Thanks again to Bryan for leading the New Year’s Day run and providing such a good report!

As Bryan already eluded to, Ryan Gillespie was with us at Sheetz and then had to leave and didn’t make it on the trail. He took care of things and was ready to catch up to us by about 1pm. He reached out to me to see if he could still salvage some trail time since he had driven all the way out there from Alexandria. We relayed directions, some correct and some not quite so, and he eventually hit us head on right around the mud flats. Once the primary group continued their way down the mountain, led by Bryan, a small group of us were headed back the other way to get Ryan some trail time.

Everyone that remained were members:
I led the group
Alan Staiman
DK Stewart
Dean Rose
Ryan Gillespie
John/Andrew Harvin

Just as we were getting ready to pull out from the mud flats, a group of what appeared to be locals pulled in and started running around all over the mud flats. Once there was an opening, we worked our way out and headed back towards Meadow Knob. We were moving pretty well with a small group. We had to pause a couple of times for some quick CB spotting over a rock or two. The one set of rocks that I got out to spot were, of course, conquered with ease by all. We continued up the mountain to the main ridge line and continued to run it south. We bypassed Flagpole Knob in an effort to make it off the mountain before dark. Too bad that didn’t work out for us. We continued South along the ridge until we eventually came to hard road at Briery Branch Rd. 

We stopped for everyone to air up, connect sway bar links, etc. This is when our fun started. DK discovered that he had completely snapped off one of his stock JK sway bar links. We quickly determined that there was nothing we could do about it, and that it wasn’t going to pose any risk of further damage. He just had to be cognizant of it and drive carefully home. Dean then called some of us over to take a look at his rig. He couldn’t get his sway bar links reattached. Alan and I stepped in thinking this wouldn’t be difficult to solve, we just needed to show Dean a couple of tricks we’ve learned over the years. WRONG. Somehow, the bushings on his links were wider than when they came off. It’s a physics mystery that none of us could explain. Anyway, now the bushings partially covered the holes that the small cotter pins go in to hold the links on. We pushed, pried, cussed, and nothing was working. We eventually cut a notch in each bushing to give enough space to get the pins into place. A huge thanks to Alan for braving lying on the cold ground in the dark, with Dean’s Jeep dripping terrible muddy melting ice all over him the whole time.

By this time, it was dark, and I mean really dark. At some point during the assembly of vehicles, Ryan had successfully reached Bryan via cell phone to make sure they had all made it out successfully. Bryan reported that some had took off and some were still at Sheetz. Cell phone signal quality didn’t allow us to get much more detail than that. Our group headed down Briery Branch Rd, and eventually back to Sheetz. I’ve never gone this way, and now I know why. It drops you way further South, so it took us 40 minutes to get back to Sheetz from the trail head. None of the original group was still there, so we all fueled up, got drinks and snacks, and headed for home.

A good time was had by all, and we started the New Year off right. I’m looking forward to the next time I can get out on the trail, just as soon as I fix my junk.

—
Chris Stewart