Well, finally got the truck clean and finished with, so I can sit here and write up the activities we enjoyed this past weekend.
Friday.... Drove around like a mad man all day in Calgary getting everything together. Got out to the spot around 6pm... Unloaded and set up camp. Rob+Jen and Cheryl (i think was her name), Ryan and Cathy, Chris+Jen, Dave+Danielle all showed up as we where setting up... Went for a boot on the quads with Rob and Chris up to the gravel pit, and played around on the gravel pile... So much fun on the 400ex... Got back to camp shortly after, and enjoyed some liquids...
Saturday... Woke up to the sound of two stroke bikers zooming around... At about 4 or 5 in the morning... Unreal how rude some people are out there sometimes... Oh well, tried to ignore it (hahah right) and got up at around 9am... Had brecky, and got the truck ready... Then my old bro's Andrew and The Dude (tim) showed up at camp! I use to work with these guys, and it had been a while since I saw them. Was cool to have em out there. Liana, Andrew, the dude, and I all piled into the bogger, and took off towards the bog. Got there and there was no one around. (boggin anyways.. a few bystanders were there) So we took off to Margret Lake... The guys have never been out there, or even 4x4ing before, so they totally dug the lake... And getting there too! On the way to the lake, there was a large water/mud hole and there was a smaller truck stuck in it. We waited for them to get it out, and then proceeded to go through it. Much more water than anything. Liana was out of the truck taking video, and when she went to climb onto the tire to get into the truck, her foot slipped and she jammed her foot bad on the ground. She really hurt it... Should couldnt walk very well and was in pain... Yet she didnt think she had to go to the hospital... (She checked it out today with xray, and its actually BROKEN! She broke her toe getting into the truck and then walked on it for the rest of the weekend! Tough chick! Shes wearing a cast now... Feel bad seeing her hop around...) We jumped back into the bogger and departed to the falls. The water was flowing a lot more than i have seen it before. The falls look a lot cooler with that much more water. We climbed up and checked it all out. Then got back in the truck for the ride out... Saw LilChief and Brian b as we were leaving the falls. The convertible looks cool guys! haha... We kicked ass back to 4 corners... Trying to get airtime on the small woops on the trail. Bouncing all over the place... Woo hoo! Got to the bog, and decided to try out the small mud pit right near the river. I forgot to mention, i was a bit pissed off about what some people did there. Dont know who did it but when we got to the bog, the barb wire fence was ripped out! When the fence was put in on cleanup day, there was spots where you where able to still enter... From those entry spots, there is some trees to the right of that... (If you are accross the creek, looking to the bog) The fence from those trees, along the river to the right (west) was actually ripped out for about 20-30 feet! They even pulled the posts right out! You can see it in the pics... Everyone was driving into the bog that way... Actually though, the entry points that where unfenced and ok'd and courdory'd at the cleanup are trashed now, with roots from the trees stickingout in the ruts and stuff... And this part where the fence it not there, has no trees around it at all... Maybe at this years cleanup, we could fence off the former entry points near/in the trees, and keep this open spot open... Something needs to be done though... Its still unreal people would do that, even with all the signage around... Anyways, we had some fun in the mud, and drove back to camp... I took andrew and the dude out for a boot on the quads to the gravel pit again, and on the way back to camp, andrew and the dude almost went for swim in a big mud/water hole... I watched as they actually got the front tires on the 700 almost vertical. It twisted and they ended up coming out of the hole to the side of it. I laughed and they took a breath... It was pretty funny. Andrew and the dude took off (they only came for the day) after having an awesome day... And we had a hot dog and got the bogger ready again. It was about 5 or 6pm, and since Ryan and Cathy didnt get the chance to ride on the may long, I asked them if they wanted to go for a short boot to the bog. Liana and I and Ryan and Cathy all piled in, and headed up to the bog... We talked to Stacy and "Bubba" and the crew up at the top of the hill and told em we were heading to the bog, and they said they would catch up... We got there, and there was some people around having fun... I decided there was enough people around to give the truck its first really good test in the bog. So we lined up and took one of the middle holes... Powered through it really good. Was slow because mud had piled up from May long. Its been a while since people have driven through the big holes there for sure... No ruts... Just flat mud in the holes! SO we actually made it through the middle hole, and were on our way to the end of the other side, when I dropped into a seemingly small bit of mud, and the truck sank... Bam, stuck... Luckly we were close enough to the trees on the other side of the bog, we got the truck out on the line... Once we had it turned around... I thought, ok, that was pretty good, but this may be the last time I am here for a while, and I want to go for the big one... So I lined up to the longest and biggest hole there. No one had been in it yet, and you could see the rutts were full of mud.. No tracks... FLat mud... We dropped in, and I gunned it... Vrrrrrooooommmmm!!!!!! Mud flying everywhere! I made it about 3/4 of the way, and they it stopped... No more go at all... I tried to power it back and forth, and discovered, it was going nowhere! Mud was up to the front bumper, and the tires where only showing the top part on the driver side, and almost gone on the passenger. Again, luckly we were close enough back again to reach a tree with the winch, so we pulled it about 10 feet. We tried to pull from another big truck near the river too, to see if we could get it out sooner instead of trying to drag it all the way down the bog, but no go... As I was pulling the truck through the bog, the mud was piling up big time.... Bulldozing... I was remembering the time we winched the "Overcomer" out on Meadow creek and he snapped his front end because of the mud... I was a bit concerned with all the mud piling up front. It was unreal... I kept winching though, because there was no other way. Then we hooked up another truck on a bit of an angle to help out, and to get me going in a better direction. Once we got his truck tied on, it came right out. Good timing though as the sun was just going behind the horizon as we got it out. By this time, Bubba got his truck stuck out in the back of the bog. I wanted to help him out, but my truck was running really low on gas, and I was worried i wouldnt make it back to camp... Stacy's truck had a major axle wrap and decided to spit out and brake a rear block when he was trying to get around behind the bogger through another hole... He snapped a ujoint, and twisted his rear houseing so the yoke was pointing up to the body of the truck... He was able to limp it home that night. I went back to camp for gas, and then headed back out to help... It was after dark now, and the bog was black... One of the guys was able to get around behind bubba and pulled his truck out... I winched out Ernie (i think his name was) and then we all got outta there. It was 230 am when we got back to camp. Everyone already went to bed!!! So we hit it too... We were pretty tired after all that anyways! Bed time!
Sunday... Had brecky again, and Liana watched the Soccer game replay at 1030am. Once it was over, we went for another ride in the bogger. Chris had never rode in it either, so he came with Liana and Rob and myself this time. We headed up to Hunter Valley road... We wanted to visit Vince up at fifth bridge, but when we got just past third bridge, we decided to turn back... Too far... The road was suckin in the big truck... Wandering all over the place on the road... We got back to the turn off to Cablin Creek trail... Our target was Margret lake again, via Fallen timber to Ghost cross country to Margret lake trail. Some steep hills on fallen timber. Fun fun, the truck crawls right up it all now. Hardly ever even slips a tire! Awesome. Got to the lake, left, and proceeded to lunatic lane. Got to the river, and articulated the truck on the big rocks. More footage! Headed back to the 940 and on the way tried another small climb up a steep bit just on the other side of the river... Got back to camp around 4-5pm, and I wanted to go for a GOOD quad ride, so we had a quick hot dog, and saddled up... Chris, Rob and I... Strapped on the helmet cam, and we took off, heading out on Meadow creek... When we got just before Danny's hill, we saw Stacy and Bubba and Co stopped in the middle of the trail. Turns out Bubba's drop pitman arm got stripped, and he couldnt control the truck anymore! There was nothing we could do being on the quads, so we kept on going. We got to the bog, and took some video or some people playing around. We then headed to 4 corners, and kept going north up to the skeg field... We found a way through... Rob and chris made it on the 4x4 quads with a good little mud show, but of course i got stuck on the 400ex... So we winched me out, and kept on going. We turned west at the next trail intersection heading towards Margret lake again... I think it was Mockingbird trail... Hauling ass... Man, quadding is a blast... (grin) We decided once to the lake was enough, so we kept going on down mockinbird until we got to lunatic lane again, and hauled ass down to the bog again... We met up with a bunch of boggin freaks this time... Onlookers except for one guy on another 400ex... He did the exhaust on his, and it sounded awesome. He also had some better rear tires on too. It flung the mud pretty good! He roosted a couple times in the entrance of the bog, and then rode around up to the main area, where he promptly sank it into a big hole! Rob took the 700 out to pull him out, and after a few good tugs he was out... COATED in mud... Head to toe brown!!! Was a good show! Then Chris decided to try driving his Rubicon back to where I was near the river, by driving it through the big mud pit... He made it about half way, and that was it! hahaha Rob winched him out... Everyone was talking about the Rubicon kicking ass, so I said to Rob "Hey man, go and giver into the hole!" (grin) So he took it around, and dropped in... Hammer down! The big lugs on the tires where shooting mud everywhere! haha He almost made it out!! Just couldnt climb out the little hill to get out of the hole! A tug by chris on the rubicon, and he was out... Other than us burying the quads, there wasnt much more action around, so we decided it was time to go back to camp... The girls were there for a while without us to entertain them, so we figured we should get back. On the way back, we noticed Bubba's truck was moved off the trail, but was just sitting there. We later found out, they planned on swapping on off a truck at camp to get it back to camp... We got back, had dinner, and chilled out. Took another short trip after dark on the quads to the gravel pit again. So fun riding the gravel after dark! Sleep time followed... Whew!!!
Monday.... Packing day... Got up, and started to get things ready. Liana made breaky, and I had to fill up a flat tire on Chris's van with the compressor on my truck. My superduty ran outta battery, and wouldnt start! We boosted it with the bogger, and got his tire up again... Compressors are a good thing to have I tell ya. I had a slow leak on my superduty too! Anyways, Stacy came down, and told us that someone had totally thrashed Bubba's truck overnight! I couldnt beleive it! The ripped his passenger door off, broke ALL the windows, slashed his seats, cut all his brake lines, and cut triangles in his boggers!!! Un-freakin-real... I was stunned. Turned out they decided to leave it there overnight. No one ever imagined that would happen, as there was hardly anyone out there this weekend. It was dead actually. So they were going to swap out the pitman, and change on some tires from one of the other trucks to get it out. I told them we would help once I had things in order. Got the rig all ready to go, and jumped in the bogger to go help out. Got there, took some pics, and talked to them for a bit. LilChief and Brian B were there too... Found that they didnt need us to help them out, so we headed back to camp to load up... Just before the bridge near the right-of-way and the lookout hill, we slipped into a big rut with the driver side... HARD... Good thing for beadlocks even I think... Tipped er over really good too. The engine stopped! And I couldnt start it by turning the key! Oh oh!!! I radioed ahead to BrianB and LilCheif to help out. Wasnt sure if I needed it, but thought just in case. Since it wasnt even clicking, i thought maybe the celinoid was pooched. Grabbed some sissors from the toolbox, and used them to short accross the celinoid, and she turned over! Got it started, and locked the hubs. Crawled right out of the hole.
Whew! So close to getting to the trailer, and home without breakage, I was crossing my fingers nothing freakish would happen! Not use to getting back without breakage! haha But we did, and loaded her up... And headed home...
Took me 75 bucks for a big bucket time card, of which I still have close to 45 min left on... Was easy to clean this time, as I pulled all the seats out of it, and the beadliner really is awesome to spray out... The firehose again worked wonders. Got soaked though. Bring hipwaders or extra clothes if you go there! haha
So thats it... Was awesome weekend. Got tons of vids too... And the helmet cam footage on the quads is interesting. I really felt bad for Bubba and his truck though. If anyone knows anything at all about this, please email me to let me know. I will try to pass it on to him then....
Hope you all had a great weekend! We'll see ya at the Show and Shine this weekend!
Deejay
Previous Topic
Index
