Big Bear – On the rocks
July 2024
aka: “What do we have here?”
by Montego
We arrived at Camp 58 just before midnight on Wednesday July 3rd, 2024. Although the directions to camp included a “Gold Mountain Day Use Area” sign that wasn’t there, we managed to find the right place in the dark anyway. And rolled in about midnight. FYI: the remaining small round sign says “#2, no camping”. We learned later that Terry had been helping other clubs through the trail when he met the owner of this camping land several years ago. Katt in his truck joined the group & he later invited Terry to camp on his land which is well set up for it. Amenities included big fire circle, super nice porta-potties and a shower house that is simple to use & worked great. And the biggest amenity of all is not fighting the holiday weekend crowds for a space in the public campgrounds.
WagonMaster for this trip is Terry in a yellow YJ. After the driver’s meeting, we left camp Thursday morning at 8:40am. A bit early so we could get a head start on the trail to Dishpan and because we are going to do two trails today. We had a long drive on pavement before the trail. It was 10:30 by the time we were airing down at the trailhead. Katt was offering everyone fried chitlins. Our radios were all set to the new club radio frequency GMRS 17-7. On this trip we have: Terry & Katt, Jerry and Jessica, Robert F, Montego and Genny. Jerry agreed to handle Tail End duties & make sure we didn’t lose anyone. So we had YJs at both ends, & JK’s in the middle.
The trail wasn’t bad at all, sort of deceptively easy at first. There is a big concrete bridge over the Dishpan Deep Creek crossing. If you didn’t already know the history of all the hullabaloo over vehicles crossing the river there then clambering up the big rocks, you might have missed it.
We saw the sign for 3N34 the road to Crab Flats sporting a Dirt Devils logo and some black diamond trail symbols. Not sure why the sign was engraved with 3W12 under their sticker. Sort of a mystery to me. The uphill section just after crossing Deep Creek used to be a major obstacle of the trail, but now you don’t even see it from the bridge. But we got into some big rocks. Yes, we got into some rocks. We were in & out of rocks all day. Mostly in and on.
There comes a time when all your preparations are tested. Did you prepare well? Did you do all the wrong stuff? Do the rocks crush your gas tank, like you did with your 1st 4wheeler? Or did you learn something and install some good skid plates? Did you have to buy a new gas tank and a new skid plate? Or did you just buy the skid plate first and install it – without crunching the gas tank?
It is with both pride and dismay that I report my skid plates took a tremendous beating this day, but they served their purpose while doing so. And really they are fine. That’s what skid plates are for. To make that crunching or screeching noise while protecting something more delicate. It’s like a sophisticated “not the best line” sensor that makes that noise instead of beeping.
Meanwhile back on the trail, Katt was having a great time making sure everybody had enough rocks under their wheels.
Although she joined us for the January McIvers cabin run, this was the first rough rocks trip for my passenger. Finding out that vehicles could even do this sort of work came as a great surprise. Or that anyone would choose to beat up their valuable vehicle like this on purpose. And a number of exclamations were made. But eventually we all got acclimated to the bashing crashing hard rock on metal noises. Soon enough the exclamations were replaced with: “What do we have here?” as she examined each upcoming obstacle situation. Which I thought was cute & a good sign that she might come out with us on a trip again.
I don’t think anyone had more fun that Jerry on these rocks. Doors off, big grin, Jerry was getting what he came for. Except uncharacteristically he didn’t break anything. We all know he wanted to. Well he did have an overheating issue. To increase the pain of any gambling losses, Jerry left his spare tire in camp. Luckily for us all he didn’t get a flat. Because it would have cost someone half a day just to make the round trip to get that huge 37″ spare tire from camp.
When we got to the start of the Holcomb Creek trail Rock Garden, I was impressed that Terry knew each rock and he shared which rocks needed to be stepped on with which tire. Terry says he’s been on these trails 30 or 40 times, which might just explain it. Anyway, he was a good leader, very helpful. We crunched our way though those rocks. At one point we discovered that Robert’s winch was not operational, or temporarily non operational, but there was an easy work around. Several times it looked like some one was stuck- turtled with all 4 wheels dangling, but in most cases some vigorous Jeep rocking regained enough traction to back off and try again.
At 4 oclock we were almost through the trail when Montego reported he could only go straight or turn left. His Jeep could no longer turn right. That turned out to be a badly bent steering stabilizer, which was easily removed. An easy fix. The more difficult part came when putting away the heavy tool bags and someone became off center and tossed themself into a thorn bush, taking some minor body damage.
We all made it back to camp before dark and in time to take wonderful hot showers and share some chips and guacamole salsa around the fire circle. I hear that some people stayed up well after sunset but I wouldn’t know who.
Friday morning we left camp even earlier at 8:05am, with the idea of getting ahead of any other holiday weekend off roaders. Robert had already headed home, but Doug & son Mason joined in a 4 door JK. Terry’s daughter Megan & her bf Joe rode with Terry. We arrived at the Gold Mountain trailhead at 8:35am.
Forest Service sign says this gatekeeper method is REQUIRED for 4×4 vehicles to access this area. If you can’t do this, then you shouldn’t be on this trail.
Probably the most amusing thing all weekend is at the trailhead to Gold Mountain. There is a very large very official gate across the trail. The gate is locked, but the trail is open. The sign says something about 4×4 vehicles should enter to the left of the gate. In other words, if you & your vehicle can’t deal with this pile of rocks, you have no business on this trail & we’re sick & tired of rescuing lamers. An admirable gatekeeper, and I wish there were more tests like that in daily life. Hat tip to the Forest Service who devised this gatekeeper test.
The Gold Mountain trail started off pretty easy, like a fire road, gaining altitude, then we got into some rocks. “What do we have here?” Hmmm. Doug let Mason drive that 4 door JK, which is just long enough to be tricky not to get it high centered on these kind of rocks. Sometimes the trail was so steep that walking it was more difficult than driving it. Jerry always managed to find a more difficult line, which sometimes worked. Jerry was fighting an overheating problem and probably unrelated – he was losing brake fluid somehow. And you could smell gas whenever his Jeep tilted.
We also did the little John Bull & John Bull trails on Friday as well. Plenty of rocks! We met some tourists on the trail. One guy was from Columbia and he was really keen on what we are doing today, taking a lot of photos. He said he had never seen anything like this in Columbia. They were driving built rental Jeeps, which was a surprise to me. I was also surprised that there were not a lot of people on the trail this holiday weekend.
Listening to the clatter & crunching sounds of our vehicles getting through the rocks would make you think some damage was being done. And you’re not completely wrong. Montego bent a steering stabilizer and could only go straight or turn left until he removed the bent shock. He installed a new steering stabilizer on the way home, but still noticed a violent steering shake over 44 mph. Might have torn off a tire weight or 2 as well. Later swapping the wheels front to rear seems to have sort of resolved the problem.
– Montego
White Mountain, July 6th, 2024
By Terry Grimsley
Saturday’s addendum in Montego’s absence:
One more day of trails was on tap before we called it a weekend, this being White Mountain (3N17). We had three remaining members by the time Saturday rolled around, yours truly accompanied by his daughter, Megan and her boyfriend, Joe, Jerry & Jessica and Doug & Mason. All of us wanted to “Git R Done” so we were on our way by 8 AM. We headed west along 3N16 and then turned on 3N14 at Big Pine Flat, dropping down in elevation until we came to the start of White Mountain. Along the way we encountered a garter snake that was about three foot long stretched across the road enjoying the warm morning sun. We stopped, and with some encouragement, the snake was on his way and more importantly off the road and out of harm’s way.
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The three amigos on top of White Mountain.
t’s a bit of a haul over to the west end of the trail. We normally stop and stretch our legs before we start the climb up the mountain but it was warming up quickly and there wasn’t a breath of wind so we all agreed to keeping moving. It’s a long and steep grind up the mountain and with the unusually warm weather the old YJ was emitting unusual smells. I think all three of the rigs and their occupants were happy to finally reach the saddle where we were treated to a nice breeze. After we all cooled down a bit we made our way to the top of White Mountain and took in the views in all directions.
Screenshot
Oddly enough the breeze that we enjoyed down in the lower saddle was no-where to be found up top and despite only being around 80 degrees, the sun was pretty intense. The overwhelming desire to find some shade for a lunch stop pushed us on. We traversed the ridgeline as we worked our way south east, climbing as we went. Some of the climbs were pretty steep but lacked any significant obstacles so the going was pretty easy. We passed by our usual lunch spot among three large trees because I wanted to stop at another well shaded spot with a better view. Unfortunately, people were camped in this spot. To make matter worse, this was the last good shade opportunity on the trail. A lunch break without shade was most certainly not an option so we continued on. When we reached the last climb on the trail there was an overlanding group parked on the rock garden part of the way up the bypass. Thankfully they finished their poser shots and cleared the trail very quickly and up we went. When we reached the end of the trail we jumped on 3N16 and started to head back towards camp with the intent of stopping for lunch. By the time we reached an area with good shade we were only 10 minutes from camp so it seemed kind of silly to stop. Afterall, we have picnic tables in the shade just a few minutes away! We pulled into camp at noon, had a leisurely lunch followed by a round of refreshing popsicles.
Although we had a small group the entire weekend, a wonderful time was had. Great trails with no traffic on any of them, minimal breakage/breakdowns, warm but manageable weather during the day followed by spectacular nights around the campfire and most importantly terrific camaraderie. Thank you to all that contributed to the success of the weekend. I also want to thank the following individuals:
Montego: For writing the trip reports for Thursday and Friday, I’m sure his flare will make for an enjoyable read.
Jerry: For his spotting expertise when I couldn’t get back to help out.
Katt, our Camp 58 host: For making his property available to us for the third year and for the wonderful shower house that was enjoyed by everyone each and every day. Being able to wash the dust, sweat and sunscreen off at the end of the day was priceless!!!
Montego Big Bear rocky road IMG_6740
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