First off, Lorrie and I, on behalf of all who attended, would like to thank Jason for organizing a great run. Everything went without a hitch. I got the pictures out at: We all had a great weekend. There were 10 vehicles total. We did 2 runs, Pine Mountain and Garcia Ridge.
For us Lorrie drove Pine Mountain and I drove Garcia Ridge. We had planned for Lorrie to drive everything but she was getting tired and did not want to do the first “obstacle” which we found on Garcia Ridge. Jason and John Ruiz had not expected this obstacle and we left 2 of the vehicles behind… But I digress.
The first trail Pine Mountain is SLO (San Luis Obispo) four wheelers adopt a trail and is a great little trail. It is not really hard but has some off chamber places which were aggravated by the fact that Lorrie and I were running sans doors. The trail gets really nasty at one point called the stair steps and we took the advice of the SLO four wheeler who had just rolled there and turned around at that point. We did walk down to the obstacle and indeed one wrong move and it would have been off the mountain quick for the unlucky driver.
We did lunch at that point.
We had 2 “new” drivers with us this weekend Lee and Tino. I did not catch their last names but they both were real troopers with keeping up with the likes of us. Lee had a stock TJ and Tino a stock Isuzu Trooper. I got a chance to take pictures of everyone but there were not any really good shots on Pine Mountain except for the EXCEPTIONAL scenery. It is really pretty up there and I tried to capture the essence of the run but… You know the pictures do not do it justice. (I think Jason might put this run on next year again if there is interest… hint, hint. 
We tried to get a drink at Pozo Saloon after Pine Mountain but they were closed. So we decided we would have time for Garcia Ridge. The first 500ft of the trail was really dug out and had some pretty formidable rocks at the top. This made for the best wheeling pictures of the trip, as well as some fun getting Tinos Trooper up! We were all surprised and happy to see his enthusiasm for conquering the hill. We were a bit worried about breakage but… The rest of the run was quite uneventful. I personally really liked this run since there were really no off chamber and there were some challenging parts…
Speaking of breakage
We did have a couple of problems. Jim Hodges lost his pan-hard arm. Actually not the arm but a bolt off of one end. He was kind enough to drive it back to camp such that Jason could fix it in the shade of camp. (Really he did not know it was broken until Sherry noticed “something hanging down from the front end”
That was mid-day between trails. Then on Garcia Ridge I heard noises from my trany but decided it was my imagination. Then coming down a hill it popped out of 2nd and I was free-wheeling down the hill… Luckily it was not that big and I was pretty much at the bottom already. I got it back into gear and it did not give me any more trouble but that and the fact it was 6pm made for a good reason to turn around and head back to the barn. Consequently it shifted fine all the way back to camp (some 16miles.) Don’t figure.
Well enjoy the pictures…
Garcia Ridge — Jim Hodges Ira,
Great pictures. Thanks. You did a hell of a job capturing some of the scenery - that’s always hard to do with wide open spaces. The vehicle and people shots were super too. The one of Jason and Lorrie is suitable for framing.
Also, great trip report. You covered everything except the bananas foster.