Rausch/AOAA 8/23-8/26

[xjh3]

Friday Trip Report

Mark arrived at Rausch about 10:30pm on Thursday night and I about an hour behind. I found a dark, nearly empty parking lot and Mark already in for the night. My head was on the pillow about 10min after I shut my truck off and fell asleep to the soothing sound of rain on the trailer roof.

About 8am or so Friday, I disappointingly also woke up to the sound of rain on my trailer roof. I poured some coffee and chatted with Mark for about an hour and the rain eventually let up. Breakfast consumed and spare rear driveshaft swapped out for my repaired beefy rear shaft, we hit the trails about 11am. Still wet from the rain and overcast, mid 70s.

We set out across the street aimed for Crucible which is nearly as far away from the office as you can get, hitting red F along the way with no issues. Travel time was compounded by closure of the blacktop road, took us about 40min to work our way out there. I worked my way through Crucible in pretty short order and spotted Mark through after I made it through the exit. His was experience was a little more complicated as a pointy rock wedged itself perfectly between his radius arm and front pinion. Some strategic rock stacking and sketchy, very labor intensive hi-lifting got him off the pointy rock and back making progress. The exit got a little tippy with the short wheelbase but was conquered in the end with no issues.

We continued along over to Affliction and ran as much as we could, crossing over the newly dug gas line opening. Underwhelmed at the challenge after arriving back on a green trail, we looked at the map toward Devil’s Den. Hitting a couple smaller climbs that were part of Lower Talisman along the way, we descended Devil’s Den and entered Affliction from the other side. After facing no obstacles that gave us much challenge, we were once again dumped out into the gas line but now with no way to cross. More map review sadly led us to conclude that the gas line has taken out a very large chunk of the trail. We turned around, ran up Devil’s Den and took a break at the top to enjoy the cool weather for a bit before heading back to camp for some lunch.

After sitting back at the trailers for a while, the sun started to come out and we headed back out to hit some of the stair step terrain behind the old office and to look for some firewood along the way. Hit some good obstacles as we headed up and down Trail 6. Mark noticed a downed tree leaning over the trail and the Dewalt chainsaw made short work of cutting up a load of wood that overflowed the Willy’s passenger compartment.

Mark cooked a steak while I made some store brand mac and cheese (enjoying some real delicacies while my better half stayed home). Mark made a fire after splitting the downed wood and despite being wet, it burned OK while supplemented with some dryer wood purchased from the office. Fireside conversation and some beverages were much enjoyed. We turned in around 11pm ready to head out with the full crew on Saturday.

[MrMindless]

👍

[Wingman]

From Josh Klossner:

Saturday I had arrived around 8:30 after a long haul starting at 3AM. I had everything ready with the XJ and just had to unload and take the doors off for a much needed wheeling trip. This was my first time wheeling since I had done the one ton swap so I was more than anxious to get out. We started off messing around on the comp course and headed through 1c to trail 5. We took turns doing trail 5 hill climb, which has been a sore spot for me since I broke a rear shaft on it within 5 minutes of ariving a few years ago, and I wanted to redeem myself. Mark, JJ, and I walked up the left side with ease, something I was surprised my little XJ had been able to do. Harry of course decided he didn't want something easy and went up the right side. Pilarski was having engine problems so he headed back to the parking lot and to the parts store to try and fix the issue. Mark, JJ, Harry, and myself continued on to Yellow jacket and O. Harry tried taking the red line up O but couldn't make it work and ended up winching up. After that we headed back to the parking lot for some lunch and to see how Pilarski was making out. It ended up being a shot fuel filter, and some hose, and we were soon out on the trail again. We had headed off to the west property down J and to Crawl Daddy, another trail that I had wanted to do after chickening out last year. Making it to the first real obstacle, everything was heavily undercut and muddy, I couldn't find a line to make it work up it so I had cut to the side to the bypass, which was a challenge in itself. Harry ended up finding a line that some how he made work and we contiuned on to the second big obstacle. Pilarksi got high centered on a big rock for a while but got out of it. We had finished Crawl daddy but it was getting late at that point so we headed back to the parking lot, playing a bit in the comp course again. A great saturday of wheeling for sure.