I went with the group that headed out to Johnson Valley to run Bullfrog trail.

First up was Chicken Rock, which is a quick little warm up to test green wheelers’ nerves. Not difficult once you’re on the rock, but getting from the dirt to the rock proved slightly difficult for a couple in our group. From there, you head around the corner and start the actual bullfrog trail.

On the trial there were quite a few obstacles that look pretty cool in pictures but aren’t terribly difficult with any kind of ground clearance, especially if you can flex like a beast. This is actually the exact opposite of most trails which look easy in pictures and are much harder and intimidating in person. Here’s a bunch of shots from the rest of the day.

V-Notch

Drop Off – Droop Off

Jeep Eater

The Wall

First was getting the OBA working again. I purchased a new York 210R and replaced the old one. I am working on a way to determine the oil fill level with a fill plug on the side so I don’t run this one dry. I will post pictures of the dead York as well as the final work of the fill plug.

Then I ordered some new steerig after bending my tie rod AGAIN. I couldn’t trust the stock noodle anymore. I picked up the currie steering and love it. It is much stronger than stock, but still bends. I have already smacked it and will try to straighten it soon. I am not too worried though because the bend is very slight.

Next, I gave up on my trade request for the tummy tuck transmission mount. Some time last year I bought a used Nth Degree tummy tuck from somebody with an automatic transmission. I have a manual and need a different mount. I could probably have something fabbed up, but I was hoping somebody had the opposite of what I had and would trade mount for mount. I had posts on a couple forums for about a year with no success. I decided to give All J a call in Big Bear because I know they do a lot of Nth stuff. They were able to order the mount separately since I can’t find it alone in the Nth website. I now have all the pieces I should need, I just need to check that I don’t need exhaust modifications and do the work!

Finally, I was given an opportunity to puck up a geared, locked front axle so I jumped on it. It is a low pinion (unfortunately) Dana 30 with 4.56 gears and an ARB locker. I need to scrap together some more money to fix up my Dana 44 housing in my garage so I can swap axles and not worry so much about breaking an axle onthe trail anymore, not to mention being locked!

• Anza is much more beautiful than I thought
• Watch where you’re going (don’t bash your steering into rocks)
• Coyote Canyon is a fun run that would probably be good for beginners wanting to gradually get to tougher trails
• Anza is much more beautiful than I thought
• YJs really can flex!!!!

That being said, just enjoy some pictures from the day.

Jeep Shots

Coyote Canyon Scenery Shots

My Carnage

He brought his camera and took a lot of pictures, and there are some good ones!

As we started out, Scott was mentioning how he liked the beautiful scenery, that the terrain looked fun, and how he wanted to come back with his truck. This was before any of the difficult sections, like the first small climb, or any of the rock gardens. After seeing those sections Scott said he’s now looking at buying a Jeep.

We started off at the locked gate to disconnect our sway bars and air down our tires, then made our way past the water crossing. We checked out motorcycle tracks and some other measures we attempted to stop unauthorized access. We saw some bear prints which had to be fairly fresh. It was the first time I’ve actually seen bear prints in person!

Shortly after that, we started loading Scott’s trailer with huge rocks to take and fill in some washed out sections of trail.

The weight in the trailer was too much for one Jeep to pull up some of the climbs, so I started pulling Scott’s Jeep.

The weight in the trailer was too much for two Jeeps to pull up some of the climbs, so Max started pulling my Jeep, pulling Scott’s Jeep!

After a while of this, Max’s Jeep began spewing coolant. Luckily he noticed and we stopped to see why. Apparently the overflow tank’s aren’t held down by anything but gravity. On one of his many trail runs his tank shook loose and today it got too close to the serpentine belt which wore through it. After some duct tape and a little trail magic, we were once again on our way.

We made our way to a portion of the trail which had washed thin so we started dumping rocks, the first load of many.

We made our way to the east rock garden and had some play time. Russ had a little trouble as did Kurt. Two people you expect to drive through *anything*!!! Russ got a tiny bit of a bad line, but once he was free from his center skid, he made the rest of the garden look easy. Erik and his sick YJ took the hard line and made it look easy. Kurt also took his favorite line, which he’s conquered many times in the past, yet today he got stuck! Now I actually have some pictures of Kurt with the winch in use on himself!

After yet another rock fill/dump we stopped for lunch in a nice shady spot on the trail.

At one of the rutted sections of the trail there was quite a bit of erosion on the side of the trail with a steep drop-off. This was another prime place for rock dumping to help give structure to the trail. I think this spot might be one of the other areas which received some gabion baskets on another trail maintenance run.

Max and a couple others played in the west rock garden. Since it was gated instead of getting back out, it was necessary to turn around in the rock garden. I didn’t want to press my luck so I decided to skip the west rock garden on this run. Maybe next time. Scott took a hit to the door, and Max hit his transmission hard. He wasn’t sure if this hit caused the cracks shown or if they were from the Dusey a couple of weeks before this run.

On the way back, we had fun in a big v-notch. A couple of the “big guys” with lockers and fun toys made it through, and I thought I’d give it a try with my open diffs. I had a bit of a bad line the first attempt and got some good air with the driver front tire. A slightly different line toward the passenger side and I made it through easily. Since I did it, Scott had to show off and run through with the trailer and all!

After the Peggy Sues Breakfast (Obligatory picture shown above) we started the run.

To start the day, we took the bypass around Gatekeeper and parked to watch the show. Kurt was first up and didn’t make it through quite as easily as the first time he conquered Gatekeeper. He still made it through unharmed, it just took a little more finesse.

A couple of LWB toys came to give gatekeeper a try. The first made it through easily, however the second became stuck, so we decided to just go ahead with our run instead of watching the recovery. Approximate time: 10am. Keep this in mind for later.

We began the run up Doran and made good headway. We were with a group of well build rigs. The thing I alway enjoy is the fact that my underbuilt (in comparison) Jeep takes almost all the same trails and lines as the “big guys” even though I don’t have lockers.

We were moving along fine until we hit a waterfall which had changed greatly since New Years. There were some (locked) who walked right up, and there were others (locked) who struggled. I struggled! I ended up needing a tug because I didn’t want to bust my D35, and I had already made a few attempts. I am dieing to go back and make another attempt since I’ve heard it’s become much “worse”. We all got out and snapped pictures as people made their tries up this ledge.

The rest of the trail was passed easily by our group and we made decent time. We ate lunch at Bismark Mine area and then headed to the always beautiful wall street canyon.

We decided to skip Odessa due to a washed out area we encountered at New Years and heard had also become worse. This area would be pretty dangerous. We took Philips Loop to Mule Canyon for the return trip, which was an easy and fast return trip. I was happy about this because Tiffany was just sitting at camp waiting for everybody to return. Once the group was back, Tiffany and I decided to go to Gatekeeper to see if anybody else was making any attempts only to find the guy who became stuck that morning was only now being pulled out completely. Apparently he broke something big, and then somebody tried going “around” him (in gatekeeper) who also broke, then they spent the greater part of 5 hours trying to recover the two disabled vehicles. Glad we weren’t around for that mess!

Back at camp, I had to share a couple more photos. One, of Jill and the strange way she lays on Sarah’s lap. The other of Chris; I’d like everybody to see how much he enjoys cookies…

The two groups who had previously adopted Holcomb Creek Trail (Riverside Ruff Riders, and Sons of Thunder) hadn’t been putting adequate hours into the trail to take care of the problems it now faces, although it hadn’t needed the amount of work it does now. This is what prompted Greg Hoffman to seek more help for this trail. MJR gladly obliged! We were given the trail in March and our first run was already planned in April. This run’s goals were to run the trail and create a trail maintenance plan. The trail maintenance plan lists the safety concerns, goals, and objectives of the group(s) maintaining the trail. Each task is correlated with a mileage from the trail head and a maintenance plan must be submitted by Adopt-A-Trail groups each year. We had Greg Hoffman accompany us on the run since nobody in MyJeepRocks’ Adopt-A-Trail group has a chainsaw certification valid for the San Bernardino National Forest. We knew there would be fallen trees that would need to be moved, and we wouldn’t get much else done on the trail.

The plan was to run the trail east to west, and assess anything blocking the trail and skip everything else (making notes) and return west to east because the trip would look different and we might see things we had previously missed. Simply moving the downed trees was so much work, we only ended up running the trail from east to west and going back via fire roads which saved hours.

I remember two trees specifically, but there were at least 5 which we moved that day. The biggest of the trees required two winches and 3 jeeps just to remove a piece trail-width which was maybe 12-15 feet. This section weighed enough to pull all 3 Jeeps down a ravine, or seriously/fatally hurt Greg operating the chainsaw had something gone horribly wrong. The group of people we were with has extensive recovery knowledge and everything accomplished was done with the utmost professionalism and safety in mind.

Unfortunately for my website, I brought the “bad” camera and was only able to snap a couple of pictures before it died, so this report only comes with three pictures.

Here’s a couple pics:

UPDATE: I have gone through and cleaned up all of my 404s and bad images. Everything should be working correctly now. If you spot anything fishy, please use the contact page to let me know! Thanks!