Arnold - Gold Country 98 September 11-13 1998 |
Northern California Area |
Trip report from Gerald Luiz This past weekend we had our second annual BAHA trip to the Sierras. We meet in Arnold which is just off Hwy 4.Last year was great fun and this year proved to be so too. Tim and I went up early to do some prerunning on Friday since neither of us had run the trials before. We had great fun on the first trail with beautiful weather. We were bothing thinking of taking the tops off the trucks. Then on our second trail, the weather suddenly got bad and it started to pour. We actually ran into a hiker at this point who was going down the trail to camp for the weekend. Since the weather was getting foul, he rode along. Then good sized hail started to pelt the trucks. One advantage of the soft tops is that it doesn't sound like you are in a tin can in the rain or hail. Then thunder and lightning. Real close. I was in the lead truck, saw a flash then a huge boom. The whole truck shook. Tim gets on the radio and asks if we saw it. We say sort of. This bolt of lightning hit a tree not 100 feet away, turning to top into a big orange ball. We drove to the other side of the tree and you could see a big strip of blown out bark from the top all the way to the ground. Wow. It soon cleared up but left us with enough hail on the trucks to through a few snow balls. We ran out of time on our prerun but we decided to run this second trail on Sunday due to the difficulty. Saturday we had 9 trucks and the weather proved clear for the whole day. The first trail we ran was Sourgrass which is just over the Stanislaus River. A few years ago the bridge washed out from a mud slide. It is amazing to see the old steel rails that are just twisted into an S shape... an amazing display of power. Sourgrass is a fun little trail with nothing too technical (2) but requires some BTM in places. The hard parts are mostly rock patches. It ends in a beautiful wooded area right next to the river. We must go camping there next year. After leaving Sourgrass, we took a little drive throught one of the forest roads. Very scenic. We tried to run a trail that we didn't get to prerun the day before. It was pretty but kind of a bust. We tried two different ways but both dead ended and we had to back track b/c we ran out of time and the clan was getting hungry. Rob had busted a tire but was able to keep it inflated until getting back to town where it was swapped with the spare. We had a great dinner party over at Tim's inlaw's place. We watched the video of day's travels and of previous adventures. Great fun. Sunday we had 7 trucks and headed out to Ramsey which is
located just outside of Cottage Springs. I had known that this might be difficult (3-4) so
Tim and I had prerun it on Friday. The trail starts with a pair of tricky switchbacks that
require 3 point turns. Many narrow paths through trees and brush until you get closer to
the river again. Then we had many many rocks to traverse. Rubicon type stuff. Everybody
got a chance to slide on their rocker panels. Some of us too alternate paths andscratched
up our control arms too. We only had one stuck when Ralph slid off a rock he was on and
got stuck on the frame rail. William winched him backwards without fuss and kept going.
Since I was the lead truck and we had gone farther than the prerun, I was the guinea pig
for picking lines. At one point I managed to tip too far and dented my door on a nice
pointy rock. Time to call Lynch to see if he has any paint :). Funny enough, we ran back
into the hiker we gave a ride to on Friday so he got a ride back out with us too. Going
back was all uphill but we made it without incident. The switchbacks at the end were the
most challenging to pick the right lines but everybody made it. Some of us went out to
lunch and others started home. What a great group of people and a fun weekend. Thanks to
all who attended. Hotel and Camping InfoHotels in Arnold
Camping |
This was a Other Arnold 98 Trip
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