve's new buggy which broke a front driveshaft right at the beginning of the run. He turned around and headed back for camp and Stu who ran out of gas about 20 minutes into the trail. He thought he had 3/4 of a tank; at least that is what the fuel level gauge read! Rich gave him some fuel and we proceeded on with no further mishaps on the trail. Ric decided not to do the top of Sledge Hammer. Ric peeled off up the sand dune and headed for camp. On his way back, somehow he chipped a tooth on his front ring gear...go figure??? That ended his weekend for technical wheeling.
We all headed back to camp and found others that had arrived or soon would arrive through the afternoon and evening.

On Saturday morning we lined up for our chosen runs. Rich was leading a new trail called Spooner. DuWayne was supposed to go with him but found that his rear ARB wasn't working. He decided to take another trail ride that didn't require a locker; Ric did the same. Tony was supposed to lead Outer Limits but didn't and joined the Spooner group. The Spooner run had 8 rigs and got back into camp at 2:30, with no issues on the trail. There were several trails with very light or no attendance.

Jed, John, Keith (with Damian riding shotgun), and I did Aftershock. Led by Dave Cole (the man behind King Of The Hammers). We only had six vehicles on the run. The trail is fairly short with only one really nasty section called Depreciation Knob, a rock "S" turn climb. We all made it through the trail with no issues. One person who was with us broke a front axle shaft which we replaced on the trail. If that didn't happen, we would have been back to camp before noon. We ended getting back about 3:00. Saturday evening started with refreshments and hors d oeuvres (I'll bet that is the first time hors d oeuvres has been used in a trip report) then we did a Tri Tip BBQ/Potluck. Some of the guys went over to the raffle and a few even won a few things. Keith won two sets of drawing items and Stu walked away with five sets!

I left Sunday morning. Rich finished the trip report with a Sunday club run.
The remaining group decided to do a Sunday morning run. We left camp at 9 with Rich, DuWayne, Jed and his buddy Colin, John, Keith and Damian. The first trail we ran was Clawhammer. The trail was a blast and no significant issues by anyone. We found that DuWayne’s locker would work, even with the air leak. His FToy did very well. At the top we decided that we were having so much fun that we needed to continue. We went over and ran Boulderdash, Upper Big Johnson and Lower Big Johnson. On one these sections Jed had some issues due to tire size, but we were able to keep him going. Then on Upper Big Johnson he got himself wedged and could not go forward or backward. Out came the high lift to get him rotated a bit. From there it was just a matter of gravity helping to get down. We got back to camp at 1, loaded up and headed home.
Great weekend in the desert. VV4W did a nice job on their event and it was too bad that it was so poorly attended. Next year will be the 20th anniversary.