Twenty-One Road 12/05/98

December 5, 1998
by Terry Howe

Roger Wild, John Heskett with friend Kevin, Steve Smith, and I all arrived at the trail head around 10:30 Friday night. It was a cool evening with partly cloudy skies. We quickly set up camp and made a fire to keep warm. The weather forecast was for Saturday called for a chance of snow even though it didn't look like snow. We hit our sleeping bags fairly early to get rested for some serious four wheeling the next day.

We woke up late in the morning to the soft sound of snow hitting our tents. The snow wasn't heavy when we got up, but it was coming down at a good rate. There wasn't any sense in waiting it out, so we aired down and hit the trail.

Because of the snow we stayed on the road as long as we could rather than dropping right into the creek. Shortly before the big cave we ran out of road and started hitting the trail. The snow had changed to big heavy flakes by this time and it was coming down hard. The traction wasn't too bad considering the weather and we soon made the big cave.

The cave protected the squeeze rock, so we all gave it a try since it might be the only dry obstacle of the day. It wasn't too dry since you had to drive through running water to get to it, but we all made it. Not that we all had clean runs, but we made it. I set the pace by putting a large dent in my front fender. John managed to hit his nerf bar into his rocker a bit here as well.

After the squeeze we continued on skipping a lot of optional obstacles in the hope that we would be able to complete the trail. It wasn't long before we hit Carnage Corner. Getting through Carnage Corner took a while, but we all made it through without body damage or throwing a cable.

Soon after Carnage Corner, I decided to try an absurdly difficult obstacle. I was surprised that I was actually able to get on it, but I could not get my Jeep over it. Not sure if my Jeep would do that one on a good day.

After Carnage Corner, it is just one obstacle after another and with all the snow on the ground it was kind of hard to see the texture of the trail. By this time the snow had tappered off a bit and our confidence had increased. Everyone was trying different lines on things some harder some easier. Easier on this part of the trail with snow on it is relative.

Roger found a neat obstacle that was particularly protected by an over hanging cliff and managed to max out his Lev-o-Gauge. I tried some real dumb line in this area and I had to throw a cable. While winching there was a loud bang and I stopped and got out to find out what broke. All my front u-joints looked fine and I was about to hop back in until someone noticed my front hub was in several pieces. After replacing my hub and some work with the Hi-Lift, I was free.

We continued on managed to complete the trail just as the sun was dropping below the horizon. When we finally got back to camp, John and Kevin packed and headed home while Roger, Steve, and I made a large fire. We were all thankful we escaped with no major damage. The night turned cold, but we slept well after a long day of using the Hi-Lift and winch.

Last modified Wednesday, 01-Dec-2010 09:13:14 MST

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