Johnson Valley holds a lot of appeal for off-road types. There's this little thing there every year called King Of The Hammers. Maybe you've heard of it. It's also 5 hours south of me so I never got a chance to wheel there.After running Motino Wash a simple question was asked. How much harder is Claw Hammer then Motino. That answer was "not much". I knew I needed some like minded wheelers to pull this plan off. Luckily the group I wheel with is pretty easy to convince to actually go wheeling.
@AssBurns had some plan to go to an expo down south somewhere. Sounds like fun. Wouldn't you rather go wheeling though? Like, maybe, Claw Hammer? 38 seconds later he was in. Then Kyle quickly followed suit. Three rigs. Three guys that kinda know how to wheel. Three guys that definitely know how to turn a wrench. Perfect.
I headed down after work Friday night. I turned off of 247 onto Boone Road at 9:30PM. I aired down just as this was coming over my rig. Shitty photo but it's this crazy reddish moon. It was rad.
After driving around for a bit I found a nice flat spot to call home for the night. I met up with the others Saturday morning at 9:30ish. From there it was off to the trail. Luckily @AssBurns knew exactly where it was so we made quick time.
It's basically one giant boulder field with some larger obstacles thrown in. Looking up canyon I was pretty stoked to get into lo/lo and get going.
Here's Steven making one of the first obstacles look easy. It's not.
Who says you can't run this trail with 33's?
This was a super fun line.
More of that easy stuff.
Trust me, those rocks are bigger then they appear.
Kyle putting the tires to work.
Stevens first CV failure of the trip. He'd suffer one more. Easy fix as always.
So many rocks to help you break things. More on that in a bit.
Sometimes those long ass Taco's need a few stacks to clear. Steven getting it done while Kyle keeps his foot on the brake. lol
I'm gonna have to cut that bumper back a bit when I go 35's.
At this point we're cruising the trail. We had to stack a few rocks but not much time was spent at all getting past obstacles. It's about 1:30PM and other than Stevens two CV's there's been no real carnage. Kyle is at the top and Steven and I aren't far behind. About 200 yards to go. That's when real carnage decided to say hi.
Here's real carnage:
My drivers side lower control link had folded at close to 90 degrees. That pulled the tire into the wheel well and slider. After getting out I also found the passenger upper control link bent at 70 degrees as well as the mount itself folded over.
After talking it over we decided to try pulling me a bit. That worked for about 30 seconds until my driveshaft snapped at the rear flange. It literally broke the flange on the diff side.
I got under the truck and strapped up the shaft. I tried again with just the fronts. 60 seconds later I lost the drivers side CV. If your gonna have a catastrophic failure make sure you do it right. lol
So, out comes the winch. It stays out for the longest 200 yards of my life. Kyle had to come back down to chain to Steven because I was just pulling him towards me. We got set up and winched. And winched. And winched.
Check out the angle of the shadows in these shots. It got late fast.
After getting to a sandy flat area up top it was time for some field repairs. With all the winching my lower control link had snapped by this point. That was actually a good thing. Kyle happened to have a 16" metal pry bar. We used that, some straps and some Gorilla tape to affect a quick repair.
I also pulled the rear driveshaft and fixed my busted CV. With that done we limped me back to the road under my own power.
I thanked both those guys and they went home. I went to bed. In the morning I called AAA and got towed 200 miles. Then another 60 miles home on my wife's membership. Sweet.
Tonight I pulled my rig into the garage. It likes it there. Metal Tech lowers are on the way. My driveshaft will go back to Tom Woods tomorrow. They're gonna look at the failure, fix it, and warranty it. Here that King? #fvckKing
So by next weekend I'll be back to wheeling. At least that's the plan.
Even with all the carnage this has to be one of the best trails I've done. It's super technical and gives you just enough to let you pass in a well built IFS rig. So, that's Claw Hammer guys. Get after it.
