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Elbe Hills: 10/6/12

TORX

NAXJA Forum User
NAXJA Member
Location
NWC
After trying a few times to rally some people together for a trip to Elbe, it finally came together this weekend.

Dellstopjeep, BPB, and myself planned to head up Saturday bright and early. I crashed at Eric's Friday night, and Ben showed up at 0445 with a Ben-style wake up call of blasting Space Jam on the TV, and doing a laser light show with the light switches.


We left Woodland around 0630 after stopping for a few things. Elbe is an easy two hour drive north. Sunrise over Highway 12.
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Since none of us had been there before we were kind of flying blind getting to the ORV area. Needless to say we eventually found the right roads, and pulled into the day use area at 0830. Most of the group had already arrived. I snapped a picture of the map for reference on my phone, turned out to be a good idea later in the day.
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After doing the usual wheeling rituals of airing down, ditiching the camping gear, and for Eric making another pit stop, we were heading to the trails shortly after 0900. First trail of the day was Sunrise.
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It was dry, and obnoxiously dusty.
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Mnkyboy brought out his MJ for a shake down run after some recent mods.
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We ran Sunrise to Mainline, and stopped for a trail repair for one of the Samurais before starting the Busy Wild.
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We had a pretty good sized group, and a variety of rigs from XJ's to Samurai's, and even a "Dota."
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Eventually it was time to wheel, and start the Busy Wild. Eric on the first obstacle.
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At some point the trail was sunk a good six feet into the ground, with banks on both sides. Usually this is when a rootball tried to rip the side of your vehicle off. Nathen and Adam standing "above" my rig.
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The Dota found a good sized stump to get hung up on even with 42's. A quick pull from the cable freed him.
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Branden doing some timbercrawling.
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The one and only, BPB.
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Front of the group snaking between the trails.
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Eric coming dropping down an optional line.
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Continuing on.
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Mnkyboy probably had one of the vehicles with the most body, and showed some serious patience in finessing it through the tight areas.
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Small rock obstacle.
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CJ goosing it up.
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Blue skies.
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We continued on the Busy Wild for a ways. We had one broken axle on the trail on the maroon CJ, Ben quickly assisted with a trail repair. Shortly after Branden discovered his track bar was ripping itself off the Cherocon. So we hopped off at the next road crossing and rallied up to the rock pit.

From up top we could see smoke starting to form on the opposite ridge side. Ben called in to report it and gain some karma, but it was already reported with trucks on their way. Later in the day we could see choppers flying over head dumping water on the hill side. It might be October, but it's dry out there.
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Branden doing his thing. He was able to run a few lines, before the track bar started compromising his steering.
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At this point Eric and I still wanted to wheel the rest of Elbe, so we set off with 2xj's4fun, and cruised down to start on Alder Loop.
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Alder Loop had some pretty fun sections on it. We took our time, played around, and eventually broke out onto the Gotcha trail. Somehow I gained BPB as a codog.
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Mt. Rainier.
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Three of us at the bottom of the log crawl section.
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Spotting Eric through it.
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This was a pretty fun obstacle, and featured some logs, and tank traps to maneuver through.
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The three of us continued on, and crested the top on Rainier Vista trail.
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We then came to the Rock Garden at the end of Rainier Vista. I walked it a few times, scoped out a line, and convinced Eric to give it a shot. He did a good job crawling down through it. One spot through his tire off, and he was pretty bound up. Quickest thing was for me to winch him back, which is what we did. After getting him realigned he continued on. The Canman rig definitely isn't this obstacles target audience with it's LCOG, and 33's, but Eric powered through with only two pulls on the cable.
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After finishing the trail, 2xj's4fun took off with the family, while Eric and I played around in the Rock Pit. It was kind of cool having the place to ourselves, and running stupid lines.

At this point I noticed Ben sitting on a rock by himself watching us play around on the rocks. I figured what the hell, and turned the Nail Salon over to him.
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He wheeled it like a boss.
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After developing an ulcer watching Ben wheel my junk, we headed back to camp with Nathen and Adam for the night. The campground at night is interesting to say the least.

We loaded up early Sunday, and hit the road for home. Quick pit stop for some food along the way.
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All in all, it was a really enjoyable trip, and some great wheeling. I'm really looking forward to getting back up there soon, and trying the trail with a little bit of rain on the ground. ;)
 
Glad you guys got to run the other trails! Wish i could have come with but crap happens! Hopefully see you guys at evans creek in a couple weeks! This time with an extremely overkilled tracbar mount ;)
 
This was a really fun trip for me. My plan was to drink beer and watch Eric thrash on his wifes jeep. After sleeping a little over an hour friday night i showed up at Erics house where I was told to be before 5 am. After waiting till 6 to be able to buy beer we were on our way.

staging area
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A Spec Fab master piece

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The Cherocon
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Dustin second guessing his decision to do the Busy
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samurai's are at home at elbe

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Nate's Comanche is sooooo cool. He did an awesome job with the bob, he even matched up the body lines inside the bed.

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I think this is from the Busy. The beers started to catch up with me by 11 so I started taking video. Click on the video to watch it
This is Riding with Eric showes the sunken grade that Dustin was talking about.



In this clip you can hear all the crazy noises that the can man rig makes

 
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Branden going "around" a tree



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Same tree with a YJ



Eric



Dustin



Nate demonstrating the benefit of a longer wheel base



Dustin attempting to going over some rocks





Nate making everything look easy



Ignore my drunken cometary



Same place with a CJ7



A Samurai and a Toyota in a rock garden



Spec Fab Samurai showing off it's clearance

 
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Dusting at the same place



I just love this rig the Skinner brothers do amazing work



Brandon making the rocks look easy



Probably my favorite section of trail that we saw

Dustin



Eric



2xjs4fun taking the bypass in his woman's rig

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Eric on some rocks

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and then demonstrating how strong his drive line is

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That night was fun met some new people, helped recover a dodge and rode with an old guy in an lt1 powered cj6 down some trails. I also got to see comp cut bfg at's for the fist time.

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The next morning Nat showed off his new damage

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I can't wait to get back to elbe. The trails are all challenging the whole way through. Each trail doesn't have just one major obstacle. Carnage was pretty minimal on this trip

Branden's track bar mount pulling away from the unibody (this was meant to be a picture)



And the red yj snapped a u joint

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Rallying all the trails and thats all that failed. Im happy! Lol
 
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