OTR Slant Ranch DAY RUN

Trip Report:
Dishpan Spring Run October 25th, 2014
In attendance were: Bob Boltner; Gary Martin and friend Jason; Jerome Blunck; Bill Cavan & his better looking half Cheryl; Russ Mukai and Mike Sidlinger.
We met at the Porter Ranch Park & Ride just before 06:00. After the customary hellos and bantering we had our safety briefing and got the guest liability waivers signed. It was time to hit the road. We departed at 06:20 for Lake Arrowhead. After a quick stop on the 18 just prior to going up the mountain for gas and a 10-100 break we arrived at Cedar Glen Inn at Lake Arrowhead at about 08:30 for breakfast. When we pulled into the lot there was a 4X4 club from Riverside with about 10 Jeep XJ’s, who were also going to run Dishpan, more on them later.
We had a great breakfast on the patio of the Cedar Glen Inn, the food was great and the pancakes were the size of hub caps. I highly recommend the croissant breakfast sandwich although most in our club thought it was akin to quiche on the man scale. I enjoyed the sandwich and the ribbing.
We finished breakfast at about 09:20 and we headed to our rigs for the short trip to the trailhead of the Dishpan Spring trial (3N34). The XJ group was airing down in the parking lot of the restaurant. We decided to head right to the trailhead and air down there and try to get ahead of them. As we were airing down at the trailhead along came the XJ crowd. We would end up being about 5 minutes in trail of them.
Before long we came to the signature obstacle of this trail; the waterfall. And yes we caught up to the XJ crowd. We arrived just as the first XJ vehicle was attempting the difficult line. He took about 30 minutes. The rest struggled as well. It would seem that most didn’t have lockers or much experience for that matter. We assisted them more than their own members. After a lot of strapping, winching, bouncing, struggling and effort and what I believe was about over an hour all their vehicles were above the obstacle.
Next came the OTR vehicles. We took about 5 minutes or less to get all 6 of our vehicles over the obstacle. At that point the leader of the XJ group smartly offered to allow us to pass their group. We thanked them and moved on.
We found the Arrowhead area to be very nice. There are some burned out areas, but other areas are beautiful with lots of trees. It was a bit dusty but a little rain or snow will fix that in no time. The weather was just about perfect. Temps in the mid 60’s, a slight breeze and hardly a cloud in the sky.
We finished Dishpan springs trail around 11:00 at the Crab flats campground. (This might be a nice place for an OTR overnight trip) and we quickly decided to push on for Holcomb Creek trail (3N93). You take the Crab Flats road (3N34) north east to the trailhead of Holcomb Creek trail. At the trailhead we came upon a female hiker that was in need of water, even though there is an active creek right there. I asked her if she was able to filter the water, and she told me she was but the water made her sick because it has arsenic in it. (rrrright) . She was a bit off. We gave her 2 quarts of water, after asking her repeatedly if she had enough she said “I guess” and then she melted back into the trees. Very odd.
The start of Holcomb has a fun rock field that is about 200 meters long. We all got through it with a bit of banging and bouncing, but little trouble. The trail parallel’s the Holcomb Creek as one might have gathered from the name and at times you can see the Pacific Crest hiking trail that goes nonstop from Mexico to Canada. There are a couple of creek crossings every so often that would be fun during the spring thaw, and rock obstacles every so often to keep you engaged. The sightseeing there is really nice also. All in all it is a nice trail. We finished the trail about 2:30 or 3:00 and after a short break we decided that we may have one more trail in us. Looking at the iPad GPS map I figured we could get to John Bull trail in about 20 minutes. At this point Bill and Cheryl had to leave us to meet up with some friends in Lake Arrowhead. We all bid them farewell.
Next we took 3N08 trail to the 3N16 (Holcomb Valley road) this will take you to one of two trails (3N32 or 3N02) that will get you to the east end of John Bull Trail. 3N32 brings you right to the start of the hard section. 3N02 takes you a bit further east and is just a short trail ride back to where 3N32 intersects. Either way is good.
Ok here is where the fun begins. We get to the beginning of John Bull. There is one rig coming out, he advises that there is about 5 other rigs coming out (west to east, we are going east to west, the preferred direction.) One of their rigs is stuck and there isn’t room to go around. About this time a couple of local hillbillies in a full size pickup with like 44” tires and a 400 pound aircraft carrier shackle hanging off the trailer hitch shows up behind us. I am thinking its go now or go home, but if we go we have to be ahead of the hillbillies. The day is getting short and the sun is getting low. We are lined up and I decide to move up through the first obstacle and see if we can get by. I get about 100 meters in and there is a 4 door JK and a TJ and a full size Toyota land cruiser wagon. They have two others coming and they got their friend moving. I call up the rest of the OTR group to move up to my position so that as soon as the rigs coming east bound clear we are ready to move. The TJ (with no lockers) gets stuck right in the middle of the trail and it takes about 15 minutes to free him. During all this the hillbillies are honking their horn. That’s to be expected I guess when you have a 400lb shackle. The trail clears and off we go. Up, up and away. I have to give a big shout out to Mike Sidlinger. His CJ with 33” tires did awesome all day. Only one or two times did he get hung up bit, but he soldiered on and was always there. After we cleared the traffic jam it was clear wheeling towards the end of the trail. John Bull is a great trail with some really fun obstacles. I want to go back. There are also some spectacular views of Johnson Valley. We moved right along with purpose now as the sun was getting lower on the horizon. As we got less than ¼ from the end of John Bull Russ calls out that he lost his brakes. We jump out and Russ is puking brake fluid from his right front brake flex line fitting on the frame mount.
As luck would have it on an OTR run, we had a spare…. Only one problem. Russ has a Chevy brake kit and the banjo fitting bolt it larger than the jeep fitting on the spare. What now? Some quick back and forth and we quickly figured out that we could just use a hole enlarging tool (round file) on the jeep line brass banjo fitting and make the Chevy Banjo bolt fit. It worked like a champ and in about 30 minutes we had Russ’s brakes bled and ready to go.
About now the sun is about below the horizon. As we pull off the trail it was just time to turn on the headlights. Whew that was cutting it close.
Side note: As we are coming out the last ¼ mile a really nice new shiny JK 4 door is going in with a bunch of young guys in it….Alone. No winch, and less experience. We advised they try it another day or plan on spending the night on the trail when they get high centered. One might go in there after the winter and find their bones in a nice pretty JK.
We are off the trail and the sun has set. We head in towards Big Bear Lake on Holcomb Valley road. We turn right onto the 38 and then turn onto a side street to safely air up, it’s dark now. 30 minutes later we are heading along 38 towards the 18 when we get a radio call from Jerome. His steering wheel is 90 degrees off center and he is having death wobble. Deja vu, its Shaver Lake all over again. We pull over and this time we know right were to look. His front track bar frame side bearing popped a snap ring and has fallen apart. Jerome advises that last time this happened he had to put the assembly in a press to get the snap ring back in. Jerome was about to leave his vehicle again. NOT SO FAST JEROME! We can fix this, but first we had to find a safer place to work. We drove about 2 miles and found a turn off on the 18 that offered us safety. Then we went to work. In just a couple of minutes we had the track bar off. We had all the bearing parts, but we couldn’t seem to get it compressed enough to engage the snap ring, just as Jerome had said. Now what? In OTR fashion, the ideas were flying fast and furious and in just a few minutes we had all decided on a workable solution. We decided that if we couldn’t get the snap ring in to hold it together we would then use a large chisel and stake the washer that sits behind the snap ring into place. This would hold the bearing in place and Jerome was going to get another bearing anyway. It worked like a champ, but we wanted just a bit more safety margin for the long drive home. It was quickly decided that an open end wrench would fit perfectly between the bearing and the frame mount thereby prevent any chance of the bearing from coming apart. The wrench was held in place by two hose clamps preventing it from becoming dislodged. What team work! It was a thing of McGiver beauty. We were back on the road again.
A quick stop at the bottom of the mountain for gas, coffee and a 10-100 and were off.
We finally arrived home at just about midnight. That was one long day but I don’t know about everyone else, but I had a great day.
Thanks to all the participants of this epic and memorable run. 3 really good trails in one day and two breakdowns and everyone made it home under their own power, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Bob