April Fools Day Crawl

SPOA87YJ

SPOA87YJ

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2005
Location
Charlotte
Not gonna make this long just wanted to start a thread for when everyone gets back. We lost a trailer tire on the way up Thursday evening which we were unaware of untill we pulled into the Dairy Hut. Chip hooked us up with a camping spot which was great, thanks again! On Friday I had a heim on my traction bar fail, which took out my rear driveshaft on Railbed. Saturday morning I twisted my front output shaft off in my rear case so I was done. Sam lost his ring and pinion on Little Jager and was done as well. Kregg broke his rear output right after me on Railbed but we got it fixed and he was able to continue riding.

GREAT to see everyone I haven't been out in a long time and had alot of fun despite the bad luck I still haven't gotten rid of :rolleyes:. Travis's new trailer is awesome, it'll be the ticket once he gets it squared away.

Here's a few pics, but they're mostly all of carnage....




 
April Fool Toyota Crawl 2009

There were lots of Toyotas in attendance this year but over all the event lacked the oooomph of Fall Crawl!

I hooked up with upnover, 89wrangler, 3DKRAWLER, ONTHAROX and Larry Smith Thursday afternoon at the Dairy Hut. The weather was cold and rainy but we were pumped to be back in Harlan! We all got together for dinner at The Corner Cafe and then headed back to unload rigs, set up camp, BS and swap news.

Friday was supposed to be pretty according to the weather but you know weathermen :( We got up to light rain which continued into the afternoon and added to the already torential run off from the past weeks rain. I've been to Harlan, at least 10 times or so and there was more water on the trails than I had ever seen! Some of the "trails" looked more like rivers Friday morning and it made for tough going!

We started out on Your Turn, took a look at Crawford's Cry and rode most of the north side trails, encountering some seriously nasty mud slick hill climbs before heading over to Lower Damnation. With all the rain, water, mud and traffic that made for a full day. We stopped by the Lower Rock Garden to play a bit on the way out but after a long day of mudding and winching we were ready to get back to camp for Chip's Famous Spaghetti dinner. Let me tell you, if you ever get a chance to try Chip's sauce you're in for a treat! Thanks to Chip and Leslie for serving up heaping portions of noodles, sauce, cheese and texas toast for our crew of 8! I guess everyone stayed up to BS, I don't know, I hit the sack :)

Friday night was COLD but we woke up to a forcast of better weather and after the sun burned some of the fog off it turned into a pretty nice day! Lots more people had showed up in the campground and we decided to head to the far end of the park to avoid the crowds and start out with Lion's Den and work our way back.

Right off the bat we ran into some traffic as Johnny Sherman's crew with Hokie YJ and 1tonmudder were stopped where some trees had come down in the Friday's storm. After some work they were able to make a bypass and the two groups headed to Lion's Den. This is one of the highest parts of the park but it hadn't been spared the water. It was the wettest I've seen it down in the Den and everyone had to winch at the rock/tree pinch in the middle. Next we headed over to Mason Jar where quite a crowd had collected. It thinned out quickly due to the by pass, which I haven't seen before and we were able to get moving pretty quickly. Coming back down the mountain we made a quick run on the Middle Rock Garden and then headed down to the Rail Bed waterfall to play before heading back to camp.

All in all, a real good weekend. No major carnage, in fact I think 89wrangler, with a broken ujoint, was the only real damage. Our group weekend awards go to:

Most Almost Flops: ONTHAROX
Most Winching: JC
Most All Out Performance: 3DKRAWLER on the Rail Bed waterfall
Worst Luck: upnover - picked on by the police
Most Carnage: 89wrangler
 
Great pic's JC!!
 
Awesome!
 
it was good to see a lot of people i've not seen in a while. Almost forgotten how much i enjoy a little wheeling. Kat got a few good pics...
tried the left line in lions den, couldn't make it happen
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regular line was OK
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worked on opening up a new line into lions den. ( their was a small plug in the squeeze) this comes up from the roadbed and drops in just past the squeeze. pretty fun.
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got to watch justin learning to drive
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anybody wanna guess what happened next?
 
surprise!
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this little spot proved to be troublesome to several people!
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its a little dug out now
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slow learner!
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i used to have a buggy that looked like this!
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Figured those would show up Kyle. That bike makes me look like a giant, or maybe it's just Justin :flipoff2:

We ran into these guys on the way home. Pretty nice ride.
 
We came up one Friday that looked like that. Trail 16 coming back up to Trail 15. Man was it a muddy, all out assault! Luckily no one had that problem but several were close and a couple others had to winch!
 
shoope1 said:
Explain how this happened. and where it happened?
Click to expand...


coming back from Lions Den, you go thru the red gate and its the hill down to your left...we had already gone up it 3 times and down it twice before this

we went up on the nose and justin tried to drive out of it but the nose just buried and we ended up on our side like that

neither of us we wearing the shoulder harnesses and that saved justins butt big time...a big rock came in thru the door area right next to his shoulder...tore up his steering wheel pretty good
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btw everyone i had a GREAT time...enjoyed meeting everyone that i hadnt already met etc etc...

this weekend convinced me to cease building my tacoma and buy a fully dedicated trail rig

the hard trails are so much more fun than the easy/moderate trails
 
Here are some of my pics for the weekend. Casidy, PJ, Fred, and I all rode together. We met up with Travis, Marky, and Greg a couple of times. Had an awsome time even though it was still sloppy as hell.
 

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lets see more pics i didn't get to go, i've got the not finished rig blues.
 
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