- Joined
- Apr 18, 2005
- Location
- Greensboro, NC
Although pre-registration numbers were not overwhelming, I felt like there would be a good turnout for the SFWDA 2007 summer convention in Mountain City, TN, so I headed up early Thursday morning intending to tend to some trail clearing I have had my eye on for a couple of years. I arrived at Callalantee at 8 a.m. thinking I would be the first one there, only to find one rig already ensconded in a campsite.
I unloaded and made an initial run up to the trail section I have been looking at to check it out again for clearing and then headed back to camp to hook up with a couple of fellow NC 4x4’ers. We headed up the Welder trail to begin working but immediately encountered some problems on The Waterfall. It was “déjà vu all over again” as I managed to bend a rear main leaf spring while bouncing in the hole to the right (I did the very same thing to the same right rear spring in the very same spot last year at the 2006 summer convention). Not to be outdone, RKBJR managed to not just bend, but completely break one if his rear main leafs in two places! Lucky for me, RK runs the same main leafs in the rear as I do, stock XJs, and he just happed to be carrying three spares. He and Jeff hopped into my rig and we limped back to camp to repair mine and get a spare for RK to take back to his rig. They headed back to start repairs while I waited for some more early arrivals, YelloyJeepCJ, SPOA87YJ, Got4Lo and StretchASU to get unloaded so they could follow me back out to the trail. We got back to The Waterfall just as the repairs were finished and I déjà vu’ed myself a second time as I bent my repaired leaf on my first try. RK offered his last spare but not wanting to put him out I looked for other options. Turns out Got4Lo was taking a welding class at Appalachian State Univ and had access to the metal shop. We took the bent main leaf back to the shop, put it in a press, bent it back into shape and made some clamps to hold it to the secondary main leaf. The repair was a good one as it held up the rest of the weekend through some serious hammering!
Friday morning I hooked up with the same group of rigs and rode all day hitting Armor All, Little Tellico, the AORC rock garden and Welder, all the time thinking about the trail I had wanted to clear. At 5 p.m. we were debating heading back to camp when I broached the subject of taking a look at the clearing work I wanted to do. The guys agreed so we headed back down Welder and began clearing fallen trees, winching logs and cutting brush, opening up a nice 300 yard section of slick rock and stair steps which we named Easy Out, a sarcastic reference to the fact that it wasn’t easy to get out at all. As darkness approached I made a quick run up the trail, christened it Easy Out and we headed back to camp to spread the gospel of the new trail section. As we got back to camp my feelings about the turn out were confirmed as most all of the good sites were taken and there were rigs and trailers everywhere! I grabbed a quick burger and bed, anxious for the next days fun to begin.
Saturday morning I woke up to a madhouse. The campground was packed and there was action everywhere with folks registering, renewing old friendships, unloading rigs and doing that last minute thrashing that we seem to do on our rigs to get them ready to ride. At one point I counted over 40 rigs and I know there were many more than that. I led the first group of the day out to the trails and we made our way straight to the Easy Out section of Welder via The Waterfall. About half of our group of 10 rigs took the bypass while the rest braved the new trail section, dong their best to speed up the breaking in process by running over brush and tree limbs we had left the night before. No one in our group made it without winching as several large logs stopped progress and we headed up to the top of Welder where we looped back down the V-notch trail back to Easy Out. Now the section was packed with rigs testing it out. Difficulty had already eased up due to the traffic and some rigs were able to make it up using the skinny pedal while most still relied on a winch or strap. Several breakages had occurred and while there we witnessed the first roll over, NC 4x4 member ol’Jeeps; Easy Out was beginning to take it’s toll. With more rigs headed up Welder to the new section we headed over to the Little Tellico area for some breathing room only to find a major traffic jam. One rig from Grace 4x4, moms1997, was sideways in the Armor All section with two broken ball joints, several rigs were hammering on Big Tellico, aka Pull Cable, and progress up Little Tellico was slowed by attempts by near stock rigs. Not wanting to be late for the big BBQ dinner and raffle, not to mention the SFWDA meeting, we headed back to camp.
At the Johnson County Rescue Squad several CTB members showed up to help our officers unload the raffle booty and get things setup for the meeting. A much larger turnout than expected, around 150 meal tickets sold, caused some fears that the food would run short but in the end there was plenty with extra meal tickets being sold. SFWDA president Jay Bird conducted the association meeting which contained some good information from Director Of Legislative Affairs, David Borum, regarding land use issues and how we as clubs can actively support our sport and a report by Tresurer Ray Stanley which documented our contributions, expenses and financial standing. CTB, under the leadership of new P.R. director and professional beggar Dylan Wiles, had done a great job with the raffle merchandise with everything from Professional Glass Cleaner to a set of four Super Swamper tires donated by Galloway’s Four Wheel Drive being offered. A big thanks to all the raffle donors including Galloway’s, SpiderTrax , Warn, ARB, AirRaid, TeraFlex, K.O.R.E., Ty's Offroad and Performance, Carolina Rock Shop, C.O.R.E., J.C. Whitney, Four Wheel Parts Wholesalers, Alpha Four Wheel Drive, Ultimate Air, Butch at 4Wheel Supply and probably more that I missed. Support our sport! Call these people and thank them for their donations to SFWDA and our sport! When you need to buy something, call them FIRST! Only if you actively support wheeling by calling or writing your legislative representatives as David Borum stressed and by patronizing (buying) donating four wheel parts and accessories suppliers, can full size four wheeling continue to be a viable alternative for off road recreation! Wow, three full days of wheeling had left me whipped and I headed back to camp and bed.
Sunday morning found the campground much less crowded as most of the folks had headed home after the raffle, but a good number had stayed around to ride and they were joined by those who couldn’t make it until Sunday. We had two large groups, about 20 rigs total, that once again ran up Welder to the Easy Out section where rigs continued to hammer the steps until they made it or broke it! Several of the Grace 4x4 guys hit it hard and a few CTBers were full throttle. The section was becoming progressively easier but still a tough challenge. Moms1997 and I did some checking around and it looks like the underlying rock formations will be strong enough to withstand the abuse that we and Mother Nature can dish out in the near future as Easy Out becomes another bead burned into the Welder trail system!
To recap: the weather was great, some rain at night, clear during the day; the trails were in good shape; the turnout was better than expected leading to some trail crowding at times; the meeting and raffle were well attended; many old friendships were renewed and new ones begun; many new people were introduced to the sport; The Carolina Trailblazers and Southern Four Wheel Drive Association did an outstanding job of putting on the 2007 SFWDA Summer Convention and Quarterly Meeting. It was a great experience for me and I hope for all that attended. If you missed it, try to come out next time. Hope to see you on the trails soon!
I unloaded and made an initial run up to the trail section I have been looking at to check it out again for clearing and then headed back to camp to hook up with a couple of fellow NC 4x4’ers. We headed up the Welder trail to begin working but immediately encountered some problems on The Waterfall. It was “déjà vu all over again” as I managed to bend a rear main leaf spring while bouncing in the hole to the right (I did the very same thing to the same right rear spring in the very same spot last year at the 2006 summer convention). Not to be outdone, RKBJR managed to not just bend, but completely break one if his rear main leafs in two places! Lucky for me, RK runs the same main leafs in the rear as I do, stock XJs, and he just happed to be carrying three spares. He and Jeff hopped into my rig and we limped back to camp to repair mine and get a spare for RK to take back to his rig. They headed back to start repairs while I waited for some more early arrivals, YelloyJeepCJ, SPOA87YJ, Got4Lo and StretchASU to get unloaded so they could follow me back out to the trail. We got back to The Waterfall just as the repairs were finished and I déjà vu’ed myself a second time as I bent my repaired leaf on my first try. RK offered his last spare but not wanting to put him out I looked for other options. Turns out Got4Lo was taking a welding class at Appalachian State Univ and had access to the metal shop. We took the bent main leaf back to the shop, put it in a press, bent it back into shape and made some clamps to hold it to the secondary main leaf. The repair was a good one as it held up the rest of the weekend through some serious hammering!
Friday morning I hooked up with the same group of rigs and rode all day hitting Armor All, Little Tellico, the AORC rock garden and Welder, all the time thinking about the trail I had wanted to clear. At 5 p.m. we were debating heading back to camp when I broached the subject of taking a look at the clearing work I wanted to do. The guys agreed so we headed back down Welder and began clearing fallen trees, winching logs and cutting brush, opening up a nice 300 yard section of slick rock and stair steps which we named Easy Out, a sarcastic reference to the fact that it wasn’t easy to get out at all. As darkness approached I made a quick run up the trail, christened it Easy Out and we headed back to camp to spread the gospel of the new trail section. As we got back to camp my feelings about the turn out were confirmed as most all of the good sites were taken and there were rigs and trailers everywhere! I grabbed a quick burger and bed, anxious for the next days fun to begin.
Saturday morning I woke up to a madhouse. The campground was packed and there was action everywhere with folks registering, renewing old friendships, unloading rigs and doing that last minute thrashing that we seem to do on our rigs to get them ready to ride. At one point I counted over 40 rigs and I know there were many more than that. I led the first group of the day out to the trails and we made our way straight to the Easy Out section of Welder via The Waterfall. About half of our group of 10 rigs took the bypass while the rest braved the new trail section, dong their best to speed up the breaking in process by running over brush and tree limbs we had left the night before. No one in our group made it without winching as several large logs stopped progress and we headed up to the top of Welder where we looped back down the V-notch trail back to Easy Out. Now the section was packed with rigs testing it out. Difficulty had already eased up due to the traffic and some rigs were able to make it up using the skinny pedal while most still relied on a winch or strap. Several breakages had occurred and while there we witnessed the first roll over, NC 4x4 member ol’Jeeps; Easy Out was beginning to take it’s toll. With more rigs headed up Welder to the new section we headed over to the Little Tellico area for some breathing room only to find a major traffic jam. One rig from Grace 4x4, moms1997, was sideways in the Armor All section with two broken ball joints, several rigs were hammering on Big Tellico, aka Pull Cable, and progress up Little Tellico was slowed by attempts by near stock rigs. Not wanting to be late for the big BBQ dinner and raffle, not to mention the SFWDA meeting, we headed back to camp.
At the Johnson County Rescue Squad several CTB members showed up to help our officers unload the raffle booty and get things setup for the meeting. A much larger turnout than expected, around 150 meal tickets sold, caused some fears that the food would run short but in the end there was plenty with extra meal tickets being sold. SFWDA president Jay Bird conducted the association meeting which contained some good information from Director Of Legislative Affairs, David Borum, regarding land use issues and how we as clubs can actively support our sport and a report by Tresurer Ray Stanley which documented our contributions, expenses and financial standing. CTB, under the leadership of new P.R. director and professional beggar Dylan Wiles, had done a great job with the raffle merchandise with everything from Professional Glass Cleaner to a set of four Super Swamper tires donated by Galloway’s Four Wheel Drive being offered. A big thanks to all the raffle donors including Galloway’s, SpiderTrax , Warn, ARB, AirRaid, TeraFlex, K.O.R.E., Ty's Offroad and Performance, Carolina Rock Shop, C.O.R.E., J.C. Whitney, Four Wheel Parts Wholesalers, Alpha Four Wheel Drive, Ultimate Air, Butch at 4Wheel Supply and probably more that I missed. Support our sport! Call these people and thank them for their donations to SFWDA and our sport! When you need to buy something, call them FIRST! Only if you actively support wheeling by calling or writing your legislative representatives as David Borum stressed and by patronizing (buying) donating four wheel parts and accessories suppliers, can full size four wheeling continue to be a viable alternative for off road recreation! Wow, three full days of wheeling had left me whipped and I headed back to camp and bed.
Sunday morning found the campground much less crowded as most of the folks had headed home after the raffle, but a good number had stayed around to ride and they were joined by those who couldn’t make it until Sunday. We had two large groups, about 20 rigs total, that once again ran up Welder to the Easy Out section where rigs continued to hammer the steps until they made it or broke it! Several of the Grace 4x4 guys hit it hard and a few CTBers were full throttle. The section was becoming progressively easier but still a tough challenge. Moms1997 and I did some checking around and it looks like the underlying rock formations will be strong enough to withstand the abuse that we and Mother Nature can dish out in the near future as Easy Out becomes another bead burned into the Welder trail system!
To recap: the weather was great, some rain at night, clear during the day; the trails were in good shape; the turnout was better than expected leading to some trail crowding at times; the meeting and raffle were well attended; many old friendships were renewed and new ones begun; many new people were introduced to the sport; The Carolina Trailblazers and Southern Four Wheel Drive Association did an outstanding job of putting on the 2007 SFWDA Summer Convention and Quarterly Meeting. It was a great experience for me and I hope for all that attended. If you missed it, try to come out next time. Hope to see you on the trails soon!
