Prologue:
Originally I intended to spend the entire week at Soggy Dry Lake.  One setback after another made that impossible.  First, my Camper Van motor dropped at least 1 cylinder (maybe 3) and was being rebuilt, so, no tow rig.  Second, both Vince and I got sick before Christmas and were still recovering.

Vince had some more bad luck with his new project Toyota Truggy.  The transfer case wasn’t getting any oil and froze up on the freeway.  There was no way it would be repaired in time for this trip.

Troy was kind enough to loan Vince his truck!

We decided to go out on Friday.  This gave us a little more time to recover.  Vince also loaned me his Tow Rig, a Dodge Pickup with a Cummins Turbo Diesel.  I could bunk down with Steve Bennett or Vince.

Friday:
Kenny wanted to come out for the day and drove his Toyota Pickup.  We stopped in Hesperia for ¼ cord of firewood and continued on to Johnson Valley.

By 11AM Vince, in Troy’s Toyota Truggy (with Kenny riding shotgun) and I in my Toyota Truggy, were pulling out of camp and heading to the top of Crowbar Canyon.  Our intention was to break an exit route from the top of the Cross Mountain Route and then break our way down Upper Crowbar from the top of the canyon to the last tough obstacle.

We found a great exit route, most of which was existing single track, and parked at the top of Crowbar Canyon.  After a walk of the route below, we decided that it would go and dropped slowly down the canyon.

All went smoothly until I got off line and found myself with my passenger rear tire about 6 feet in the air, teetering on the edge of going over.  Vince and Kenny put a strap on that corner and I was able to safely drive to more level ground.  It got exciting for Vince because I ended up pulling him into a very off camber position and he almost went over!

The next section was a steep loose hillside (hillslide?) that really got our attention.  This section was a bypass of the main canyon, which contained a 4 foot undercut ledge.  We soon found ourselves at a sandy open area just above the last difficult obstacle of Crowbar Canyon, a rib of rock above a steep loose slope.  From here to our previous high point in the canyon below was about ¼ mile.

We climbed back up our decent route and found it much less scary going up than it had been going down.

We felt great about having established the trail up the last of the upper canyon and the exit route.  We were feeling very optimistic about possibly finishing the trail on Saturday!

We were back in camp by about 3:30 and found that Fred was there waiting for us.  We had a small happy hour and lit a nice fire.  Kenny headed for home about 6PM.

Steve Bennett arrived a little later and we enjoyed a roaring fire.

Saturday:
Scott arrived shortly after 8AM with his Samurai. 

Fred in his Samurai, Scott in his Samurai, Steve in his Early Bronco, Vince and I were off for the trail by 9AM.

Today our plan was to go into Crowbar Canyon via the upper bail out, work up the canyon to our high point from Thanksgiving weekend, and work on the first major obstacle, a rocky notch guarded by a big hole.  Optimism was still high after our great day on Friday.

We were almost to the beginning of the Cross Mountain Route when BAM!  Steve had stopped to change transfer case gears at the same time Fred was looking down!  Fred hit the pintle hook on the back of Steve’s Bronco with enough force to destroy Fred’s winch.  All four winch mounting bolt castings were ripped apart and the case of the winch was broken.  A very expensive moment of inattention!

Before we got back underway from this incident Vince noticed that a rear shock mount was torn off of his rig!  Oh well, shocks are highly overrated for rock crawling!

We started up the first part of the route which requires 4 wheel drive and Scott discovered that his transfer case didn’t want to go into 4 low!  He finally got it in, but struggled with keeping it in 4 low the rest of the day.

We paused at the top of Shaft Canyon and Vince informed me that my rear driveshaft was wobbling!  Great!  Another driveshaft issue, just what I needed…  a closer inspection showed that the driveshaft had a nice “candy cane” stripe on it and was bent by about 1 ½ inches!  I must have done this without noticing the day before.

Since Vince had brought his newly made square driveshaft (built so that it would work in either the front or rear of either of our trucks) I was not too concerned about my driveshaft and we continued on.

About two thirds of the way through the upper bailout a horrible screeching noise came from Vince’s truck!  It turned out to be the alternator.  Something internal, bearings or brushes, was intermittently making the noise and was about to lock up the alternator!

We had no spare alternator, so we parked Vince’s rig, Vince jumped in with Steve, and we continued on.

We made it to the upper bailout of the trail without further incident and started up the trail.  This newly broken section contains some steep climbs up large ledges.  Half way up the 2nd ledge BAM!  Scott’s rear driveshaft broke at the transfer case end u-joint.

Scott had a spare u-joint, but the ears of the joint were bent.  Scott had to take apart his spare front driveshaft and use parts from that.

Scott was barely underway when he noticed that he, like Vince, had a broken rear shock mount…

We all moved up the ledges.  Steve had broken this section, alone, on Thanksgiving weekend with very little trouble.  For some unknown reason, he had a more difficult time on this 2nd trip.

Just before we stopped, at a sandy area just below the area we wanted to work on, Steve had a sharp rock take out a sidewall with a 3 inch gash…  time for a lunch break.

After lunch and changing Steve’s tire we did a quick check of the situation…  3 hours of daylight left, and we still had to get down the ledges, up the bailout route, and recover Vince’s (Troy’s) rig…  given how the day had gone so far, we didn’t want to press our luck and started down the canyon.

Scott got to the same ledge where he broke his driveshaft u-joint on the way up and BAM!  The same u-joint broke again!  Luckily Scott had another u-joint and he and Vince had it repaired quickly.

We all crawled down the ledges without any more problems and headed out the upper bailout.  We were almost back to Vince’s rig when I got off line and ended up very badly high centered!  Vince and Steve got me out of that situation using my winch and lots of stacked rocks.

Just as we were getting back underway Fred had a rock shear off a valve stem!

After Fred changed his tire we were moving again and Vince was able to get Troy’s rig to the top of a hill, just where the difficulty eases, and then the alternator froze up tight, breaking the fan belt.  This belt also turns the water pump, so… time to be towed!

Since Steve’s Bronco had the most power and very low gears, he volunteered to tow Vince out.

Steve and Vince worked very well together and did a great job of towing Vince out.  It was plenty scary at times for Vince since there are several very steep hills and without the motor running the brakes had no vacuum boost and were not much help.

Vince used a couple of very smart techniques.  Start the motor and drive a short while when it was tough to tow him or he needed better brakes, and use the trucks gears a little to help the brakes.

We got back to camp just before dark!

That night we had a roaring fire and set off a few Mickey’s devices…

It was cold, but there was little or no wind.  Overnight standing water froze to about ½ in thickness.  We also discovered a huge icicle on the side of Vince’s motor home at the water inlet. 

Sunday:
Fred left very early (6AM) to make a wedding at noon.  Vince left at about 9AM, leaving just Steve and I.

Steve set to work on his tire with the torn sidewall.  He broke the bead and removed the tire with a couple of crowbars.  Next he put a large patch (about 6” square) called a “boot” on the inside of the tire.  At this point the best thing would have been to put a tube in the tire.  The patch would have kept the tube from pushing out of the sidewall cut and would probably have been a good repair.  Unfortunately, neither Steve nor I had brought the tubes that we normally carry!

Steve re-mounted the tire and it held air.  It was better than nothing, and plugs would not have worked at all on such a large gash, but we doubted that it would hold up on the trail.

As Steve was working on his tire I pulled my bent rear driveshaft off.  As soon as I had it off I discovered that the bolt pattern of Vince’s square driveshaft was different.  “No problem” I thought.  "I have 2 universal flanges that I can install." 

Well… there was a problem.  To remove the flanges I would need a 30mm socket, which I didn’t have!  I put the bent driveshaft back on.  I would have to take it easy, but it didn’t look any worse from the abuse it took on Saturday.  I was sure glad that I didn’t break the shaft on Saturday, expecting that I had a spare.

At about 11AM we headed over to do Middle Shaft Canyon.  Steve had not done it before and I had not done it since we broke the trail.  I do not count Thanksgiving when I broke my front driveshaft on the first ledge.

As we approached the mountain we met a guy in a yellow Jeep, with a Tin Bender sticker!  It turned out to be Mike from the Tin Benders and he told us that the rest of the Tin Benders (in their Buggies) and a few friends were doing Lower Crowbar.  He was concerned that the entrance to Lower Crowbar was going to take out his windshield, so he was going to take the bypass.

When we dropped into Middle Shaft Canyon the Tin Benders were just finishing the Lower Canyon.  I stopped to say hello and they were all smiles.  “Great trail Mark” was heard again and again.  It was very satisfying to have such a respected group of wheelers impressed with our trail!

I gave them directions off of the mountain, and over to Crowbar, from the end of Shaft Canyon.  They moved up the canyon and were out of sight around the corner within minutes!

Mike stayed with us (he too has a hard time keeping up with the buggies) and we started up the canyon.

Both the Jeep and the Bronco needed some stacked rocks at the first ledge (it’s a wheelbase thing).  Above there the tight sections gave Steve a few problems and we needed to stack some more rocks to keep orange paint off of the canyon walls.

Toward the end of the canyon Steve had tire problems again.  Several plugs in his sidewall were pulled out by a rock as he passed.  It was now time to test that patch on his spare.  It held air under the weight of the Bronco but leaked a lot when the patch was at the 6 o’clock position.

We were now at the crux of the middle canyon, the “notch”.  Mike took 2 runs at it and scampered right up the left side of the notch.  I was next and also took a line on the left side.  I climbed up the ledge and into the notch but was too far left and ended up flopping gently on my passenger side at almost 90 degrees.

Mike just looked at my truck, still running but totally on its side, and said “nice motor…  I think you can drive out of it.  Turn hard driver and back up”.  I followed his advice and was soon back close to level, but stuck on my cross member.  Luckily I was able to drive out of this and was up.  Wow!  That was exciting!

Steve got some good pictures as I was backing out of the flop, still at a very high angle.

Steve filled up his tire and tried a line on the far right but it wouldn’t go.  We put a strap on him and brought him up a bold line just to the right of the notch.  Steve only needed the strap to get his rear tires up the first ledge and then drove the rest.

We finished the remaining ledges without any problem (except for the air leaking out of Steve’s tire).

Mike was unable to raise his friends on his radio so he and I headed up into the upper valley leaving Steve to re-plug his tire and catch up later.  We ended up going ¾ of the way in the upper bailout of Crowbar before we learned that the Tin Benders were going DOWN Ballerina Rock! 

All the buggies had climbed the waterfall unassisted!  Only a 4Runner Truggy needed a strap.  They must have been having a great time playing on the rocks at the bottom of the canyon because they didn’t get very far up the canyon before turning around.  I also suspect that they made a wrong turn to the right up the 2nd side canyon, which leads to a dead end.

Mike and I headed back and found Steve, not far from where we had left him, putting his newly plugged original tire back on.  We said our goodbyes and Mike headed down the canyon to his buddies.

Steve and I headed up the Cross Mountain Route toward the route Vince and I had broken on Friday.  Steve had a very exciting moment on a ledge at the top of the first climb when his front end bounced unexpectedly and moved several feet to the right.  He came very close to rolling a LONG way down the hill!

After this near disaster we went to the top of the Upper Crowbar exit route and enjoyed the view.  It was nearly sundown and we didn’t want to push our luck by going down into the canyon so we headed back to camp, arriving just before dark.

Sunday night was windy but not bad as Johnson Valley goes.  A large fire made up for the increased chill.  It was actually fairly quiet for a New Years Eve.  A lot of people had left the lakebed.

Monday:
We had a leisurely morning, packed up ready to go and went out to explore for a couple of hours.  After exploring the area between Green Rock Mine Road and Cougar Buttes we loaded up and headed out at Noon.  We were home by 2PM.

Mark Matthews