Rauch creek and AOAA 8/25-8/26

[Wolfi7]

I've never written one of these before so here it goes. 

After finishing the final touches on the Fj40 I got off to a late start Friday night and didn’t pull into Rausch till around 2:00am.  I unloaded my gear from the bed of the truck and enjoyed the low 60s temperature and some much needed shut eye before the night quickly turned into morning. 

The Sun was out bright and early and I met up with Mark and Reid across the way in the campsites around 7:30am. Shortly thereafter Josh and Dennis arrived.  Once all the rigs were loaded up we made our way to the office around 9:00am and checked in, then made our way to the trails.  The group started on the West/South property. We took A to 3B then 3A, C, 1C, pole line, J, 15 then Mark and Reid ran Crawl Daddy (with ease) and met back up with the rest of us where we proceeded to Rock Creek. Dennis went along the side of rock creek with a group of Toyota overlanders passing through.  Josh and I broke off from Mark and Reid at the transition from Rock Creek to Deathtrap and went to our meeting point of the 10B/H intersection.  At this point it was already close to 3:00pm so we made our way back towards camp for a quick lunch break.  A few minutes down trail H and the third of four bolts removed itself from my driveshaft and began smacking the floor pan as I came to a panicked stop.  Luckily, Dennis was carrying 4  bolts from a Nissan truck driveshaft that were a perfect match so I bolted the shaft back up and we were on our way.  Around 4pm we went back out to cover some ground on the North property and Dennis took off for the day. 

We started on N4, to X3, 40 (quickly noticing the washouts from the recent rain), T1, K1, R1 Outer Limits (definitely feeling the off-camber sections in the FJ) 38B, 38C, R, K2, K and Devils Den.  Halfway through Devils Den Josh’s Battery tie downs broke causing his battery to begin arcing off the ac compressor. With a little ingenuity and a ratchet strap we were off again up the trail.  By the time we finished the trail it was dusk and we began our way back to camp.  Along the way Reid and myself got separated from Mark and Josh by taking a wrong turn and ending up at a no crossing area of the black top.  After figuring out where we were we retraced the route we took and made it back to camp around 8:45pm.  At this point Josh ran to to autozone to get a new battery tie down and I was shortly behind to scan the abs codes that appeared on the trip down.  As the codes disappeared by the time I made it to autozone we turned around headed back to the camp site and got some rest before heading to AOAA in the morning.

With the late evening we had some work to do loading the rigs in the morning (and filling propane) and didn’t arrive at AOAA till 11:00am.  We rushed right into the wheeling starting with a short black trail (12) along the main access road.  Josh and I found this quite tight as we were both smacking our cages off the trees.  I quickly learned why the spike on the end of the HI-lift should be turned upwards as I heard the crack of the cast metal breaking on a nearby tree.  We proceeded into the park hitting a number of trails (most of which I can't remember).  The trail that stuck out the most for me was Renee’s Hill (a blue) which with recent washouts got the best of both Josh and myself as we both had to winch over the same spot on the trail (Im asking Santa for Red label 40s).  At the top of the hill we stopped for a quick lunch break before redoing Renee’s hill in reverse.  Some other trails included Trickle and Barney’s Rubble.  After some more trails we choose a good time to head back as it was almost 4:00pm and my leaky shock and questionable trans mount were starting to become worrying.  We made it back to the parking lot, loaded the trailers, said our goodbyes and headed home.

Overall, it was a really great trip and a good test for the improvements I have been working on on the FJ40. Mark was a great trail lead and guide, spotting us through difficult obstacles. It was great to meet Reid, a long distance member of the club and to catch up with Josh who I hadn’t seen in a  while. I am very thankful for Dennis’s resourcefulness and generosity in sparing the extra bolts I needed to get back to camp Saturday.  It was a great trip with a great group of people and I look forward to another trip soon, after tackling my growing list of needed improvements. 
Wolfi

[Callelle]

I'll add a little bit.
 I arrived on Thursday to get a full day wheeling in with Mark. I unloaded around 9AM Friday morning and we basically had the park to ourselves, save for a group of H1s that we never saw outside the parking lot. Having recently completed my Exo-cage, I was anxious to test it out. I believe we started out on trail 5, making our way down the left of trail 5 hill climb. I'd dragged over a rock jutting out and felt it push on my floor pan, so we'd stopped pretty quickly just to make sure I didn't do anything serious right off the bat. Everything was fine so we proceeded on to walk in the park. I'd had no trouble with that save for the sheer rock hill on the way out, wet tires and an unwillingness to push the stock axles denied me the climb so I winched out of it. We continued on to O and went down Yellow Jacket, where backing into a tree I put a nice bow in my tire carrier and a dent in my tail gate. We made our way back to the lot for an extended lunch where my girlfriend caught a nap, and Mark and I extensively talked about my plans for my soon to be one ton swap. After that, we headed out, hitting yellow jacket again (going up it this time) and Cemetery. We saw our only other vehicle of the day, a service truck just making his way along the greens and decided to hit up camel back as neither of us had been on it in a long time, and the quarry shortly after. After doing shoot the moon with relative ease, we headed back to the lot and called it a day. Friday was a very lax day with neither of us in a rush to do anything, and just have some fun. Wolfi pretty much summed up Saturday and Sunday to a T. All in all it was a great weekend.

I'm loving my cage and it's definitely led to built confidence (It's also great to not care about hitting trees and rock walls). The only thing holding me back are my axles, I know what they are capable of getting through, but it's gotten to the point that if I'm having trouble, I'm cringing at the thought of them breaking easily and it's taking away from the fun of it. Honestly it's more the 8.25 than the 30 at this point, as 3 hours to replace a shaft on that was no fun when I did it 3 years ago. Next year I'm planning on getting out a lot more and really putting the XJ to the test.

AOAA is no joke, I'd heard great things but I had no idea how well set up it was. Nearly rolling it on 2 side hills really put it into perspective to not take it lightly. I definitely want to do AOAA more in the future, especially with the higher cost that Rausch has now.

Hands down it was the best weekend of the summer and the best people to spend time with. I can't wait to wheel with you guys again.