Hi Desert Round-Up

High Desert Roundup 2006

I arrived at the camping area a bit after 9 on Thursday evening. The
weather was nice. There were a few camps dispersed about the main
camp area. I pulled into the area OTR has been using for a few years,
put the slides out and turned on the TV. Fell asleep shortly there
after.

Woke up Friday morning and there was John Carey. All I could hear was
the snoring! Never heard them pull in. Turned out they decided to
come out the 210 and hit the traffic jam from hell. Did not get into
camp until 3AM. Anyway, decided to walk over to the main area and see
our Gen Right crew. Steve, Kris and Scott were there and starting to
get set up. They had arrived earlier on Thursday. Decided we should
move over on the other side of the road from them, rather than the
spot I had parked the night before. We were only expecting three OTR
members, plus two others. Dan Ricketts and his son arrived a little
while after moving and my friends DuWayne and Tina arrived Friday
evening. Keith and his family arrived Friday afternoon. So we had
five rigs in our camp.

Friday was pretty much a hang out day. We watched the Tin Benders set
up camp next to Gen Right. Looked over the raffle buggy. The buggy is
being built on a Hendrix Formula chassis. They have a number of
vendors all lined up to install good stuff. Will probably be worth
around $30K when done. All need to buy tickets for this. They are
building up a rig to be raffled next year. All of the proceeds go to
helping FOPV to open up Surprise Canyon. Kris bought the first
tickets and I got to buy the second group.

Did I say that the wind picked up? Well it sure did! And blew all
night.

Saturday was COLD and WINDY. Surprisingly cold for this time of the
year. Barely into the 50s. The group decided to do The Empire Strikes
Back. We were in the first third of the group. We had Scott and Kris
in Scott's rig; Steve and his daughter in the white TJ; Rich and
Cork; Keith and his crew; Dan Ricketts and his son in his nicely done
YJ (with Chevy V8 power); and DuWayne and Tina. The first canyon is
always fun. Hate the top with the off camber and the drop off. Always
gets my attention. We continued on to the second canyon, Dinero
Canyon. Steve's daughter took over driving duties and did real well
on the climb out. I was a bit concerned when she got off the gas
momentarily and started to go sideways, but she did a nice recovery.
When it was my turn, I did not fare so well. Got up the waterfall,
but the front end crabbed down hill on me and the right side got real
loose. So I stopped. Steve draped over my hood and the others held
the right side down. Backed off and then back up with no problems.
This is a game of inches. The rest of the group made it easily.

The third canyon is called T/A Terror. At the end of the canyon is a
really tall waterfall and a really loose, off camber hill climb out.
Keith was the only one of the group to head up to the waterfall, but
did not get far and got stuck. Made the right decision to turn back.

This was the end of the run and we all headed back to camp to try to
warm up.

Later in the day, we decided to go run Pumpkin Eater. We did the East
Canyon first. The organized run had a good group still at the first
waterfall. Not even sure they ran the East canyon. Did not seem like
a lot of vehicles had gone through. Anyway, the East Canyon was fun.
We did have to do a bit of trail building. We then headed over to the
West Canyon. We watched a real nice Willys try in vain to make the
waterfall, but he never did. Then another rig tried and also did not
make it. Then Steve worked it. I left before Steve's last try. His
daughter was taking videos and has great footage of his end over
roll. John Carey will get the video and post it for all to see.
Spencer had just gotten in the passenger seat, so it was the two of
them who got the thrill of the roll. No one was hurt, but the front
end body and windshield are toast. See the link Richie linked on the
Pirate board.

The wrecked Jeep helped to draw a lot of people over to the Gen Right
display.

On Sunday we ran the Teeter Totter. Not much club participation, but
we managed to pull it off. Garnered $147 for the event. The weather
was absolutely perfect all day. The raffle was Sunday night. Keith
was the only winner. If you need a bungee cord, Keith is the guy to
see.

On Monday we chased around the hills on the east side of camp. Going
up and down whatever we could find. This was Keith, John and Rich. We
left camp around noon and really had no traffic going home.