I too led a group on Saturday afternoon after clearing trails in the morning.

First, let me just say I am very pleased to see some younger members becoming
active in the club. It's great to see the enthusiasm and I think it's vital to
the club for the long term. I hope they learn from us but I think we can learn
from them too. For example at some point in the trip, we passed a used tire next
to the trail and Patrick suggested we throw it into the truck. I am usually
pretty good about picking up trash while on the trails but find myself not doing
so much at places like Raush, nor picking up things this big. But it was a good
idea so we did, and we got some entertainment watching Patrick shake the water
out of it before throwing it in the truck (it looked like he was fornicating
with it). So thanks to Patrick for the reminder we should be doing this
*everywhere* and all the time. We have probably all passed that tire several
times before, along with countless other park visitors.

Anyway, we had a great small group, all campers other than Kevin, and his GF
and all with similar capabilities/rigs.

Charles Galpin - 94 D90 on 33's
Jason Lavender - '94 D90
Jeff Huff - 94 D90 on 34's
Morgan Franklin - YJ 35" (Patrick Delaney passenger)
Kevin Patterson - 91 mj 35s (forget GF name, sorry - I think Wendy)

Since there were several groups all heading out at the same time, and several
ahead of us we decided to head over to the west property to avoid any
congestion. J was closed due to the icy conditions so we took H down to 18 and
took it back up to 10 with a brief stop at pizza rock There was a tree fallen
which never used to be there which made it harder for us little guys to get up
on the rock, including Huff who must have bumped the rock with his bumper
several times before getting an approach angle that allowed his bumper to clear.

We did 10, then got on 12A and took it in a clockwise direction to the point
where it gets really close to 15. At this point there is a log that has fallen
at just the right angle that makes taking a right hand turn over it in a jeep
rather difficult because the pumpkin hangs before you can get the left front
wheel over the log and you just slide along it. Kevin adjusted his approach a
few times and made it over, but Morgan decided to cowboy it and applied the
skinny pedal. He literally bounced right over it, but when he came down on the
other side a loud crack was heard and a quick look revealed he had broken both
the left outer u-joint, but the ear off the shat as well.

Morgan quickly whipped out an air tank and air tools, and other than needing to
borrow a couple of wrenches and sockets he was well prepared to remove the axle
shaft so we could get him back to camp. In an amazingly short time he was ready
to go - and a good thing as we were running out of time and needed to head back
to camp in order to make it to the Red Lion Inn for dinner!

Temperatures where dropping and the snow and ice was starting to freeze so
conditions started to get bad. As we headed up the last section of 12c headed
for H I found I was losing traction. Each time I stopped and tried again I had
to roll back a bit further, before backing down to a point where I could get
started and make a run for it. This section didn't give the others any
trouble until Morgan's turn, where we found one wheel drive wasn't going to cut
it. We decided winching him up would be the quickest resolution, and with a
snatch block on a tree on the high side of H Kevin winched him up.

At this point I thought we were free and clear and when Scott called to see
where we were, i assured him we were on our way back to camp. But as we high
tailed it up tower road Morgan radiod back that he had lost traction again. I
circled back just in case to find Kevin had hooked up a strap but now he too had
lost traction so he couldn't even get started, let alone put tension on the
strap. I simply pulled in front of Kevin, hooked up another strap and pulled
them both up the hill :)

We got back to camp in time to all pile into Patrick's pickup (Kevin and GF put
their rig on the trailer in order to gas it up) and headed to the Red Lion for a
lovely dinner. Another great day on the trails!

BTW, we also hit the trails Friday afternoon, but Huff broke in less that a half
hour. His rear locker had a leak which he didn't realize, and he engaged his
lockers to go up a poser rock on 10a for a picture and essentially pulled the
whole truck up with his left front wheel which blew a CV joint. We headed back
to camp and made fun of Jeff while watching him repair it in an impressive 2.5
hours (it's a lot more work on a rover). We have a new motto for him - break
early AND break often.

charles