OTC Sweep Run: 5/28

[TORX]

After Oregon Trophy Challenge this year a few of us from Team 6 had the itch to get back out to TSF, and finish this year's route. Our team chose to head back early to get our score card in before any possibly late penalties. This left us with a lot of curiosity on what the rest of the route contained.

We contacted Gary (OTC event organizer) about running the route, and it just so happened he needed to sweep the course and collect the flags and punches from the event. We agreed to meet up with him and make a day of it. I still haven't made post OTC repairs to my rig, so I was acting as codriver for Karl (Los Lobos) of Team 26 in his green machine. Nick and Scott were in the White Jeep, and Gary brought out his built Toyota truggy.

We staged at Rogers Camp, and headed for Lyda to pick up where the West route starts. Hopped onto a few sections of Archers with Karl and I leading the way.

Pretty soon we were headed skyward, climbing up Waterfall. We drove by and it was empty (on a holiday weekend) so we decided to run it for a little bit of fun.

Gary puts his Toyota to work on the left side ledges.

Over on the right.

From Waterfall we cruised down Archers, and Jordan Creek road. Ended up off Highway 6 at the start of Rogers Road. We elected to not run at our 13.5+ MPH pace on this day. It was a perfect day to be out at TSF.

"Compass bearing 80, 80 paces"

Heading up the short side trails above Rogers Road sweeping the course.

It was bitter sweet to see where all the punches were placed. Most of us seem to run with tunnel vision on the trails during the event.

Beautiful day running along the ridges.

Dipped over into the Trask unit, and ran ZigZag trail.

Mile 30, Danger.

 

[TORX]

During the heavy rains of the winter, this portion of road washed out. ODF gave the thumbs up on running this portion of road, but it was still a little sketch as there was no recovering if the road gave out anymore.

Stopped to retrieve some more punches, eat some hot pockets, and enjoy the day in the forest. Karl's machine was flat working all day.

After collecting the last punch card, we started the trek back toward Browns Camp. We weren't up for the 30+ miles of pavement, so we winged it on the gravel roads doing some navigation on the fly.

Pretty soon we were heading back up Archers Road, and found ourselves at the bottom of the V-Notch. "Should we run it?" Yes!

"Check out the sidewall bite of the tires..."

Apparently the sidewall traction was pretty good, as we were on our side before Karl finished his sentence. :laugh:

Nick rallied around, and we rigged up a block for a side pull to help get him back on all fours.

We continued on back toward Browns, ran some more of Archers, and a little of Powerline.

Last trail of the day was Little Rubicon, as Karl had never ran it before.

6lbs in the Treps, 10:1 low, he didn't slip a tire.

...and back down.

The conditions were good, so Nick took the opportunity to run it.

He too had a clean run up under his own power. The station wagons were getting it done.

Little Rubicon was a great way to end the day. We covered a lot of ground, ran some fun trails, and got to see some new area. We just wished we didn't have to wait a year until the next Oregon Trophy Challenge.

 

[Los Lobos]

THE "TORX Report"! I had a blast even laying on my side.