7th Annual Father's Day Run

[Rzeppa]

It was an excellent run this year! We had an early start, nobody broke anything, everyone had a good time. The weather was beautiful as usual, and it was wonderful being at 11,000 feet instead of the sweltering heat of the flatlands. What better way to spend Father's Day!

We had ten rigs total, just about a perfect sized group. Matt Miller and his dad Tim in his FJ40, Bill Morgan and his wife in his runner, a fellow named Doug in a taco, Farnham and his family in his UZJ100, Farnham's friend and our newest Rising Sun member Brent Gehrman in his taco, Ken Romer in his LX450, Rachel in her runner, Matt Lewis in his runner, and Yuri, Oleg and family in Yuri's frankenrunner. They took a 1st gen body (for the open top) and put it on a 3rd gen chassis. It did well! Of course I was in my FJ40, and no, I didn't have time to stick the freshened engine and 4 speed tranny in before the run, as the last of the parts didn't arrive until Friday.

We totally skipped the first obstacle, I guess after the rollover last year some folks were kinda spooked. That's okay, we had fun anyway. Below is where we stopped for a few minutes a little ways up from the first obstacle.

 

[Rzeppa]

Since I was leading,, I didn't take a whole lot of photos, kind of busy spotting people. The rocky hill below was troublesome for a number of people, including Matt Miller. Right after I took this shot, he whacked his driver's side springs on that rock really hard, but it didn't hurt anything. Everyone ended up with some pretty good steel-on-rock moments here and at a couple other places. Doug in the Taco below Matt had some trouble here too. I didn't photograph it, but Farnham had a heck of a time getting that big 100 over this, but he finally did once he used enough skinny pedal.

 

[Rzeppa]

I just realized the photo of Doug and his taco is at the base of the rock garden, at the entrance to the bypass. There is one section of the bypass that was impassable for him and Farnham, where it squeezes between those two trees. The dirt is really dug out and they were just spinning out and digging their tires in deeper. I found them a line where they could turn left into the main garden but avoid a couple of boulders, then make a hard right back to the bypass. Below, Yuri's frankenrunner goes up the main rock garden. It was fun to listen to Oleg spot Yuri in Russian!

 

[Rzeppa]

Below, Ken Romer and ROD (Sarah) calmly cruise between the two trees in the bypass. It did take him a couple tries to get the wagon lined up right, it's a tight squeeze. Speaking of trees, look carefully on the left part of the photo at his fender. The tree at the base of the rocky hill climb did that. I feel bad because I was spotting him at the time, but he did slide about a foot and a half sideways into the tree. He said it looks like Oleg will be getting some money to feed his dogs

 

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Rachel just drove her runner right up, no trouble at all for her.

 

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Farnham in that big 100. He had his 40 on the run last year and drove up the garden. The wagon proved to be a lot more difficult on this trail.

 

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Bill Morgan actually got the Red Chili stuck here! He did get it out, but at one point it was nothing doing either forward or reverse.

 

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More Red Chili in the garden.

 

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Dear reader, what's wrong with what you see in the photo below? Bear in mind this is Bill Morgan =-O

 

[Rzeppa]

After a few moments, we got the people off his runner, hooked a strap from Yuri's runner to Bill's and got him stabilized. As much articulation as Bill's runner has, if he's doing a tripod you KNOW he was close to flopping!

 

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Bill exits the garden, still strapped.

 

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The garden itself was about the same as last year, which wasn't as bad as some previous years. The bypass was more difficult due to the dug out spot between the two trees. The section above the rock garden was a lot more difficult than I have ever seen it, and I could hear on the radio behind me where a few people needed a spot here and there. Below, you can see Matt Miller and Matt Lewis coming up part of that section. There was one spot there where I swear I saw air under all four of his tires!

 

[Rzeppa]

Yuri makes it out just before the last switchback before the meadow at the top. Oleg was telling me that they just finished that rig about nine o'clock last night. Skid plate, rear bumper, front and rear receivers for a receiver-mounted winch, and the receiver plate to mount the winch to. As always, they do superb work! Of course since they finished so late, they didn't have time to paint the bumper and belly armor.

 

[Rzeppa]

As always, the views at the top meadow were spectacular! We came back down the Georgetown side, and as usual I-70 was a parking lot. Bill and I took the frontage road, but even that became congested. As usual it loosened up around Idaho Springs, but it still took about an hour to get home from Georgetown. A wonderful Father's Day run!

 

[subzali]

Thanks again Jeff for the lead! We had a great day, I was way impressed with how the 40 handled with the Lockright and MT/Rs! There was a lot of belly dragging (mainly front/rear diffs and springs) and a liberal use of the skinny pedal, but we all made it through! Like you said it was a great way to spend Father's Day!

I feel a little guilty about being involved with the jumping on the Chili to prevent a rollover, but I understand it's pretty much been a bad karma thing to do after the incident last year. But just a question that I think should be discussed before trail runs/driver's meetings etc. is what to do before an impending rollover and no strap is available to make a quick recovery? Do we need to be more prepared and have a strap out and attached when such a maneuver is likely? I'd like to see some discussion about this since it's been so common for people to jump on a truck on its way over that now that that's a no-no I think we should be prepared with another alternative in mind. Thoughts anybody?

 

[Romer]

Best Fathers Day I can remember. Not upset about the ding in my fender, If those things bothered me, I shouldn't wheel it.

Here is a shot of Yuri and Oleg driving "Red Chili Eater" Olegs name for it.

Rachel kissing the same tree I did, who spotted Rachel? She has a few scrapes on the door, but no dent.

Red Chile in the Rock Garden

 

[Romer]

Rachel let Sarah drive her 4runner from after the rock garden all the way down. Here I am spotting her through some stuff

 

[Romer]

The view from the meadow and me and my girls on fathers day

 

[Rzeppa]

I feel a little guilty about being involved with the jumping on the Chili to prevent a rollover, but I understand it's pretty much been a bad karma thing to do after the incident last year. But just a question that I think should be discussed before trail runs/driver's meetings etc. is what to do before an impending rollover and no strap is available to make a quick recovery? Do we need to be more prepared and have a strap out and attached when such a maneuver is likely? I'd like to see some discussion about this since it's been so common for people to jump on a truck on its way over that now that that's a no-no I think we should be prepared with another alternative in mind. Thoughts anybody?

There are a number of trails where a pre-strapping before a particular obstacle is obvious. Widow Maker on Metal Masher comes to mind. But Bill just took an odd line, I'm sure he wasn't expecting to do a wheel stand any more than we were. Actually, I've never seen anyone do that through that section. I even got a little tippy when I was trying to manuever behind Yuri as we were preparing to leave the garden. I just put it in reverse and went a different way.

You may recall I had to cut the driver's meeting short due to that lady trying to get past our line of rigs where we aired down. But there are ALWAYS straps available. A strap is just one of those essential pieces of equipment everyone should carry, and most of us always do. But like breakage, there is the potential for a flop on just about any trail, heck think of what happened to Yuri on that one section of easy trail. A moment of inattention and he was almost off the trail. Our hobby is inherently risky and we have to always be paying attention and think about the risks.

 

[Romer]

I think we acted appropriately and don't see an issue with Jumping on Bills truck until we had it secured with a strap. The accidents happen when the driver tries to move while people are on it, that is the no-no.

That was a little scary with Yuri. Gave me a chance to use my winch. Yuri had edged his diver side tires off the road and was leaning in a dangerous position with a very steep embankment. We used my winch, a snatchblock and a sturdy tree to pull him back on the road. He redeemed himself in the rock garden later on.