(Also see Colossal Canines - Late Winter 2016 - Sunday report)

Wheelers:

Jamie Galpin - 1994 Defender 90 on 33’s, Joe her co-driver, and me in the back
MIke Anderson - TJ
Jeff Duesel - TJ
Morgan Franklin - YJ

First, this has to be the perfect size group for wheeling. Easy to keep track of the members, less need for random stops, and easy to get input from everyone when wanting to discuss options - even when their trail leader forgets their CB antennae :)

We headed out around 9:30 iirc. Since it was Jeff’s first time wheeling the cove and his truck is essentially stock, as well as Joe being a first time off road driver, and Jamie rather rusty from not driving much in the last year, we figured we’d start off with the staples - Trickle and wahoo. I got the usual tickle I get when telling new drivers that we have just been on the access road when approaching the trickle crossing on the way down. At that point they think they have been off-roading and are incredibly proud and happy of their accomplishments, and their eyes light up at the though of it getting harder :)

After wahoo, we went up u-turn hard, down u-turn easy and headed over to v-trail since everyone was doing so well. I’m forgetting where Jeff had some trouble with his passenger fender flare but I think it was on v-trail, and we discussed it a little over lunch at the top. I thought he took it very well :)

I offered up some options and the group decided to go over the top and take the trail down the back. I seem to take a slightly different route each time I do this, and this time we stayed left most of the time and ended up coming out near the end of a horseshoe shaped trail who’s name I’ve already forgotten. As we headed back towards cobra I noticed the entrance to said horseshoe loop trail and took it to give it a try - it was actually quite fun.

Then we headed over to cobra. Usually I’d have done Corum at this point, but Jeff would have had to sit it out and I really didn’t feel like taking the chance of needing to do some wrenching :) Cobra was great fun though. We came down moose iirc and at that point decided it was time to head back to camp - less about time, and more so that the youngsters in my truck seemed to be wore out!

So we covered a ton of ground and had a blast. We saw Dan and the kids had setup camp when e got back, and arrived back from an outing soon after we arrived back at camp. Jeff and Mike took off for the evening, and Morgan headed to Wallmart. We made dinner, then a slow burning fire (all the wood was wet), and enjoyed smores, some interesting conversation, and Chip’s company!

It was fairly cold for camping but still great fun. Looking forward to the next outing.

charles