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A blast from the past...thanks to Bill Barnes!

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A blast from the past...thanks to Bill Barnes!

Postby Scott Hatch » Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:27 am

Pre-NEA, this was the last time many of these "trails" were run in NH. Just a few months after this event we had our infamous meeting at Domenic's with Major (then Captain) Acerno

1st Annual
New England 4 Wheelers, Inc. Off- Road Challenge
September 18th, 19th 1999
Hancock, N.H.

Trip Report by Bill Barnes

Fantastic! Incredible! Outstanding, are the words I would use to describe our very first attempt at putting on an open event.
Friday evening, up until 8 pm, was registration and trail sign- in time, where you were assigned a campsite which was included with the fee. After setting up camp, meeting all the participants who chose to "rough it" at the campground, we hit the hay anticipating a long day of wheelin'.
We had the usual assortment of Jeeps, a pair of Scouts, (one all the way from Oklahoma), Toyota Landcruisers and a pick-up truck. All in all about 85 participants to go out and explore the very tough trails of New Hampshire.
We went out in 4 groups. I was leading a group of fifteen out to Hedgehog Hill where we'll pick up the action.
After airing down (highly recommended) to about 11 pounds in my radial Swampers, I proceeded to take my group up the hill. It's bad enough this place is currently being logged almost to the top, but you have to remember we just had Hurricane Floyd pass by 2 days before! The trail was a sloppy, gooey, muddy, bouldery mess. In other words?perfect!
The lower portion of the trail isn't so bad. Everybody moved fairly well until we got to the mudhole at the base of the last climb to the top. My advantage was being first. If you know anything about New England and it's mud, the first couple of vehicles up usually succeed on the hills before it gets torn away to the wet and icky stuff underneath.
The first victim here was my friend Jason and his modified Cherokee with 32" Swampers on it. Only trouble is he was running open diffs, and after too much momentum and side- slipping, he caught a sidewall and shredded a tire. Then shredded his head on the handle of his Hi- Lift jack. Just a lil' boo boo. He'll live.
Now the hill was really tough! The locked and loaded boys had lots of trouble with the hill but eventually clawed their way to the top using sheer momentum and a lead foot. The pay- off at the top of this lump of rock is the gorgeous views into the surrounding valleys where you could see all the low land flooding the hurricane had caused. We had lunch here and assessed the current damage to vehicles. So far: Trail 4, Vehicles 0. We lost a Swamper, a brake line, something I can't remember, and an oil filter on the Scout, more on this one later!
Heading down, we met the local landowner (nice guy) and he was glad to see we were taking out the trash as we went. At the road, we had a few folks who had enough of the 4 hours of intense wheelin' and either went to buy parts for their breaks or simply went back to camp to relax. The 7 of us remaining went on to Tipping Rock.

Tipping Rock
I pre-ran this trail the week before the hurricane in record time. Not this time. This trail is rock, rock, and more rocks with a big rock step or two thrown in for the fun of it. It's not too hard when it's dry, but get it wet and it's a buster! When I got to the step (and this burns my blister), it took me about 5 hard tries of smashin', jammin' and bangin' to make it. Of course, once I found the line, everybody just walked right up?except the Scout we had with us. Remember the oil filter? Well, it's later. Here's the story.
Sometime on the last mountain, after the Scout gave a tug to a Jeep, the oil filter developed a leak. We swapped it out with a spare and forgot about it. Now, here we are on this big step. The Scout takes a big bounce and we've got oil shooting in all directions. Hmmm..why did this happen again? It appears that the steering stabilizer managed to just catch the edge of the bottom of the filter and put enough of a bend in it to cause a separation in the lip near the base where it screws in. Off came the stabilizer, and being a prudent driver that the gent was?he parked it. Why push your luck, right? It's only Saturday. Still have tomorrow.
After we cleaned the oil off the rocks, the remaining members of the group followed on up until we got to the "tipping rock." It's a big, giant glacial rock thing that's balanced on 2 points, and even though it weighs about 20 tons, you can wobble it ever so slightly. Cool beans!
Like anything else, coming down is usually uneventful. Gravity is great, ain't it! We managed to get back into camp just before dinner, cleaned up and chowed down. Ribs and chicken and salad and rolls and all kinds of good stuff and plenty of it! We had great caterers!
After dinner we sat around and watched videos of the day's events. I was shocked to see what happened to our famous Nor- Hatch Trail. When the club ran this in June, it took about 1/2 a day to do about 4 miles. When it takes a full day to do a quarter mile and you see Rich Morse in the lead Jeep about to do an endo in the washed away gullies you gotta say "thanks Floyd" for turning a 4- 6 trail into a 9- 10. Gotta love it! Thanks for the show, Rich.
At raffle time, it was nice to see that the person who actually needed a Hi- Lift jack, won it! Thanks to Jason Carter for the jack donation. Andy Vega, who rolls his Willys thing all the time, won the winch accessory kit. He should think about putting wheels on the roll bar, might help!

Day 2, Twin Peaks
I didn't lead a run today. I let another sucker, er, club member (Scott Hatch) lead the run to Hedgehog. I ran "tail gunner" for the famous John Barnes, leading us in his Willys. This way I could continue the saga of the challenge.
John really knows his way around. He researches his routes carefully so as not to make any mistakes. It really bites to turn around about 20 people on a narrow dirt road, so we try not to. John took us up the back way to one of the peaks. Never being here myself, I thought it was going to be easy like the other way up. Nope, wrong. This was a narrow, muddy, lumpy trail with big rocks, a steep hill and a few tight turns. Also very wet. This is where he discovered that a Willys isn't indestructible. I think he broke a front axle. Typical of John not to worry too much about it. He simply unlocked the hubs, winched his way over the obstacle and continued in 2 wheel drive and a heavy foot. Most people had to struggle through this, especially the nice gentleman driving the silver Landcruiser. Not the kind that looks like a Jeep, but the kind that looks like a station wagon?no offense, I'm just trying to be descriptive, OK? I attempted to pull this guy up a muddy step and couldn't budge him. Heavy vehicle! When it wouldn't start on the hill, we were in a minor tizz figuring out a means to get him out. Luckily for us, after we rolled him on the flat, we cranked it over and a big wad of mud shot out of the tailpipe! Oh? the ol' banana in the tailpipe trick, eh?
From here, there are three trails to try. All are difficult in some way or another. If they were all dry, they would be easy. A few of the guys went to the right. I think one made it. A couple tried the middle and "no go." The rest of us smart ones took the sanest trail and proceeded to the top of the mountain and had lunch.
We're all looking at each other wondering if we should bother doing the other peak. It would be another 3 hours or so up and, considering it's already 2 o' clock, we opted to head back to break down camp and go home.
We came down the trail the easy way which is still scary if you're running a stocker type vehicle. At the bottom, we aired up, said our good- byes to those that weren't going to the campground and went on our merry way.
I have to say it was a hugely successful weekend. The organizational efforts of Scott Hatch and Sherry and Steve and Peg Nordby proved beyond a doubt that New England 4 Wheelers, Inc. can put on a great event no matter what it chooses to do. I want to thank the 8 of 11 Club Officers who gave us their support in this event. Thanks to you for being trail leaders and for promoting goodwill among our guests. A big "Thank You" to Gretchen, who owns (edited) campind area in Hancock, N.H., that hosted us, and to Carol and the rest of her caterers who did an outstanding job with the food for us. Most importantly, I want to thank all of you who attended our event, and the New England 4 Wheelers, Inc. hope to see all of you next year when we do this again!

Bill Barnes
President
New England 4 Wheelers, Inc
.
Scott Hatch
NEWJO
New England 4 Wheelers
shatch0341@gmail.com
Fortes Fortuna Juvat
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