This trail maintenance trip was first thought up late in 2004 but buggy building and other commitments postponed it till March 2005.  The goal was to clean up some of the major obstacles on H2H to make it a hard trail again, much like we did to Annihilator in early 2004.

The weather was looking pretty good when we arrived although there were some ominous black clouds to the south. I was amazed at how green the desert was a testament to the large amount of rain we have been seeing this year.

On the way back to the trail I had some fuel issues, namely I ran out. One of my fuel hoses had come loose allowing for a small leak.  We connected my fuel vent line to Scott's fuel return line  and used his fuel system to pump some more gas into mine.  It looked like we filled my 8 gallon fuel cell halfway so we called it good.  Later that night I would discover my fuel cell really only holds about 6.15 gallons before the fuel level is even with the recessed cap.  So we really only put in about 2-2.5 gallons and I would run out of gas again that day.  Once the tank has some fuel I could not get the rig started.  the lines seemed to have fuel in them so I kept cranking the starter. After about 20 minutes of trying I gave up and we were getting ready to turn the buggy around and tow it back to the trails.  To my surprise the motor sprang to life the next try when I tried using the starter to walk the rig forward. I finally figured out the problem later that evening after going thru the whole routine a second time. Even though the fuel pump was running, my large fuel filter was empty and the fuel pickups I used in my cell would not allow gas to run down into the filter so it was taking a long time to fill the filter since the fuel pump would run for about 5 second when the ignition was keyed then stop.  I think there was enough fuel in front of the pump to pressurize that side of the lines which made the computer click off the pump until I tried cranking. 

We made a beeline for the trailhead, now running about a half hour late.  Not many people showed up, we had 7 rigs and I think about 10 people in attendance.  That wouldn't be enough hands to work the entire trail so we concentrated on he first obstacle.

I dug out some old photos to show the trail conditions from years back.  I was a little surprised to see that the trail was already pretty well stacked even back in 2001.  Here's the first notch in Jan. 2002

This is the view from the first notch looking towards the squeeze back in 2001.

Looking down the squeeze in 2001.

The next ledge back in 2001.

Before/After

Since we arrived late, Neil and Bill had already pulled a lot of rocks out of the first notch and had gotten down to a layer of sand.  I started shoveling dirt out and when we got to the next layer of stacked rocks, Jack and Scott tossed those rocks out while I continued moving dirt.  The obstacle is much deeper now although there  is still a lot of sand at the base that could get moved.

Looking up to the squeeze, before.

Looking down the squeeze, before.

Neil, Bill, Cary, Scott, Jay and the rest of the guys (sorry I am bad with names) tackled the squeeze.  We also formed a conga line and moved the rocks we pulled out of the obstacle further away to hopefully dissuade people from using them.  We also pulled a bunch of rocks from the next ledge and dug out a bunch of the sand that had been trapped by the stacked rocks.

Now came the real test.  Neil was up with his buggy riding on 39's. he made it thru without too much effort although the wet rocks required a little throttle at points.

Bill also made the first section pretty easily but got a little hung up in the squeeze.   He eventually found a line and threaded his differentials thru the rocks.

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