Well, here's my account of the weekend.

Friday night- I meet Oleg and Boarderphreak on the side of the road near home. (When I say, side of the road, I mean SIDE OF THE ROAD). We make our drive out to Shamokin on Rt.78 West. We are talking on the FRS the entire way out. A stop for gas and food put us out in the middle of NOWHERE. The attendant was a very nice person, and asked Oleg "Are you heading into the mountains with those THINGS?" She called the X a THING!

Anyway, we hit the campsite around 9:15-9:30. Vikram, Medhi, Pikachu and Goliath are there waiting. We park the X's and meet and greet. The first words out of Pikachu's mouth is "Night Run?" So I run with Boarder, and Medhi, Goliath take their rigs. Pkiachu is kinda broken from an earlier run in PA, so he rides with Vikram. we do some cool stuff, nothing hardcore b/c of the darkness. Vikram, however, decides to take a stab at the Jeep Hill. (If you've been there, you know the one) He makes it about 1/5 of the way up before calling it quits. We run around a little bit more and play in some mud before going back to camp around 1:30 or so. Bob had shown up and Rich walks in not too much later. He brought gifts for Dave and Medhi, while sporting a few new mods. (And 2 very pretty Swedish Girls.) We hit bed around 4AM. DAMN- cold night... Still defrosting the feet.

Saturday morning- I get woken up by a shaking of the X. I look around and Oleg pops his head up in the window... God- what a scary sight JUST after waking up. We get ready, I take off the stock rails and mudflaps. While Oleg and I are doing that, CK and Steinism show up. Frontier Gary shows up next and the last to arrive was Carlos. Small trail meeting and we're off. We stop at the small gas station to get gas, air down and grab lunch to bring with us. Oleg leads us into Shamokin, and we start running. Couple of hills and what not... We hit the rock garden, and breezed through that (THANKS VIKRAM AND PIKACHU!!!) We hit this little land bridge (the one where you have to be perfectly centered or you end up in the gully) Steinism and Vikram take on the gully b/c they're armed with ARB's. We split up into half and half. Half go to the WAAG Eater (from what I got told, almost became Frontier Eater) and half went to watch Vikram run the Jeep Hill. (which he did- excellent. I was watching, so somebody'll have to fill in the WAAG Eater story) After that, we head to the Towers for lunch. (It felt like a scene Jurassic Park driving through the brush. We hit the tower and park the X's next to the satellite dishes for lunch. The microwave tower was accessible so we took some great air shots of the X's and the scenery. After about an hour, we make our way to the playground for some fun. We see some other ground to play in, and some great places for group shots. We all head down there, taking pics and what not. There's this REALLY big pond (I guess you could call it. Maybe a swamp or something) Anyway, Oleg shoots around the edge of it, and on his way back, gets stuck. We quickly get him out, and Medhi forges a trail through. Soon, they're not only going AROUND, but THROUGH, throwing mud EVERYWHERE. Even Frontier Gary took the perimeter. After this, we head out for dinner at the 901 Pub. On the way out, Goliath and Oleg disappear. Turns out, they go and hit the rock garden from the other direction. Minor setback on the way out though- Gary punches a hole in his sidewall. We fix it quickly and move on. We meet our two other trucks at the gas station, and then head over to the pub. Rich and Carlos head back to camp to pick up Rich's brother. We get to the pub and order dinner. Steinism gets shot down by the waitress and Vikram is the absolute LAST person to get his food- Mozarella sticks... But, Mike took charge and came back from being shot down by buying dinner. THANKS MIKE!!! We head back to camp and start the fire. Gary pulls his Frontier up to the wood pile and just starts loading up. It was nice, just sitting around the campfire and talking about funny stories. We heard something about Rich and Santa, and BoarderPhreak's running from the law. Around 1:30, I pack it up and get to bed, as do most of us.

Sunday Morning- I get up because I heard CK packing up his X. I get all prettied up and head to the firepit, which was STILL smoldering. Everyone gets up and motivated and make plans for another run. CK and I bail, as well as Pikachu b/c he was kinda busted in the 4x4 department. Somebody else is going to have to post about Sunday.

On a personal side- I had a great time. We hit MUD and the trucks were SO happy. I was very impressed by what a Stock X could do. I can say, I came out without any damage. Most of that is due to good spotters.

In conclusion- DAMN GOOD RUN!

[ 09-17-2001: Message edited by: Dayspring ]

Waag eater almoust ate frontier, only becourse there is only 1 line that X can take there, and frontier is too long to take that line, unleas you are willing to leave couple of inches of your rear bumper on the trail, so we found a new line , that Frontier took with absolutly no problem

second day was as much fun as the first one , but with a bit more damage ;(
but it was minor damage, so its all cool

PS Frontier blew one more tire on a second day ;( and had to limp back home with 3 stock and 1 31 inch MT tire


at the end of the day we found huge amount of new LEGAL trails there, they range from very technical to fire roads , i will be going back there in the very near future with a small group of truck to check them out.

Skid row skid plates RULEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
i bend the hell out of one of them , as well as ARB skid plate, but no vital X parts were touched


Note to my self:
when driving in mud swampy area, DONOT put truck from reverse to Neutral. that will make truck slow down and pocibly stop in the mud and that will mean stuck situation and geting out in mud aint too cool

Is Jeep Hill the really loose one with the telephone pole at the top that you pretty much almost hit as you crest?

Been a year or so since I was up there...

Brent

[ 09-16-2001: Message edited by: OffroadX ]

No, this is Jeep hill...this (terrible) picture was taken last winter, this was the first time anybody say trucks try to make it up. The guy in the white CJ is the guy who posed w/ Pikachu on the rock. He saw me trying to make it up this at ECXC, and was the one who said that nothing w/out a locker had ever made it up.

Basically what Dayspring said...

It was an awesome weekend all in all! I haven't washed the truck yet, nor can I really SEE the truck (it's covered in mud from head to foot) so I don't think there was any damage. I certainly don't see anything out of the ordinary...

We all felt for Gary, who popped two stock skins on the trails, but we got him going again with a little group effort.

I'd like to thank everyone that attended - a great group of people, and I really enjoyed myself, as did the X. Mike, props to you, my man - for handling the dinner tab. If it's any consolation, I'm still "enjoying the meal..." Nice bar, but their food sucked royal ass and their service is about as bad. Kick ass waitress though, yummy!

I'll be getting my pix back later this afternoon, and I should have some of the video digitized shortly... I got lots of great stuff in both formats. Woohoo!

Hey guys, the pic's look really great! I'm sorry I couldn't make it up there. Couldn't get out of work until late on Friday with disaster recovery efforts at work, and couldn't wake up early enough to make it up there. Looks like everyone had a great time, I'll make it next time for sure! Glad all had a good time!

for anybody around for the "why blackwoods is creepy" discussion this weekend, i've posted my pictures from ECXC (just replaced my scanner). i only posted the *really* strange ones.

ok, third time is a charm...
http://photos.yahoo.com/gmr2048

click on "wheelin'" then "blackwoods pa". i tried a direct link to the folder, but it downloaded 5MB of stuff to my computer without loading the page. (the 9 thumbnails on that page are nowhere near 1MB, let alone 5MB). who the hell knows what it was doing. creepy.

-gary

[ 09-17-2001: Message edited by: gmr2048 ]

why is this so wide? it's a pain in the ass to read.

what? my url? i have no idea. it's word wrapped on my system. regardless, i've cut it down, cuz the first one wouldnt load. (not having much luck with the second one either).

-gary

never mind.

I had to cut-n-paste the URL, but it worked...

Gary, you weren't kidding - those are some downright scary folk... Too much moonshine or something in them thar hills.

We got a couple o' good ol' boys in town too. I think there are two Cadillacs on Blazer frames with some seriously sketchy welding-frankenmonster voodoo going on. There's also a lifted van but not quite like yours... Some nice muscle cars and a smattering of trucks though.

Bunch of pictures I scanned in from Shamokin - kinda crappy, but that's what I've got so far...

Ah, the hill in the background of the Pucker Hill 2 shot was the one I was thinking might be Jeep Hill.
Did anyone tackle Pucker Hill?

Brent

yes more then ones
up and down

Yep, that hill that I've affectionately named "pucker hill" was due to the fact that on the way down/up that hill in the background, the X was very high camber (i.e. slipping, uneasy "tip/roll" feeling) and also where Frontier Gary popped a stock skin on some gnarly rocks...

If you were sitting IN the X, you'd be looking at the "Jeep Hill" out of the windshield (that is, it's not in the picture).

Oleg, how is that little hill more or less to the right from where the picture was taken from these days? That's the one that Mike had a hard time with last year, and has the big rock across the trail once you get to the top that someone tagged? Is it any tougher, or has it gotten easier?

Brent

By the end of the day, it got a little chewed up, making it a touch more difficult... Once Gary plowed through there and split a rock in two (!!!) it got real fun.