Big Bear Fest 2012

Well, a group of us got together to relive the usual annual trip in Big Bear. Sequoia was the originator of the idea and the plan was to cross the whole SBNF. The proposed plan was Pioneer town to 2N02, 2N61Y, 2N02, 3N03, short stretch of Hwy 18, up 3N61-Jacoby Canyon, 3N16, 3N02, 3N10-John Bull, 3N16, 3N08, 3N93-Holcomb. Find a CG or YP between Holcomb and Dishpan. Sunday 3N34-Dishpan, 3N34 out to Pinnacles Staging Area, short stretch of Hwy 173, 2N33, 2N17X, around Silverwood Lake to 2N47-Cleghorn to I-15.

The goal was to meet at a coffee shop in Yucca about 8:30am and head on out from there. Julio and the Mexican brigade, Karstic, a friend of Geoff named Critter, along with Beamer and I showed on time. Souske had come up the night before and camped out with Geoff at Mike Armstrong’s place. We waited and waited until 10:00 and Geoff and Souske hadn’t arrived yet. Critter said screw this and actually left since he couldn't wait any longer. The rest of us headed out with the hopes Souske, Geoff and Mike would catch up.

We took off and eventually they caught up as I was fixing my serpentine that skipped a few ribs.

We all took off and headed out for a while to John Bull where we ate a decent lunch. From there we headed to the beginning of John Bull where I proceeded to dry hump a rock. Eventually the rock prevailed when I slipped off of it and landed on the drive shaft…of which the weld just broke. :bs: I even took a winch to inch me forward enough to prevent further damage and swapped it out. I replaced the driveline with a spare and we continued up the trail.

And I broke not long after this...

Not much further up, Mike cut a 31” BFG badly and didn’t have a spare. He ended having to borrow a 33” tire from Souske and Souske had a creative way of getting a tire down to him…..Luckily no one was hurt.

cracker said:

Click to expand...

Is it just me, or does it look like you just smelled a nasty fart in this pic?

Mike took a while to swap out the tire. He put the spare on the rear and put a good rear tire on the front. After he was done we took off again. Geoff told us to continue on while he and his father drove back to Yucca with the intention to get Souske’s tire back and return it to him at the campground.

We took off and once we were out and on our way we heard on the 2 meter that Geoff broke a front yolk and had to turn around and exit out. Again, the curse of Geoff and John Bull continues after all these years.

The remaining 4 rigs (Karstic, Julio, Soeske, and I) headed off to Holcomb. We were plugging away on it as the sun was setting and then Souske tore he rear brake line about 2/3rds through. Julio had some brilliant Mexican ingenuity and repaired it with tin foil and Sean drove out on just his front brakes. I started pulling some safety seal plugs out while driving on the trail so three times I had to address that and I had a weird fuse that was acting intermittently but at about 9:00pm, we got out of there and headed to the campground.

Karstic had set up an awesome campground for us with a restroom facitlity. We were the only ones there. Since there was some misinformation from the beginning and we were lead to believe that we could run quickly into town for some dinner, Beamer and I were not prepared. Luckily Karstic had some awesome German Sausage and Julio had some of his manifold burritos to keep us going. THANK YOU.

We finally opened the beer and then watched as Julio was afraid to use the restroom so he chose to set up his portable-john in his own tent and proceeded to shit in it. We all watched in amazement as he spoke as if it was normal. We reminded him that animals don’t even shit where they sleep. I quickly addressed my fuse and we spent the rest of the evening talking trash around the fire listening to Beamer talk in his sleep.

Got up the next morning, cleaned up and were back out on the road by 9:45 and we did Dishpan springs. It was beautiful up there and I only pulled out one more tire plug as we wheeled on. We were done by 11:00, got a little wet at the bottom of the trail and then proceeded to eat an awesome lunch at the local malt shop.

We called it quits as we were all ready for a shower and talked about how never to attempt to cross the SBNF in one weekend.

Thanks for the great run!

My carnage....

Mess of kins?

Looks like a fun wheeling trip.


Julio, your boys have grown since the first time you took them wheeling.


So, is this the "New" Elite SoCal Naxja Clique?" :shhh:

E

Wow, sorry I missed this trip. But it was my one weekend a month to work. Can't wait to get up there this weekend. Maybe we'll see you guys still up there...if you keep on breaking stuff. :laugh3:

Thanks for the invite assholes. .!. .!.

JohnX said:

Thanks for the invite assholes. .!. .!.

Click to expand...

yea, no shit!

Vanimal said:

yea, no shit!

Click to expand...

We heard you had a man date with Jeeper Juan, so we didn't want to get in the middle.

I wish I could have made it! My rig needs a few things fixed before a outing like this...

boostamante said:

We heard you had a man date with Jeeper Juan, so we didn't want to get in the middle.

Click to expand...

i thought that was your position on man dates?

JohnX said:

Thanks for the invite assholes. .!. .!.

Click to expand...

Yeah! I live 40 minutes from Pioneertown, and was up there yesterday and today! I mean, my rig isn't necessarily ready to go wheeling anyways, but you know...

yea, sometimes you just like to hear you're beautiful, even when you're on your period.