In Attendance:
8 Rigs:
John F (Leader)
Karen B and Tracy
Gill and Anita L
Scott J
Ron DB
Jim G
Brian P
Curt T (Guest)
From John F:
Met at Wendy's parking lot 9:00a.m. As we went up highway 20 we picked up Jim Grass. When we got to the trail head there was a group of jeeps airing down which had John and Casey C. If you don't know of them they build axles for jeeps and hot rods. Casey also is the first American to win the Dakar Off Road Rally. There was also a lot of motorcycles because there was a major race at Donner Ski Ranch.
Weather was nice, a T-shirt with half doors day. We aired down and started up the hill to Signal Peak. There was some big boulders/rocks in the trail that had rolled off the mountain and landed in the middle of the trail. As we got to the turn up the rocky hill, I noticed that the tree that forest service cut down from last year's Sierra Trek had been moved out of the way, so the meadow is open. We got to the area where you crisscross between the tight trees and found one tree down. Ron and I cut it up. We put the wood in the area where others were going around the tree. This will help keep them on the trail. As we continued up the trail we came to a narrow section which made pin stripes on Curt's new 2025 JL. We could now see snow in the shade at the higher elevations. We stopped and had lunch and took in the views. Anita shared some yummy cookies with everyone. Nice treat.
We planned to head down the trail to the Fordyce first water crossing but Curt blew a tire sidewall. So we slowly took him down to the staging area. When we got out to try and put on the spare tire, the Hi-Lift jack was bending the bumper on the new rig, so we tried bottle jacks. They were too short. Finally, Scott took his stock jack out of his jeep and that was the ticket. Got it fixed. Thanks to everyone giving a hand. (Side Note: Curt's jeep only had 600 miles on it).
We called it a day and headed back down Hwy 20. As we went down Hwy 20, Curt's jeep had several dash lights going off. As the tire was a different size it made the jeep throw dash codes. We made it back to Nevada City to buy a new tire. I would like to thank Scott for turning back and checking on Curt and I.
All in all it was a very good day. Nice weather and good people made good day.