We left Houston with
a convoy of 3 towed Jeeps at about 7:30 in the morning.
We arrived at 11:00 am and checked in. We decided to
stay at Old Camp since we knew we had another 20 rigs on
their way. Old Camp is the farthest camp to reach but is
fairly large and has two port-a-potties. It ended up
being the perfect camp for our group.
Once everyone arrived we
took the Jeeps out on a few runs. We quickly found any
last minute problems that people had with their
vehicles. Everyone was able to get their vehicles fixed
by Saturday morning.
Saturday morning we
all got up early and headed to the pavilion to meet up.
They built a small rock garden directly behind it and we
ended up hanging out there and taking poser shots before
the group picture.
After lunch we headed down to Twister.
It's a hard obstacle but you don't have to fear rolling
multiple times down a hill if something goes terribly
wrong. The highlight for me was the open diff Jeeps that
made it. That was some skilled driving and spotting.
After we had gone
through, we were sitting waiting for a nut to be
delivered to one of the Jeeps in our group that had lost
the nut to his leaf spring shackle when
Southern
High Rollers came through the obstacle.
One of the guys got
sideways and ended up doing a pretty good flop. I
offered assistance. In
hindsight, I could have positioned my Jeep much better.
He let me know since then that he just needs some ball
joints to get back up and running.
During
the afternoon we ran
a bunch more trails. During the day people reported back
about broken Jeeps. Some of which we were able to fix
and some we couldn't.
Saturday night there was a
chili cook-off. I tried 5 different types of Chili and I
was feeling like I was about to explode. We sat around
the campfire talking about our days exploits with a few
brews and then hit the sack.
Sunday morning my wife
and I were able to play around with her WJ a little bit.
I think some upgrades will be necessary on Wilma Jane
sometime in the near future.
The
weather was beautiful all weekend. The company was
great. My wife and I had a great time. Thanks to
CypressOffroad
for hosting this run and to all the members that made it
great. Great T-shirts also. :)
Barnwell Mountain is
located about 5 miles north of Gilmer Texas. It
is an 1800 acre park of iron ore based rock and
dirt. After a good rain some of the easier
trails can become quite hard. The trails are
marked but change from season to season due to
erosion.
