Myra Run

Off roading is not something I know a lot about. I know how to check the oil, pump my own gas and in a jam I can change a tire BUT when it comes to a trail fix...hell I didn't even know what I meant until last weekend.
Both Chad's CJ-7 and I lost our "innocence" to the offroading experience. But before I get ahead of myself I'll do a quick introduction of both rigs, their drivers and roadies. Mike Gatez, avid off roader came along with his �84 Bronco. Both Mike and his beast like vehicle impressed us a few times. Rumour has it his wife is
quite the driver as well. Maybe next run? Greg and his buddy Trevor accompanied by an 86-89 Suzuki Samurai. Both Greg and his rig surprised us with some quick fixes and cool moves. Bryan and his 90 YJ although almost
geared did resort back to their combined nickname : Stucky. Lloyd and his 91 Jeep Cherokee were ultimately our off road rescue Crew. Chad brought his project CJ-stealth with little ol' me tagging a long. Although I've since dubbed
her the Black Widow she was a sweet ride... most the time :-) SO the five rigs and company of seven headed off boat's noon on Sunday, to attack to Myra run. Mike and Greg took the lead with Chad, Bryan and Lloyd to follow. Poor Bryan's 4-wheel drive just wouldn't give so five minutes in, we pulled him out and left part of Stucky behind. Actual problem the 4-wheel drive vacuum diaphram would not engage solidly.For the next hour or so we ran into very few serious obstacles on the trail and minor incidents that only slowed us down. Mike's throttle-body and solenoid would act up from time to time, and we had to start the rig all over gain. The Suzuki ran
into a bit of sticky situation but manovered itself out of stuck and only lost a light mounted on the mirror.
The first actual exciting challenge for the group was the river. Although probably only 2 1/2 feet deep in the deeper parts, the current was quite strong and it was at least 50 feet wide. We graciously let the Samurai go first. Although the river itself presented no trouble for the rig ( lots of hidden rocks) the icy bank and scattered boulders prevented it from climbing right up. Out comes the winch and after 15 minutes of juggling she comes lose and makes it way up the bank. Mikes Bronco ran into similar problems. It took a lot of pulling and winching to pull the beast out from between the rocks. The CJ had little difficulty crossing the water and had lots of potential to get up the bank
but just couldn't get enough umph to pull er over the rocks, a quick tug with a pull strap though and the CJ was tearing up snow and chasing the Suzuki right up the trail. Before Chad and I could make our way down to watch the Cherokee, she got hung up on the other bank as it was entering the river, a bit of the go pedal and Brian rockin her and they were back in action and speeding up the bank on the other side like he knew what he was doing. That damn Lloyd and Bryan pulled up behind us. Lloyd confidently told us we all sucked. The Cherokee
didn't even break a sweat. had and CJ-7 took the lead for a bit. The next leg of the trip was up hill. This proved hard on the spider. The trail itself held only minor trouble but the snow was deeper and slushier along this part of the woods. Mike brilliantly came up with an idea that was quickly dubbed a " traction tree" See Lloyd for musical reference. Grabbing a near by dead fall a poor trees fate is sealed to give traction to our off roading rigs. Once the trail was broken down the other rigs followed suit , on the wide ruts the Stealth left behind.Next challenge is an odd one. The bottom of a hill is shaped in large ice and rock covered log stairs. The water is just a bit deep in the pools but
there's enough to spray over all of us when tires get to spinning. The CJ is still in the lead, The challenge is primarily in the amount of ice. It's thick and surrounds all the rocks and the wooden parts of the make shift stairs. Half way up the CJ is not so much stuck as not moving, just putting on a show ( Well I guess that means the same thing.) I noticed the ice was starting to break up underneath, Mike split it up with an axe while Trevor piled some rocks under the tires for traction, Chad gunned 'er and was free. The Bronco was only stuck for a minute or two. Greg ran the Samurai up the side in seconds. With a laugh he shouted out. �Wanna see that again?!�. With impeccable modesty he backed the Samurai back down and drove back up the ice covered slope a totally different way. Lloyd followed suit. Just as modestly I might add. The rest of the trail was bumpy, water logged and littered with four
wheeling alcoholics. And for anyone who was looking around it was actually quite pretty out. We had gained a roadie mutt, a dog that tagged along, sharing our seats and its stink but was good to cuddle up to for much needed heat.
Our last and longest challenge was probably not the most difficult, but was The beginning of the end for most of us. A �V� angled creek ran though the trail, both icy and steep on both sides. Chad's CJ had to do some manovering
to get across but worked fine once on the other side and up the hill a bit. The Bronco proved more difficult a lot of rigging pulling and pushing got him over the hump. The samurai took a run, but got stuck in a sharp angle that gave me images of the thing falling ass over kettle. The winch wasn't helping and on one particular try the beast gave an incredible crunching sound and sagged. It lost it's rear end.
      Greg realized that he had to turn around now and so we all decided to do so. Chad went up the trail with mike to get his rig and they worked on turning the CJ and the Bronco around up the trail while the Samurai tried to get turned around after winching himself out of the hole.While Chad was tryimg to turn around Mike clamly looked at him and said, "your driveshaft just popped out" and so it did, the slipyolk came apart on it and after a few minutes they realized that the shims had come out of the rear axle and that simple putting the driveshaft back in wouldn't work. After all was said and done both the Bronco and th Jeep got turned around and headed back down the trail to meet up with the rest.
            Coming back out proved to be quite the adventer and put a good test on everyones pasantes, hungrey and being able to bare the cold.to shortin the story up we moved 100ft in about 4 hours and heres a quick summary of why: The Suzuki's ring gear was pretty much dead, Chad was stuck in a hole, The Bronco just lost reverse, and Lloyds Cherokee was struck in the snow just down the trial , while trying to turn around.
         Finally we decided that we would have to leave the CJ and Sanurai if we wanted to get back out sometime that night. so we loaded up the bronco and the Cherokee to the hilt and headed out the bronco lead so that if it couldn't make it up something the first time mike could ethier get pulled back by the Cherokee or winch himself ahead. both did well til we hit the river again the Bronco made it through but got stuck on the other side which silenced everyone for a few minutes, but then out came the chainsaw and mike put the tration tree back into full swing. and got himself out., and called for Lloyd to come over, the Cherokee hit the water and bounced up on the other bank in no time and for a second nothing moved as the wheels just spun but she caught some traction and made it out.
          Both rigs made it the rest of the way without difficulty and everyone made it out safe. After some hand shakes and planning for the rescue mission for the Samuai and the Jeep everyone went on their way, tired, cool and hungrey.