Those in attendance were:

Me [Chip Woods], member, TJ on 33's 

Ed Salas, member, TJ on 37's

Morgan Franklin, member, YJ on 35's

Graydon Weiderman (sorry if the spelling is wrong), member, CJ on 37's, with Ed Clark, member, riding shotgun

Rob Landrum, ex-member soon to be member again, XJ on 35's I think

So like a normal wheeling trip begins, we stood around and chatted while we aired down, etc., but unlike a normal wheeling trip we were actually all ready to hit the trails before 9:00.  The plan was to run high blues and some blacks, or purples as they're called at Rausch.  During the airing down/chit chat process a quick game of "not it" determined that Morgan lost and had to guide the group for the day.

So after a consult of the map and finding the maplets app on his phone we were on our way.  We left the parking lot, cut through the comp course and hit trail "A" (green) to make our way towards Yellow Jacket (purple).  We ended up at a cul-de-sac at the end of "A" at the park boundary, which led Morgan to question while we were turning around whether we wanted him to guide all day.  I volunteered to take the lead at that point, and got us onto trail "C" (green), turned us right onto a blue shortcut towards Pole Line, and then onto what I believe was trail "10" (black).

We all made our way through taking a variety of lines and ended up again on trail "C" near CV Trail.  We then motored on to Yellow Jacket, with Ed and Morgan being the only ones to take the hard line up.  The rest of us made our way around the ridge and we then got onto trail "4" (blue).  Trail "4" took us to trail "8" (black), where we took some time to play around.  Trail "8" is less of a trail and more of decent sized rock garden that you can pick a line any line and just make your way around for a while. 

From "8" we exited back onto "C", turned left onto "B" (green), and another left onto "E" (green), and entered the south property.  We ran "E" to a right turn onto "S" (green), and followed that to trail "22" (purple).  We made it through "22" without incident and exited it and turned immediately on trail "21" (green, with some more difficult options). 

It was in one of the more difficult options that Graydon's carbureted CJ started sucking air and shutting down on him.  He fortunately had a can of starting fluid, so while Ed squirted Graydon cranked and after minimal effort got the rig leveled out enough to run on it's own fuel.  For some reason however not much farther down the trail the rig continued to have fuel problems so Graydon decided to call it a day.  After confirming he had contact information for at least of us in the group he and Ed headed back to the parking lot to trailer up and head home.  The rest of us opted to eat lunch, it was probably right around noon at this point, so we stopped at the top of Lake Christy and took a break for some people fuel.

After some grub and a few wrong turns on my part we got straightened out trail "S" and hit the southern entrance to Snakebite, which is purple for about half and black for the rest.  We ran Snakebite for it's entirety, and then Rob had to call it a day, he had committed to being home before it got too late.  We backtracked back the parking lot via green "S" to "E" to "B" where Rob aired up and Morgan, Ed, and I bought some raffle tickets, had a bite from the food vendor, and checked out the raffle prizes on display in the pavilion.

It was maybe 2:30 at this point, so after a bit of discussion we decided to go find where the buggies were playing and spectate for the reminder of the day.  Our first choice was to head to Stairstep or Jotter's Way, both red or really really black.  On the way there I missed a turn to stay on trail "L3" which is either green or blue, and ended up on something a little rocky and off-camber.  No big deal, nothing we hadn't done earlier, except it was later in the day....I tried the harder but less tippy line and got denied a time or two, and it being late I didn't want to flog it too much, so I bailed and took an easier but more tippy line and proceeded to wheel myself into a "little help?" situation.  Despite being told otherwise, I was convinced my drivers rear tire was hanging over a crevasse of Himalayan proportions, so I'd take a spot, I'm just not going backwards, no way no how.....Anyway, Ed got me out it just fine.  Ed then took the line I bailed on with no problems, followed by Morgan who tried it but ended up in the same spot I did, but without the huge crevasse for some reason ;)  A little rock stacking, a bit of spotting, and he was good to go.  After some "it's late they said, let's stay on the easy stuff they said" type of ribbing over the CB we passed all of the hard stuff in that portion of the property without seeing another soul. 

Next option was maybe Crawler Ridge, which is blue-black-red depending on the line, and is usually a good choice for spectating.  So we hustled that way via the fastest greenest route we could to see what we could see.  No buggies....but we watched a 4-runner try and get denied and had a good laugh watching some kids from New York/Jersey hump rocks and beat up their vehicles for about thirty minutes...."Hey Paulie, just give it all the gas you got!!!  Don't worry about your exhaust, it's already tied to your roof!!!"  After having enough of that yet another group from New York/Jersey showed up and we did get to watch a JK take the line the 4-runner got denied on and make it.  Ed has it on video I believe, it was an impressive display of commitment on the driver's part.  But dude kept poking his arm out and touching the rocks, nervous habit, dunno, but I was expecting something gruesome..I finally said something to one of his group who hollered up to keep his arm in the rig...

So the Crawler Ridge show ended around 4:15, and we made our way back to the parking lot and a cold beer and hot brisket via trail "2" (blue) and trail "D" and "B" (both green).  We proceed to stuff ourselves with barbecue, have a cold beer, and win absolutely nothing at the raffle.  Eugene Rose stood up and spoke thanking everyone for all of the well wishes and prayers, and reminding everybody what a close knit group wheelers are.  There were some not so dry eyes in the crowd and it really was nice to be able to do a tiny little bit to help out.

I think Morgan, Ed, and I left the park about 7:00 or so, hit the hotel, and sat out on a picnic table shooting the breeze until it got dark and the mosquitoes came out.  We then headed in to shoot more breeze in the lobby, and did so until at least after 11:00 when I went up and crashed.  Lies were told, world problems were solved, men were impressed and ladies were charmed...We did have a brief discussion/debate that I'm going to pose to the list in a separate email in the next day or three.  All told a great trip, if you weren't there you missed out.

Chip