- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
Here's the @mbryson version of EJS 2021. Feel free to add yours obviously. The biggest takeaway from this event for me is how fun it is to watch all our kids grow up and do things. My @lbryson is quite good at organizing the paper work for the trails. She's learned from Jesse (Matt Hornback's daughter) and Carli (Bart Jacob's daughter) how to be efficient at the meeting areas to keep the paper work easy. Great organizational and leadership skills for life taught to us by our young ladies.
We tried to get out of Bountiful in the daylight but that just wasn't going to happen unfortunately due to many unforeseen circumstances. Coming out of Helper I lost a tire (who's surprised) at about 9 pm.
I got to source parts for the trailer the bulk of the week. We pulled Eric's TJ off the trailer and he ran off to see if he could find parts. He ended up just trucking along to Moab in his TJ while I limped the trailer/truck/"Jeep" along at about 45 mph from Helper to Moab. The spindle threads weren't horrible but definitely not good. I appreciate the many offers of help and parts gathering we received. Carquest in Moab had exactly what we needed except for a 1" 16 die to clean up the threads. I used a thread file (there's a skill I had to learn) and a couple spindle nuts (using the castle end as a "die") to get some serviceable threads. I'm going to buy a 1" spindle die and keep it in the trailer tool box from here out.
Despite the trailer woes, Saturday still rolls around. Our first trail was Hells Revenge with Bart Jacobs leading, Dave Laws, Matt Hornback, Jake Hornback and myself gunning. This is a great group of trail leaders and is a great way to kick off EJS. @ebryson would be gunning on Fins and Things later in the week so he ran off to run Fins with @Maverick that morning. Hopefully he'll chime in with his love of Fins and he'd end up running it three times during the week
. We are usually off the trail by 3:30-4:30 but this year was a little slower for some reason. I think we got off the trail by 5:00 or so? Some groups just take a little longer than others for whatever reason.
We had a Sunday gunner assignment with Dave Christensen from Chicago. Rock Slide Engineering was a sponsor of this trail. I like those guys and know them pretty well. They're also from my hometown and it's fun to chat Cache Valley with them when the opportunity arises. @ebryson, myself and Don Mackay were gunners. Don is someone you've likely seen if you've been to EJS. Long time member of the club and seemed to be a pretty good driver/spotter from what I could tell. I was tail gunning so it was difficult to observe well. @ebryson was about 7 rigs ahead of me so I'd catch glimpses of him occasionally. We kind of settled into a routine on obstacles that needed spotters for me to move up to @ebryson spot while @lbryson drove my Jeep up to the challenging areas. We had her drive through a few obstacles with my Jeep. These were kind of her first trail driving experiences so I tried to teach and such. Having someone without a lot of experience drive my Jeep is kind of interesting. I think the Jeep is super easy to drive but maybe not so much. She did really well and did some pretty tough obstacles. I put her in positions that were safe but challenging. I think she learned quite a bit?
I ended up with a bonus daughter for the week, Kaylee, one of Lynds' friends. Typical teenage girl pic here
We were able to get off the trail about 5:00 pm again on Sunday. No real incidents just slower going than normal for some reason. I'd run this trail again next year if Dave will have us. He did appreciate the organizational skills @lbryson brings to the table so that could happen.
Monday I'm assigned Metal Masher with @Maverick leading, @TurboMinivan, a Davis son to be named later, and myself gunning. Turned out that it was just three of us gunning. We had a bonus RME person on the trail with Jeremy and Lori Hicks. They were awesome on the trail as you'd expect. Odd that we added up the "value" of the three gunner's rigs for this trail at about $30-35k. There was at LEAST $1.5-2.0m in other rigs on the trail. Some VERY nicely built JL, JK and such along with us. Some folks had $$$,$$$ in their Jeep and this might be their first trail experience? Rock Slide Engineering sponsored this trail as well. Good to have those guys again.
#freebritney kept showing up in places. Definitely interesting Brett and John Hall both doled out massive amounts of ice cream at the Rock Chucker lunch spot.
Tuesday was my leader day, Kane Creek. This is a great trail but 30+ rigs on this thing could be a little interesting. I ended up having a fuel leak at my throttle body for the first few miles of the trail (that's new) and noticed I was down below 1/4 tank before we had even hit the creek crossings. After tightening a fitting to fix the leak and doing a quick survey of available gas on the trail I could tell I'm a bit out of luck and should likely turn back. I conferred with my gunners and we thought it prudent to have me head back while the tail gunner took over lead duties. I'd try to catch back up to the group after getting gas again. As I told folks my dilemma as they went by one of our CJ guys offered up 5 gallons of gas he had hiding in the passenger compartment. I found $20 in my wallet for gas from our now CJ friend and we took up the tail gunner spot. We had two nicely built, old school CJ7 on the trail. Father/son folks from WA that really knew how to drive. Their sister was with them in a mildly built manual TJ. They were really fun to have on the trail. The CJ mild builds made quick work of a lot of obstacles due to their narrowness and maneuverability. We had a late model JLU Rubicon from MS break a front axle on Hamburger Hill while trying to follow a cool JKU/JLU line on the right side of the worst obstacle in there. The gauntlet to drive that line was thrown down by a lady that could drive a stick shift JLU up that line and made it look super easy. About 7-8 long wheelbase rigs made it up through there and 7-8 others took my preferred route along the cliff edge that doesn't really take a lot more skill other than tire placement. Our whole group was off that trail by 6 and back to town by 6:30. A quick dinner at El Charro Loco was in order after that day. (their green sauce enchiladas are fantastic)
I was able to get a spindle nut on the trailer at this point in a serviceable, permanent way. That was kind of relieving.
I've done my volunteer time at this point. I always take a trail I've never taken and this year I took two. Wednesday I took Day Canyon Point with a good friend Roger Peck leading. That turned out to be a great run and we were off the trail at about 4:30 or so. It has a few semi-challenging ledges as you go back up the hill. Just a good day on the trail again. We did have a bit of a medical incident on the trail from someone slipping/falling. An older gentleman landed his lower spine against a rock and we tended to him for a few minutes. He turned out fine (as far as we know) but he had some concussion type symptoms (see my lack of medical training here?) that we, along with his family were concerned about. When's that "outback medical training" class again?
PSC was a sponsor on this trail. We started up Long Canyon to go to Day Canyon Point.
Thursday I got to run with another good friend, Larry Olsen along with his son-in-law/daughter Tom and Amanda Morris on Hey Joe Canyon. That's a pretty mild but dusty trail. I really liked it despite it being in NV (I swear we crossed the Green River and went under I-15 on the way out and the way back). We were back to the 313 highway about 5 pm again. @lbryson put together an April Fools gift for uncle Larry and even Roger Peck on this trail.
I thought I got a picture of Larry's cowboy hat graced with some unicorn goodness but can't seem to find it unfortunately.
I always try to bring something home for my wife but she vetoed this?
I just don't understand sometimes despite 29+ years with her
We packed up and headed for home.
We tried to get out of Bountiful in the daylight but that just wasn't going to happen unfortunately due to many unforeseen circumstances. Coming out of Helper I lost a tire (who's surprised) at about 9 pm.
I got to source parts for the trailer the bulk of the week. We pulled Eric's TJ off the trailer and he ran off to see if he could find parts. He ended up just trucking along to Moab in his TJ while I limped the trailer/truck/"Jeep" along at about 45 mph from Helper to Moab. The spindle threads weren't horrible but definitely not good. I appreciate the many offers of help and parts gathering we received. Carquest in Moab had exactly what we needed except for a 1" 16 die to clean up the threads. I used a thread file (there's a skill I had to learn) and a couple spindle nuts (using the castle end as a "die") to get some serviceable threads. I'm going to buy a 1" spindle die and keep it in the trailer tool box from here out.
Despite the trailer woes, Saturday still rolls around. Our first trail was Hells Revenge with Bart Jacobs leading, Dave Laws, Matt Hornback, Jake Hornback and myself gunning. This is a great group of trail leaders and is a great way to kick off EJS. @ebryson would be gunning on Fins and Things later in the week so he ran off to run Fins with @Maverick that morning. Hopefully he'll chime in with his love of Fins and he'd end up running it three times during the week
. We are usually off the trail by 3:30-4:30 but this year was a little slower for some reason. I think we got off the trail by 5:00 or so? Some groups just take a little longer than others for whatever reason.We had a Sunday gunner assignment with Dave Christensen from Chicago. Rock Slide Engineering was a sponsor of this trail. I like those guys and know them pretty well. They're also from my hometown and it's fun to chat Cache Valley with them when the opportunity arises. @ebryson, myself and Don Mackay were gunners. Don is someone you've likely seen if you've been to EJS. Long time member of the club and seemed to be a pretty good driver/spotter from what I could tell. I was tail gunning so it was difficult to observe well. @ebryson was about 7 rigs ahead of me so I'd catch glimpses of him occasionally. We kind of settled into a routine on obstacles that needed spotters for me to move up to @ebryson spot while @lbryson drove my Jeep up to the challenging areas. We had her drive through a few obstacles with my Jeep. These were kind of her first trail driving experiences so I tried to teach and such. Having someone without a lot of experience drive my Jeep is kind of interesting. I think the Jeep is super easy to drive but maybe not so much. She did really well and did some pretty tough obstacles. I put her in positions that were safe but challenging. I think she learned quite a bit?
I ended up with a bonus daughter for the week, Kaylee, one of Lynds' friends. Typical teenage girl pic here
We were able to get off the trail about 5:00 pm again on Sunday. No real incidents just slower going than normal for some reason. I'd run this trail again next year if Dave will have us. He did appreciate the organizational skills @lbryson brings to the table so that could happen.
Monday I'm assigned Metal Masher with @Maverick leading, @TurboMinivan, a Davis son to be named later, and myself gunning. Turned out that it was just three of us gunning. We had a bonus RME person on the trail with Jeremy and Lori Hicks. They were awesome on the trail as you'd expect. Odd that we added up the "value" of the three gunner's rigs for this trail at about $30-35k. There was at LEAST $1.5-2.0m in other rigs on the trail. Some VERY nicely built JL, JK and such along with us. Some folks had $$$,$$$ in their Jeep and this might be their first trail experience? Rock Slide Engineering sponsored this trail as well. Good to have those guys again.
#freebritney kept showing up in places. Definitely interesting
Brett and John Hall both doled out massive amounts of ice cream at the Rock Chucker lunch spot.Tuesday was my leader day, Kane Creek. This is a great trail but 30+ rigs on this thing could be a little interesting. I ended up having a fuel leak at my throttle body for the first few miles of the trail (that's new) and noticed I was down below 1/4 tank before we had even hit the creek crossings. After tightening a fitting to fix the leak and doing a quick survey of available gas on the trail I could tell I'm a bit out of luck and should likely turn back. I conferred with my gunners and we thought it prudent to have me head back while the tail gunner took over lead duties. I'd try to catch back up to the group after getting gas again. As I told folks my dilemma as they went by one of our CJ guys offered up 5 gallons of gas he had hiding in the passenger compartment. I found $20 in my wallet for gas from our now CJ friend and we took up the tail gunner spot. We had two nicely built, old school CJ7 on the trail. Father/son folks from WA that really knew how to drive. Their sister was with them in a mildly built manual TJ. They were really fun to have on the trail. The CJ mild builds made quick work of a lot of obstacles due to their narrowness and maneuverability. We had a late model JLU Rubicon from MS break a front axle on Hamburger Hill while trying to follow a cool JKU/JLU line on the right side of the worst obstacle in there. The gauntlet to drive that line was thrown down by a lady that could drive a stick shift JLU up that line and made it look super easy. About 7-8 long wheelbase rigs made it up through there and 7-8 others took my preferred route along the cliff edge that doesn't really take a lot more skill other than tire placement. Our whole group was off that trail by 6 and back to town by 6:30. A quick dinner at El Charro Loco was in order after that day. (their green sauce enchiladas are fantastic)
I was able to get a spindle nut on the trailer at this point in a serviceable, permanent way. That was kind of relieving.
I've done my volunteer time at this point. I always take a trail I've never taken and this year I took two. Wednesday I took Day Canyon Point with a good friend Roger Peck leading. That turned out to be a great run and we were off the trail at about 4:30 or so. It has a few semi-challenging ledges as you go back up the hill. Just a good day on the trail again. We did have a bit of a medical incident on the trail from someone slipping/falling. An older gentleman landed his lower spine against a rock and we tended to him for a few minutes. He turned out fine (as far as we know) but he had some concussion type symptoms (see my lack of medical training here?) that we, along with his family were concerned about. When's that "outback medical training" class again?
PSC was a sponsor on this trail. We started up Long Canyon to go to Day Canyon Point.
Thursday I got to run with another good friend, Larry Olsen along with his son-in-law/daughter Tom and Amanda Morris on Hey Joe Canyon. That's a pretty mild but dusty trail. I really liked it despite it being in NV (I swear we crossed the Green River and went under I-15 on the way out and the way back). We were back to the 313 highway about 5 pm again. @lbryson put together an April Fools gift for uncle Larry and even Roger Peck on this trail.
I thought I got a picture of Larry's cowboy hat graced with some unicorn goodness but can't seem to find it unfortunately.
I always try to bring something home for my wife but she vetoed this?
I just don't understand sometimes despite 29+ years with her
We packed up and headed for home.