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February 1st, 2014 run in Woodbridge, Virginia

The morning started out meeting OCC'ers and non-OCC'ers at Wawa just a mile away from Red Cloud Off Road. In two convoys we migrated over to Red Cloud. The safety brief was completed near 9am and OCC split into two groups. Scott LeLacheur and Josh Maradiaga took a total of eight rigs while I took a total of seven.

Pete Soski '94 YJ
Anne Ward '12 JK Sport
Billy Simons '96 Disco One
Doug Stephens '00 Disco Two
co-pilot George Mithlie
Charles Galpin '94 D90 NAS
Rachel Crash '98 TJ
co-pilot Marty Farrell
Jason Lavender '94 Defender

We headed out along the power lines towards Hayes Gate and ran down Casper. It was more of a snaking course between the trees then any real obstacles, but the crew had an easy drive. We ran through Tango Down and back into Casper. Once we emerged from the trees we went down to the Western side and ran TumbleWeed, Flyer, Navarro, and Breaker. The only non-Sunday drive type driving we experienced was at SLVR (not sure of the acronym). Doug got fouled in a small mud pit and ended up wrapping his exhaust (muffler, interconnect, and resonator) around the rear axle. After a bit of playing in the mud we were able to extract the exhaust and keep moving. The area around SLVR is the only 'fun' area in that section of the park; in my opinion.

The migration from West side was slowed when Billy's Disco decided to stop. After various troubleshooting attempts, the mysterious solution was to simply put the vehicle on level ground. Billy was able to drive his vehicle back to the central camp area and park it. Billy jumped into another vehicle for the next trail.

We had enough time for one more trail before lunch. Moving over to the southeast part of the property we ran Rat6 to Jun's Creek onto Charlie1 loop and towards the exit of Rat6. The last obstacle; a rather narrow pass between two trees with an off camber aspect posed a little entertainment. I slipped through the opening and quickly found my rear axle sliding off a tree root and 'contacting' the passenger rear corner with a tree. Once clear I radioed back a word of caution about the tree-root-slippage-and-hit-the-tree. There was little regard for the word of warning and rig-after-rig proceeded to bounce of the tree. When Billy took his turn, he incurred a slightly disagreeable turn of events. Billy's rear-axle-slide went a little rougher then the rest and smacked hard into the tree. The passenger rear window shattered and significantly damaged the rear quarter panel. Past the unfortunate event, no one was hurt and the vehicle was still road worthy.

We returned to camp for lunch.

The second half of the day..

Pete Soski '94 YJ
Anne Ward '12 JK Sport
Doug Stephens '00 Disco Two
co-pilot George Mithlie
Charles Galpin '94 D90 NAS
Jason Lavender '94 Defender
co-pilot Billy Simons

After a nice lunch provided by RedCloud; $7 for hot dog, hamburger, bag of chips, and a soda, we headed off to northeast part of the property. We ran Sleeper, Sword6, McGiver, and Moose Slop. Moose Slop was a fun time playing in an off camber river bed. After Charles G. was winched out his perdictiment (departure from Moose was too steep at the angle he was entrenched). The rest of the group made it out with a different departure path and liberal use of the skinny pedal.

After the fun of Moose we proceeded down Walker Hill trail toward Hink's Hill. Hink's Hill is a fun hill, not to dissimiliar from K2; off of Trickle at The Cove. We had several rigs attempt the climb, but only a Jeep; a Jeep driven by a woman, was able to conquer Hink's Hill. Super-Kudo's to Anne Ward and her '12 JK which made the monsterous hill submit to her will!

Shortly after Anne's victorious run, one of Red Cloud Staff thought it would be a good idea to attempt Hink's Hill on a 4-wheeler. In short; looking back at that moment, it was not a good idea to do such. On a good note, no one was hurt and the staff member can now practice his welding and body fabrication skills.

After watching a 4 wheeler do a couple of 360's end-over-end crashing down the hill, we composed ourselves and wheeled the rest of trail and returned to camp.

We worked a little on Billy's stubborn ride and it finally started to run right so he was able to leave; like everyone else, under his own power.

Thanks to Scott and Suzzy for putting this ride together! And most importantly, Congratuation to Josh Mardiaga on his recent completion of Marine Corp Basic Training. Josh is now off to California for his advanced training. I wish him all the best!!