We had a great weekend, with no meaningful damage, only some bumps and bruises on the Jeep. One of which was patched with a band-aid.
The crew ended up being me, Rodney, Juan, Dave, Keith and Alex. The weather during the day was perfect. It rained Friday night and drizzled Saturday morning leaving the top layer of dirt just wet enough that we had ZERO dust at Cline Butte (amazing). Then the rain stopped in time for us not to get rained on.
We ran 37 to 34. Most of my way points of obstacles on 34 were no longer there, however we found a couple areas to do some fun, steep hill climbs. Hopefully the videos come out well. Dave abused a poor tree 4 times before we figured out that it wasn't his fault. While trying to climb a steep, off camber rock, he lifted his driver front tire way up in the air, was supposed to then put it down to the right of a tree, but instead slammed it down on the tree. Then re-adjusted, smacked it again. Then did it with the middle of his bumper. Then again with the tire. Turns out that while we were telling him to stop turning driver, really the two back wheels were articulating in such a way that the whole Jeep was rotating and it was beyond his steering control.
Later in the play area, we found more steep, basically rock walls to climb. Rodney & I drove our Jeeps up onto a long rock face. I chickened out and decided it was too steep to continue, while Rodney gave it a go but couldn't make it happen. After I moved Keith showed us what's up and slowly crawled the spot that I was just on. Obviously, now Rodney & I both had to do it next now that it was proven possible. Juan gave it a go but his fenders were too wide and kept getting caught on the tree. He repaired said damage with a green band-aid.
We made our way down to Faith, Hope, and Charity. It looked different than I remember, especially Twisted Sister which I thought I remembered joining Charity, but now seems like it's own independent climb. We all climbed Hope & Charity before making out way up 49 to the trail head to camp.
Dinner was delicious. We had plenty of beer (which provided many cans for Alex who was very excited to cash in on) and Juan cooked us Carne Asada tacos and Gringo Salsa (which was from last time he used the container). It was a cold night in camp-city, and we had shockingly bad luck with batteries. Both me and Dave killed out Jeep batteries.
Sunday we got a late start since we didn't have to meet Biff at Rim Butte. Juan, Keith, and Alex left us after breakfast burritos, and the rest of us went on our Rim Butte discovery mission. Rim Butte is a VERY unique place. Lots of large, loose, very sharp volcanic rocks to crawl over. Which means when the rock stays still, you have epic traction, but there's a high likelihood the rocks will move in which case you're all over the place slip & slide style. Frequently, the rock just broken apart. We skipped the staging areas and went straight to an open-ish area where we ran a segment of 45, which took a couple hours and includes winching a large tree further off trail because the cut away was basically side-by-side width. Also got to use the chain saw for further trimming. We then ran 40 to 10 to get down to Lodgepole. On the way Dave high centered himself with both front wheels in the air. To get him down Rodney had to winch him with a snatch block for extra power and tethered to my Jeep to keep him stationary. The rock he was on basically exploded as we pulled him off. There was the general theme that the trail only vaguely looked the same between the 1st person and 3rd person as rocks shifted or were broken apart with each truck.
All in all, Rim Butte is a pretty cool, very unique place. We didn't have any body damage other than a soft top rub on a tree here and there, but our skid plates... they got serious attention (significantly more than the Rubicon gave them). No matter how many skid plates you have, before going to Rim Butte, you should add another!! lol
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Originally Posted by cjsrebiff
