Well, Ocotillo Wells was a total success (on the fun scale, not so much on the keeping things in one piece scale)
Headed out there Friday after work, got camp setup and went for a night run as always. Night runs are some of the most fun we have out there. Less people out there, lights make it easy to see traffic for safety, and something about wheeling in the those hills at night makes things so much more fun.
Day 1 - get out there, setup camp, and do some wheeling. Nothing real eventful Friday night.
Day 2 - wake up. Coffee, Bloody Mary, beer, the go find some buddies that are out there. Hang out with them for a bit. For our first real run, we decided to plant the table I made over by the BBQ we put up there a few years ago. The BBQ isn’t far from camp so that was an easy trek getting it up there. We had about 12 rigs up there with us and once we had the table in and concrete set, we tossed some charcoal in the BBQ and cooked a bunch of burgers, dogs, hot links, sausages, and brats. It was super cool to have everyone up there hanging out and using the BBQ.
From there, we ended up on Grave Wash and going as far as we could. Once we got to what we decided was the end was just a bunch of large boulders for a long time. We probably could have made it up, but it was pretty gnarly and we didn’t want to push our luck so early in the trip, plus we really don’t know how far we can actually go up it beyond what we walked,so we turned around and kept wheeling.
Typically what we do out there is just look for new places we haven’t been and find cool lines to take. There is so much to find that you can easily find new awesome spots you’ve never been before.
Day 3 - This day we decided to check out Fonts Point, which is the top of a plateau that looks over the whole valley and all the crazy badlands below. It’s only about 16 miles from camp as the crow flies, but it’s a decent trip when you are taking only dirt to get there. On the way we checked out this other spot called Vista del Malpais. It’s like Fonts Point but from a lower and different perspective.
We got to Fonts Point in about 2 hours and had lunch for a bit. On our way back we didn’t want to take the same route we did on the way there, so we jumped on the highway for about a mile and hit Inspiration Wash. This was a pretty cool was they goes from wide open smooth cruising at around 60mph to some tight narrow sandy canyons that require 4lo depending on the routes you take towards the end. We also found a spot that had some mini sand dunes that we played around in for a while. I tried jumping a few spots which is pretty fun since landing in the sand it’s really nice. From here we found a couple small washes they led to San Felipe Wash, wish is a main wash out there. We took that for about 30 minutes to Trail Wash, then Palo Verde Wash back up to Arroyo Salado, which brought us back to the area we camped at. What was fun about this trip is there was a solid mix of slow speed technical stuff, to high speed washes and everything in between. That run was about 80 miles or so.
That night I was heading over to my buddy’s camp which was about a mile from our camp when I sheared the bolts on my drivers side LBJ. What happened was my outer two bolts must have came out, and my inner two bolts sheared. Luckily I was going slow when my first bolt broke and felt something weird happen, so I slowed down to stop and see, then the second bolt sheared and I immediately knew it was the LBJ. My first thought was “Well I always figured this would eventually happen...” but the ball joint itself was fine.
I was able to steal two bolts from the passenger side and use those for the broken side to limp it back to camp and call it a night.
Day 4 - Woke up to light rain, drank coffee, drank a Bloody Mary and had a beer, then my brother and I drove to town to pick up a new LBJ since it comes with new hardware.
Got back and started tearing into things. I was able to extract one of the sheared bolts pretty easy with an extractor bit, but on the second one the bit broke. So after a while of trying to drill out the bolt and use a variety of tools to extract the bolt, I decided to put it back together and just weld the LBJ to the spindle next to where the 4th bolt went. My buddy had a welding kit that uses two car batteries and uses stick welding which worked great for short runs.
Once it was all back together, we went for a run. This run was pretty fun. We found some really cool technical notches, then got to the edge of the area we were allowed to wheel in where we found what is called Truckerville Trailer Park. It’s a makeshift RV park with fake water and electrical hookups and parking spots. Pretty cool. From there we found a small narrow windy rocky wash that goes into the hills pretty deep. Perfect place to lose power steering. Turns out the input shaft seal on the steering rack blew out. I tried topping off the fluid with stop leak and it lasted a while 60 seconds before being empty again.
Let me tell you, driving in that wash without power steering sucks balls. My arms are still sore. Made it back to camp and hung out by the camp fire for New Years.
Day 5 - Didn’t want to go home early just to sit in traffic, so I just rode my buddies 110 all day. That killed my already sore arms, but it was a blast still. Once the rest of the group came back from their run, we packed up and headed home. My dads motorhome got stuck in the sand as he was trying to leave, so I pulled him out.
On the drive back I heard a few clunks when turning hard at more than a few MPH. I thought it might be a CV, but they both look fine. I guess I gotta check out what it could be.
Also driving home without power steering sucks as well. My arms are sore!
I’ll post some pics of stuff tomorrow. I’m tired and going to bed now