Colossal K9’s, 2015
By Charles Galpin
On Sunday the big boys went to play on the big stuff. If my wheeling hadn’t been cut short to that point I would have loved to have gone with them as a passenger. But instead team D90 teamed up with team JK and we hit v-trail
It was great to see young drivers on the trail (Logan and Campbell) who got to drive most of the day and did very well.
I’m not sure what I was thinking but I initially led the group out the front gate towards the snow tubing area. I think you can go that way, but either way, the gate was locked so we turned around. This gave Craig an opportunity to give someone a OCC business card as well.
We went up v-trail without fanfare and at the top made the decision to continue on instead of plan B - going back down and then up to pinnacle. We followed the trail and occasionally made some guesses as to what fork to take, as well as walk a portion of the boulder field before deciding not to go that direction. At some point Jim lost/sheared some bolts holding on his rear diff cover and managed to bend it awkwardly when backing up so we had to stop and remove it. We continued down the trail with some brief spotting at one section and ended up coming out at the ATV parking lot area. Since it was around noon, we headed back to camp to pack up our gear and head home.
Our Saturday group consisted of:
- Charles Galpin/Rich Martinez - “pink” D90 ST on 33s
- Jason Lavender/Ethan - D90 ST with suspect transfer case but working lockers on 33s
- Jim Joachim/Alli - D90 SW on 33s
- Graig McVeay - sweet JKU on 35s
- David & Logan Adams - sweet JKU on 35s
- Mark & Campbell Johnson - sweet JK on 35s
- Charles Galpin/Rich Martinez - “pink” D90 ST on 33s
- Jason Lavender/Ethan - D90 ST with suspect transfer case and bad arb compressor relay on 33s
- Jim Joachim/Alli - D90 SW on 33s
- Ed Miller - 03 TJ on 35s
On Sunday, since we were wrenching until lunch replacing a transfer case in a rover, we only hit the trail at 1:30 pm. Rich “forgot” a jeep so we made him the group photographer.
We headed down to trickle and ran up it, then up wahoo, and dropped Rich off back at camp so he could start prepping for dinner. We then went back and went up u-turn hard, and down u-turn easy before heading back to camp for dinner. A hard fought afternoon of wheeling, but well worth it!
I’d like to give a big shout out to Rich for providing and cooking dinner, as well as providing beers out of his own pocket.
Our Sunday group consisted on:
All in all a great weekend. Here are the pictures Rich took
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cx9ickwaf9fyxvs/AABbPNZpm7hJ7tFvS1qrCNRca?dl=0