Last Saturday I went on my first run with an organized 4x4 club. I went on the Sheet Metal Lovers Run with Raven Off-Road. As the name implies this run was designed around those of us who still have an affection for the sheet metal on our rigs. The result, trails with minimal chance of buggering the rigs up. So I headed up into the Tillamook State Forest with about 14 other rigs to get my wheel on.
The day started with a long wait in the gravel pit waiting before the run started. Plenty of time to air down, disconnect, run off in the bushes, whatever one needed to do.
Finally, we hit the gravel roads and make our way up to Firebreak 5, what was slated to be the toughest trail we'd be running that day. All rigs made it up just fine, but for some drivers this was the toughest thing they'd done in their stockers yet.
I had done the trail a few weeks prior, so I knew what I was in for. Previously I had done the trail without needing to kick in the ARB in the rear, but for whatever reason (laziness) I ended up hitting the blue button a few times Saturday.
After everyones success on FB5, it was back to the pit for lunch (didn't we just start wheeling?) Lunch stretched out for over 2 hours, and then the group ran portions of the Powerline Trail which was open and then we all watched a few of the more advanced rigs take shots at the "Little Rubicon."
After this it was time for most of us to head back towards home. Back on the road and back to town.
It was a good day, the wheeling was just very abbreviated for my taste. When I make the hour drive out to TSF, I'd rather spend more time driving than waiting. Part of this downtime was caused by closures in effect at the TSF now, but still, if it were up to me, I wold have just pointed towards something that was said to be open at the last web update and see what we find. Unfortunately, I'm finding that when a group, it is not up to me.
Dang it anyways!
posted by Ed at 7:54 PM
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