Participants:
- Thomas Fritz (1996 Hummer Wagon, above left)
- Joe Maleski (1983 Jeep CJ-7, above right)
- Jon Hylands (1985 Jeep CJ-7, below left & right)
Thomas' Hummer is basically stock, a four-door wagon with the turbo-diesel, armored bottom, a 12,000 pound winch, and CTIS (central tire inflation system). Joe's Jeep is very much like mine, except it has the 258 cubic inch six, power steering, and a lock-right locker up front. Oh yeah, he has 4.56 gears as well (grrr). Love that flat-black paint...
There were a few other people (Chris? :-) who went to a bachelor party the night before, and thus were quite late (in fact, we met them as we were leaving...) Maybe next time...
I had a passenger, my friend Colin Paterson, and the other two guys were by themselves.
Sunday morning dawned cold, overcast, and raining. Fortunately for us, I had installed my hard-top the night before, so we stayed relatively warm and dry. I picked Colin up at his place in San Jose at 8:00 a.m., and we headed on down Highway 101 to Hollister. Tom and I were supposed to meet on the side of the highway, but we got our signals crossed, and it didn't end up happening.
When we got to the park, we went to the obstacle course immediately, since that seems to be where most people hang out. There were a bunch of people there, running through the frame twister, spinning & sliding on the wet mud and wood with mostly stock Jeeps. There were a few "mud-bogger" pickups, tearing around doing doughnuts in two-wheel-drive. There was even a little Subaru Brat pickup, jacked up with little tiny tires (cute). He made it through the frame twister with less problems than the stock Jeeps!?
Tom and Joe showed up, and we decided to go for a little trail ride after we each ran the frame twister and the stair-step. We took off up one of the roads, with me in the lead. I turned onto any trails that I saw that looked "interesting", which is to say rated "more difficult" or "most difficult" :-) We had some fun, trying to get up some of the steeper hills. Everything was very slick and wet, and we threw a lot of mud around.
There were a lot of vehicles there, including another Hummer which we met at the base of Five Fingers. The Hummers had done a pretty good job of tearing up the hill, making it pretty much impossible for anyone else to get up. I tried a couple times, but it was pretty hairy, and I kept sliding into the big ruts.
We went on a long trail, going up the side of a mountain in a series of steep hills. The road was packed sand, so it wasn't slippery at all (at least, not compared to mud). On the third big hill, Tom got about three-quarters of the way up, before his left tire slipped into a little rut on the side of the trail. Damn Hummers, too wide :-) Actually, it was a pretty big rut, and he got himself royally stuck, to the tune of 45 minutes and a few pulls with his 12,000 lbs. winch to get out. Eventually we got the back-end of the Hummer back onto the trail, pointing in the right direction, and he carefully backed down the hill. We turned around, and headed back to find a different route. We eventually got to the top of the mountain, and left me tell you, it was friggin' COLD up there, with the wind blasting across!!
So, eventually we headed back down to the obstacle course, and did the frame twister and the other stuff a bunch more times. While we were stopped, we heard the whine of spinning tires coming from the woods, so we went to check it out. A guy in a Wrangler had gotten very stuck in one of the creek-bed trails, and we ended up pulling him out using the winch on the Hummer.
We also tried another very difficult (and narrow) gulley-trail, but it was so washed out, we got about a hundred feet in, and decided to turn around. Fortunately, Tom hadn't entered the trail yet, so it was just Joe and I. We backed to a corner, did a ten-point turn-around, and drove out.
At that point I was basically out of time, so we headed over to the obstacle course for the last time, and I tried to run the rock pile next to the frame twister, and got high-centered a few times (had to hi-lift myself off). I will make it next time I'm there...
We left the park, and I drove down to the ranger station to air up, and we headed back into town, much dirtier than when we came :-) Of course, Tom could just push the little button on his dash to air up (damn Hummers!).
It was my first experience four-wheeling on mud, and everyone agreed it was a blast, and definitely a worthwhile trip.
I'm going to try and organize another trip in January, so we'll get to do this all again.