Big Bear

I met a group on Saturday morning at the Discovery Center in Big Bear for two days of fun. The trip was organized by members of LostKJs. This is their big trip for the year. A few of them made a run on Friday. I wish I could have made it up for that too.

The vehicles were all Jeep Wranglers and Liberties, and my lone FJ. Most of the vehicles were slightly modified. Most had lifts and skid plates but that was about it.

Everyone divided up into two groups. The first group headed for the more difficult runs. The second, mine, was heading for a less stressful day. My inexperience helped me choose to go with the second group.

We spent most of the morning driving down some very easy trails. They could not have been called anything more than roads that needed a little grading. Finally we headed down Rattlesnake Canyon. It was an easy trail but at least it was a trail. We got to run through a little water and mud (see the blog banner) and run over some rocky slopes. That was more like it.

Afterwards we headed to PioneerTown. I'm driving on asphalt, this cannot be right. It turns out that PioneerTown is a set that Hollywood used to make many old western movies. It is worth seeing but I am here to get dirty. After a while in PioneerTown 3 of us seperated from the group for some real trails. Real trails is what we got. We ran up and around Heart Break Ridge. I'm sure glad the rock rails were on, they were needed. I had a blast on this difficult run. I'm still waiting for pictures from Darin.

Saturday ended with a BBQ at AllJeep in Big Bear.

Sunday was to be more of the same. I was at the Discovery Center at 8:30. All the vehicles that showed were much more trail capable than my stock FJ. Finally StevesKJ showed up. We decided to go on our own run. Steve is going to show me around. We ended up having a great day and traveled some very difficult runs. We began by heading up Gold Mountain. We ended by going down Holcomb Creek Trail. We had an audience as we tackled the rock garden at the end. A few campers had gathered to watch as trucks passed through. I think they enjoy watching my nearly stock truck more ... more chance for carnage and much more scraping of the rails.

I had no idea that my truck could go the places that we went. I had a blast. Unfortunately neither Steve nor I took any pictures.

These two runs have shown that more modifications are needed for the FJ. Minimally I am going to be forced to get larger tires and a lift. I really need to get better skid plates as well. The thin factory plates took a beating this weekend.