2007 MLK Weekend

   
 
 

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Since we had a lot of locals show up on Saturday, we decided to split the group.  7 of us headed over to Pet Cemetery while the rest headed over to run Saw (pictures starting here). I gotta say, Pet Cemetery is an underrated trail.  The 3 main obstacles on this one are world class and even I forgot how impressive the first crack was.  Troy was the first one thru and he made it thru the entire first section with no difficulty.

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I was up next and very nervous.  Having your rig lift it's tires as you try to cross the crack is pretty nerve racking but also a sign that you are on the right line.  I made it across and even managed to crawl the boulder field right after the crack for the first time unassisted. I think the sticky tires made all the difference here.

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Nolan was next in line and made the crack line despite not being able to do a front dig. You'll notice in the first picture how close his rear tire is to the edge on his initial turn in. If you can front dig you can start with the buggy further to the drivers side and pivot the front end around at the last second which keeps the passenger side rear tire higher up on the wall.

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Tom didn't get the back end over far enough and fell in on his first attempt.

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After pulling Tom's rig to safety, Derrick gave it a go.  It was pretty amazing the abuse the axle shafts took when he was trying to back out of the crack .

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The passenger side stub shaft on Derrick's rig let go on the rock pile after the crack line.

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At this point we had Brad come thru and bypass Derrick's rig so we could start getting the rigs up the next obstacle while Jim & Lisa ran back to camp to get spare parts for Derrick's rig.

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Nobody has driven this fall, until today.  Troy managed to find a great line which involved pinching the front tires in near the top to pull the rest of the rig up the fall. It was an amazing crawl to witness.

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I took the bypass line but didn't have enough belly clearance to make it up the last ledge,  I also snapped my 3/8" winch rope while winching the front end down.

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Brad took the same line I did but managed to make the last climb (as did Nolan).

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