1st day of Fall 2012
What a great day for a ride. A few of us met at Turley for a day on the trails. We had Buck & Shelia, The Big Show & Crystal, Daryl & Birdie, and C_D rode with me. We pulled out a little after 9 AM with Buck in the front and me bringing up the rear. This being the 1st day of Bow season state wide the Deer hunters were out in force, we decided o stick to the main trails to avoid any conflict with the hunters.
Our 1st interesting trail of the day was Puncheon Creek trail, just falling into this trail will get the heart racing…and the near vertical 20’ drop greets you right off the bat. Everyone made it down the trail and past the 2 big rocks without incident. From here we headed over to the flame for a little break. The fire was out but a quick spark to a piece of paper and the fire was lit again. From here we took the Flame trail up to the top of the mountain, this is where our 1st problem of the day showed up. Buck out front came to the Rooted & rutted climb at the far end of the trail, he got almost to top and his right rear tire dropped into a large whole. Me and C_D were about 150’ downhill behind him when were heard a loud POP…the right front CV on Buck’s RZR had exploded, now Buck was in Canam Mode!
We had planned to run over to Red ash later in the day and run Bob, Buck didn’t want to attempt that thing in 3 wheel drive, so we made it to the top of the mountain so we could get Cell service. Buck called his dealer and they had an axle on the shelf. We decided we would continue on without buck while he made a mad dash back to the trucks via gravel and Take C_D’s truck to the dealer and get the axle come back install it and meet us at the Flats. The rest of us were going to go run CC t57 and CC T71 up to the flats we figured that would give buck plenty of time to get done.
We crossed the small bridge and took the first left onto T57, man-0-man there is not many trails I avoid at all cost, but this one has been added to that short list! This trail is not difficult at all, as matter of fact it is very easy, but the trail is so over grown that it made it miserable getting thru. I would guess we were the 1st group to go thru it in several months; we had to cut a couple trees out of the trail. The amount of over growth was over whelming to say the least, I had a limb the size of a pencil slap me across the face so hard I am sure my Mother felt it, I think all of us gave blood to the briar gods getting thru this mess.
Working our way thru that section of trail took us twice as long as we thought it would so we decided to run 57 out to 54 then take 54 up to the flats. We made real good time getting thru the rest of 57; we turned up 54 and got almost all the way thru it when The Big Shows “tuff as nails” Grim Reaper Tires showed that they were NOT flat proof. Seems Jeremy had hit a rock and put 3 different wholes in his tire, 2 in the bead and one out in the side wall. After putting 12 plugs in his tire we were off to the FLatts. We called Buck to see where he was, we figured he was sitting at the Flatts waiting on us since we had taken so long to get there.
Buck had more issues of his own, after getting the axle replaced he was making his way to the Flatts when he caught a rock just right and broke one of the rear hiem joints on his 900. He was just finishing replacing it, and we would meet him above Red Ash and head over to run the Widow Maker…AKA Bob.
The 1st hill on Bob is Pea Gravel hill, not sure why it’s called that, might be that a lot of people pee their pants at the site of it…LOL. Buck took the lead and I was in the rear. Everyone was making their way up the 1st section when Daryl got crossed up on a large slick rock, he backed up just a bit too much and the balanced crossed that very thin line. The Roll was in very slow motion; thankfully no one was hurt and only minor damage to one door. After righting the RZR we made our way the rest of the way up the Widow Maker without incident and down the Back of the dragon.
We made it back to the trucks with 60 miles behind us and a day full of great memories. Can’t wait to do it again!!!
