August 2002 - The 6th Day
Trail Rating - 5
Trip Leader: Chris Villarreal
Photos submitted by Chris Villarreal, Erik Malm
(Click for larger images)
This was the first trip back to this trail since most of the fire restrictions were lifted across the state. We were going to try it from the start to the midpoint since there was a nice little boulder section we hadn't crawled yet between the first and second trips out here. Be sure and watch out for snakes, there was a good sized rattler spotted near the start of the trail!
About a hundred yards into the trail I stopped to let a little more air out of my tires. I started with 5psi in the tires but by the time we arrived at the trail they showed 6.5 psi. While working my way around my rig I noticed it was sitting kind of funny in the back. On closer inspection I realized the passenger side rear shackle was collapsed due to the mount being torn from the frame! Little did we know, this was a sign of things to come. The previous evening I had done a full inspection of the underside and actually welded up a few cracks I found on the drivers side, front spring hanger. I either missed these or the cracks weren't visible. Time to rig up a welder. After I cleaned up the old welds using a hacksaw and file, we combined Erik's and my battery and I laid a few beads down to re-attach the broken parts. With only two batteries you have to weld in spurts but I felt I had gotten at least as good penetration as my previous job with the 110v mig so we decided to continue.
The last picture shows me coming thru carnage alley, crawling between Erik's rocks (more on how those names came about in a minute). Some of Brian's friends had shown up by this time but were just going to watch.