Hollister Hills Trip 9-7-02

We went on a trip to Hollister Hills SVRA on 9-7-02 with the Santa Rosa 4X4's. Below are the first pictures from the trip that were taken with my digital camera. I took a good deal of video, and I will put video clips up and also capture still shots from the video at a later date.

We started the day running a trail called mini tank trap. This trail has hard parts, but there are ways to go around them. One vehicle suffered a brake failure and returned to camp. One other vehicle, a Subaru Brat, had to be pulled up one hill, as it did'nt have the wheel travel to get sufficient traction. After running this trail, we headed back to the obstacle course area, and everyone played. The mud pit was still soft, but the standing water we found there on the last trip was gone. I made it through a few times in my Tacoma, and then a Samari went through. He made it through a few times, then got stuck. Phillip pulled him out with the Subaru, and then tried to go through.... and got stuck. I pulled him out, he tried again and got stuck, I pulled him out again, and on the third try, he made it. We played on the stair steps a few times and then headed back to camp for lunch. After lunch, we headed for a trail called Tank Traps. This is the only triple black diamond trail in the park. Dan, whos Chevy truck you see in the pictures below was the only one who attempted the trail. Denny wanted to do the trail, but suffered a broken axle in the beginning of the trail. For the record, he broke the axle the week before on the Rubicon, and because a replacement would not arrive in time for this trip, he sleeved and pinned the broken axle for the trip. The fix held for most of the day, but the first part of Tank Traps killed it. Below is the rest of the story....

Tanks Traps trail starts with a very narrow section. The trail is steep and rutted, with vertical waterfall type rock faces.

Here Dan is going up one of the waterfalls..

He is running fuel injection in his truck, and says that he likes it because when you go up to an obstacle and let the truck idle up it, when the RPM's fall, the fuel injection compensates, so the engine won't die.

After the narrow steep section, there are a series of mud pits. This was the first mud pit, and the only one with any mud. The was these pits are set up, when you get through the first pit, and go up the mound of dirt at the end, you drop down into another, and another....

Not knowing how bad and deep the mud was, he did'nt get much of a run at it. He made it about 1/3 of the way through, then got stuck... time to break out the winch!

After winching for a while, the winch stopped working..

Upon opening the hood, he found that the battery had melted. Luckily he has two batterys, one for the engine, and one for the winch.

After being winched the rest of the way out, we figured that he had it made, as the rest of the trail was not really that bad.

Here you can see him coming over one of the dirt mounds, and into what would have been another mud pit.

He went a ways up the trail and knocked a tire off the bead in a rut. Here you can see Donny trying to pull him out. In the struggle, he broke his front axle.

The rim of the tire drilled into the bank, making the problem worse.

After winching and jacking, the truck was removed from the rut. If you think that the rear end looks like it is at a funny angle in this picture, you are right. The shackle was also reversed during the process.