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BOTW '04 trip report and pics

Goatman

NAXJA Forum User
NAXJA Member
Location
Bakersfield, CA
Well, our trip is over. Here's the link to my pics:
BOTW '04 pics

We had a relatively small group this year, since so many couldn't make it at the last minute, so we were off the trail everyday at a decent hour. The ones who made it for the whole week were myself, Mark Hinkley, Jesse Rivers, Gary Evans, Erik Mighells, Matt Andrew, and Andy Couch. Mil Thornton and his son Brett ran the first two days, Brett in his freshly built rig, and Randy Harris made it out from Denver for Mon and Tues in JV. Rick Norman and Joe Daro meet us in Parker and ran Fri and Sat, and Luke from Phoenix ran on Fri.

We had some bad weather, but only had rain during the day on the first day when we ran Pumpkin Eater. That trail kicked our ass in the rain, with everyone having to winch in a couple of places. Matt broke his winch off the mount, which wasn't pretty, and he'll need a new housing to fix it, and Mark broke u-joint u-bolts at the front pinion. Andy hit a rock backing up and broke the shaft on a brand new Bilstein 5150 shock.

We drove to JV in a hard rain that evening, and set up camp at a friend's property rather than near the dry lake bed in our usual spot. Mil has a friend who has a small house and a couple of trailers on a few acres about 6-8 miles from our usual camp spot, and it was nice to have level ground and electricity to plug into, plus spot lights for the grounds. The rest of the time in Johnson Valley the weather was nice, with mostly clear skies and moderate tempuratures during the day. We ran Wrecking Ball on Monday, which went pretty well. Everyone was able to climb the waterfall, even though it was not built up with rocks. Jes wasted a front axle, sheared the ears off the yokes, Gary broke a D30 intermediate shaft, and I ruined a tire. On the way back to camp Matt heard some noises in his rear end, thinking maybe a pinion bearing was spinning. That night we sat in camp and had a nice pot luck dinner, and Mil and Brett left for home.

The next morning Matt pulled the 9" center section out and found that the ring gear bolts were loose and had backed out, breaking a couple of the bolts. He headed into town to get some ring gear bolts and the rest of us headed out to run Hell's Gate/Sunbonnet Pass. A couple got door dings coming down Devil's Slide, and I lost u-joint u-bolts on the front driveline. We made good time on the trail, at a very relaxed pace, until Gary needed to rebuild the CV joint on his rear driveline. Erik had a u-joint press, and I had some c-clamps, so we made a work station on the back of Mark's rig to change out the two u-joints. I had to plug a small hole in my spare, which already had one plugged hole in it. When we got back to camp Matt was fixed and ready to go, and we had another nice evening sitting around the campfire.

Wed we ran Sledgehammer, which has become more difficult recently. Mark started the bad luck by loosing a quick disconnect coupling on a tranny line on the drive to the trail. In a particularly bad spot, Matt had air leaking from an inner bead, so he gave it some gas to back up quickly and BOOM!! a Warn inner shaft on his front D44 broke. We spent some time winching him forward to a spot where the repair could be made, and he put in his spare Spicer shaft. Mark said he made it 17 truck lengths further up the trail, then broke the u-joint on the spare shaft. We used Matt's inner and my spare outer and a fresh u-joint to make the repair. We had hoped to run part of Jackhammer that day, but after the trouble we decided to head out the sand hill on Sledge and go into town for dinner. Back in camp Mark unhooked the bus, and we all climbed in and drove to Yucca Valley for a nice dinner. That night it stormed pretty good, with high winds and rain, and it rained off and on for the drive out in the morning.

The La Paz County RV park was full when we got to Parker, but they gave us the baseball field to set up in, so we circled around and made camp, with bathrooms and showers right next to us. Rick and Joe made it in later in the day from Phoenix. Mark and I went to town to look up directions to the trails, and to try to find me a couple of tires. We couldn't find any 35's, but we got lucky and got a lead to a guy who races off road who had some 36's and 37's. So, I picked up a set of nearly new 37" MT/R's, and bought some new bolts for the beadlocks. That night in camp we mounted up the new tires and used Gary's cordless sawzall to do some more fender trimming, while Mark broke down his beadlocks to add some new bling bling colored lock rings. Joe, Rick and Luke arrived just in time to have some birthday cake and help us celebrate Matt's 30th birthday.

Friday we headed back to the CA side of the river and ran Rio Bravo. We had a great time on this trail, scraping some roofs on a tight off camber spot, and generally enjoying the scenery and challenges. Matt caught a rear diff on a tough, off camber climb and ripped out the u-bolts on the rear driveline, plus stretched the yokes on the same front axle that had broken previously. The u-bolts were replaced and the axle yokes were welded to the u-joint caps. This trail has a nasty climb at the end, but I don't have any pics of it because my camera battery went dead, I'm sure some of the others have some good pics of this spot.

Luke went back to Phoenix that night, and Erik left for Portland in the morning. Matt decided to leave his rig in camp not wanting to risk breaking the weakened front axle yokes and rode with Joe, and we all headed out to run President's Choice and a brand new trail called Rio Lobo. Part way through the first trail Joe decided to try a very difficult notch to the side of the trail and proceeded to lay it over and got wedged in. After many tries, Mark finally managed to get his front tires up on the side of Joe's rig, and we had BOTW dumb fest '04. Jesse got in front of Joe to winch him out, but not before climbing up on his front tire, creating a great picture opportunity for the whole crew. You'll have to check out the pics. Towards the end of the trail Mark and Matt (in Joe's Jeep) both unsuccessfully tried a very steep and tight optional line on Launching Pad. Mark was able to back out, but Matt had so much tire in the air that we just hooked up the winch. After finishing President's Choice we headed over to the start of Rio Lobo and while we were having lunch Mark welded up a crack in his track bar axle mount and Gary went back to camp to get a new fitting for his front ARB. Rio Lobo is a very short, very tight, technical trail with a couple of short, but very steep, off camber waterfalls. Jes and Andy decided that after six trails, they were going to sit this one out, so myself, Rick, Joe, Mark, and Gary started up into the trail. This trail had potential for some serious body damage, but everyone was careful and we all made it through in good shape. A couple of roofs got scraped, and Mark got another dent in his door when he fell off a wall, but overall we did pretty well. After finishing the trail, we headed over to the Desert Bar. This is a cool place, about five miles off the highway down a dirt road. When we got there the place was hopping, with a good crowd and live music. We sat for awhile and had a few cold ones, and a few shots, and talked about the great time we had the past week, then we packed it up and headed back to camp. Jesse and Matt went looking for more firewood, and Jes blew a tire in the Circle K parking lot, taking seven plugs to make a temporary repair on a cut that must have happened out on the trail. That night we all went to a floating resturant next to the RV park for dinner, and wished Rick's wife Vanda a happy birthday, then went back to camp and had one last night of sitting and visiting around the camp fire. Sunday morning we loaded up, said our good bye's, and each headed our own seperate ways towards home. We had such a good time in Parker that we would all like to go back there again, and there are good trails that we didn't get a chance to run. We'll have to see where we end up going next year, but it will be hard to have a better time than we did this trip.

See you out on the trail,

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Great pictures!
I just got back after being on the road for 15 days. After BOTW I headed over to Prescott for a few days to hang with a friend. The weather up there was really cold but despite that we found some time to go out in the desert and do a little shooting. Then Thursday I headed down to TDS to meet up with Mark and Andy.
All I can say is WOW, what a great 15 days on the road!

Jes
 
GREAT WRITE-UP!!!! Yes, It was an awesome trip!!! Was the most fun I had in a LONG time....So, Do I lose the "driveway" moniker now??? I DID take a line that NO ONE else tried.....:)


Joe
 
FlexyJOE said:
GREAT WRITE-UP!!!! Yes, It was an awesome trip!!! Was the most fun I had in a LONG time....So, Do I lose the "driveway" moniker now??? I DID take a line that NO ONE else tried.....:)


Joe

We'll quit calling you Driveway Joe when we come up with something to replace it. Anyone got any ideas? :D
 
Richard,
Thanks for coordinating another great BOTW. It was loads of fun -- and the write-up pretty much sums it up!

I've got a recommendation for Joe's new name. How about "Drive-on-me Joe"? That has a nice ring to it. :roflmao:
Andy
 
Porch Puppy said:
Richard,
Thanks for coordinating another great BOTW. It was loads of fun -- and the write-up pretty much sums it up!

I've got a recommendation for Joe's new name. How about "Drive-on-me Joe"? That has a nice ring to it. :roflmao:
Andy

You may have something there, Andy. I wonder what Hinkley thinks? :D
 
Mark Hinkley said:
It kind of fits just like Driveway Joe..... Drive on me Joe!


:D

hinkley

:nono: I dont think that is acceptable...sorry.. Then People like hinkley, farmer matt will just be driving on me for the heck of it....no, I dont think that will work....Oh yeah, I signed up for NAXJA Membership the day I got home from parker. The $$$ Is out of my PP account, but I have not heard anything back, Nor can I get into the members section....whats up???


Joe
 
FlexyJOE said:
:nono: I dont think that is acceptable...sorry.. Then People like hinkley, farmer matt will just be driving on me for the heck of it....no, I dont think that will work....Oh yeah, I signed up for NAXJA Membership the day I got home from parker. The $$$ Is out of my PP account, but I have not heard anything back, Nor can I get into the members section....whats up???


Joe

Just hold your horses young pup. It takes a while to set it up. If you were in such a hurry you should have done it a long time ago.

You in the Den will be fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:D

hinkley
 
Joe,
It's going to take some time for your membership to go through. We are debating on whether to allow it or not. Those of us that have met & know you are fighting feverishly for this club to not your membership, but there are others that haven't met you that say you can't be all that bad... You're just lucky you haven't met more NAJA members than you have...

Matt

BTW, I'd prefer parkway joe because he likes to be parked on
 
FlexyJOE said:
:nono: I dont think that is acceptable...sorry.. Then People like hinkley, farmer matt will just be driving on me for the heck of it....no, I dont think that will work....Oh yeah, I signed up for NAXJA Membership the day I got home from parker. The $$$ Is out of my PP account, but I have not heard anything back, Nor can I get into the members section....whats up???


Joe

Joe, you've no one but yourself to blame for this. I told you two weeks ago to just give me your membership fee and that I would take care of everything for you. But nooooo, you had to do it your way :rolleyes: Now I'm thinking about joining to vote to ban you, just on general principal. Oh yeah, nickname. I'm thinking "Jailbait Joe", not because of your tender young age or sexy figure, but because that junk that you call a rig is going to get us all thrown in jail!
 
Seems to be working for some.

beware dial up types, its just under 7 megs.

For whoever wants, I can burn a vcd of all the clips (more biased to me, but there is some good, Andy, Jes, Richard, Matt, Mark, Joe clips) or I can provide a uncut version (1.5 hours) on VCD (plays on most DVD players). I will wait untill I have my new computer assembled though, probably next week sometime.
 
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