Just rolled in from a great day. Had a blast wheelin' with everybody and definitely looking forward to doing this again.
Started off the day around 9:30 at the Outpost to eat, fuel up, place bets on who was going to break what, and lay out a battle plan for the day. Ran Rocky Mountain Loop and part of Slab Pile first. Got to
the mud hole (anybody who knows Uwharrie knows this mud hole) to see if anybody was playing, and sure enough a very mildly built early model XJ was up to the doors in the hole, and dead due to the engine sucking in muddy water. Spent about an hour watching that group recover and try to get the Jeep running again. After a lot of throttle coaxing, and killing the starter, they finally got the Jeep running again.
We took a break for lunch after that and headed back onto the trails. Started off with Dutch John and paused for some poser pics on the popular poser rock. While attempting to line up to climb the rock I backed into (more like rammed into) a tree that I knew was there but somehow forgot about. Messed up my bumper and my hatch, but the hatch still opens so i'm really not mad about it (just an excuse for a swing out that i've been wanting to do!). While taking my position on the rock I hear everybody yell out "Woah!!" and start running to Josh's Jeep. Turns out he was about to Flop and the only thing keeping him from doing so was Andy pushing on the Jeep from the other direction. After getting some pictures and BSing for a bit we continued on with Dutch John, and finished up with running Slab Pile completely.
By now it was Dark and getting cold quickly, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the Outpost to air up and head home. While driving down the gravel forest roads to leave, we came upon a late 90's model 4Runner that was on the side of the road and had been rolled, with the 16 year old kid who was driving it pacing up and down the road on his cell phone. A few feet up there was a collection of about 12 different rigs, some on the side of the road and some in the middle with straps hooked to them lining up. We pulled over to check on everybody and come to find out, the kid in the 4Runner came around the corner and deer ran out in front of him. He swerved, over corrected, and flipped the 4Runner. When the rest of his group pulled up behind him and got out to help, one other person forgot to set the parking brake on his Bronco II, and it took off down the hill and sailed off into the woods down a STEEP embankment. They were trying to pull it out using two XJ's with a chain (bad idea) that wasn't much bigger than a dog chain, and a strap that I wouldn't trust to pull an ATV with. We got our straps out and helped them try to get the Bronco out, but quickly realized that method wouldn't work. At this point, we took Andy's XJ with a winch back off the trailer to winch the Bronco out using a snatch block that he was able to find in the bottom of his tool box. All in all it took the better part of an hour and a half to get the bronco back onto the road and out of the way. Thing's could have been a lot worse for both of them...the important thing is nobody was injured. The kid walked away from his 4Runner unharmed, and the owner of the Bronco wasn't in it when it rolled away.
As far as carnage goes in our group, I think we're all in agreement I took the prize today. Nick came out unharmed, as did Josh (surprisingly) and Andy. I managed to rip both front flares off, fold in both front quarter panels, back into a tree which screwed up the bumper and hatch, completely shear off one of my brand new JKS quick connects (which I didn't realize until we got back to the Outpost to air up), and bend the sway bar mount on the opposite site. Sam apparently didn't learn from my mistakes earlier in the day and proceeded to back into a tree as well, but messed up only his bumper.
In short, it was an eventful, but great day on the trails. Although it ended badly for the group we came upon while leaving, as mentioned it could have been worse. A HUGE thanks to Andy for the hard work, and use of his equipment to help extract the Bronco. All of our
group did a tremendous job helping in the entire situation, whether it be from helping to run cable, offering advice of how to pull the Bronco out, trying to help keep everybody safe from those random idiots passing by that just HAD to drive right through the middle of the scene and couldn't wait until we were clear, or keeping an eye on the entire situation to help keep everybody that was there safe. Times like that make me damn proud to be part of such a great organization. You guys rock!
Now for some pics:
I'll post the Photobucket link once they're done uploading.
