***12/27 - Trip is Weather dependent. If there is rain 48 hours before the date or it looks like 80% chance of rain day of it will be called off as being in the mud is slow going as well as ruins the trails for others.***

If interested in the trip below shoot me an email at norcal.drivers@gmail.com

For all those interested I am seeing who would be interested in doing a pre-run of some trail near Lovelock NV. The plan is to cover about 150-160 miles of mixed trails and a little pavement. This is not all about being on the trails as there are a few planned stops. These stops include 4 ghost mines and a cave called the cave of the giants. Depending on the group there is a detour near the start to see a some old miner buildings.

Meeting point:
9:00am in Lovelock at the Chevron Gas station to top off with fuel and hit the trail

Caravan from Sacramento
If you care to caravan to Lovelock I would be leaving Sacramento at 6:00am.

Expectations:
If you plan on attending the expectation is you can run at 40mph or so across the trails when possible. This is not “my rig is faster than yours” trip. The requirement is so we can cover the planned distance. Of course trail variations will determine overall and average speed but if you are looking for some crawling and or putting a long trip this is will not be for you.

Gear:

There are two requirements to go which are for safety reason. For those who have been out on trails before you know something could always happen and AAA will not come out there to give you a tow.

First is at least one full size spare. Common sense but stating it anyway

Second is a VHF radio that can be set to (151.625 / 152 ). For those who might be new or don’t want to drop $300 on a radio setup I have personally tested the use of a VHF U5R hand held. The range for transmitting is only 1 mile but it can receive miles away from higher power radios. (miles away means transmission on the over side of a mountain away.) The radios are so you can hear where to make a turn, ruts, cattle guard, G out and so on. Also so you can say to the trucks near you I need help. Cell phones don’t work where we are going and Motorola GSRMs don’t have the range.

A U5R radio cost $30 off amazon: http://amzn.com/B007H4VT7A

GPS Trail maps
If you have a smart phone the app “back country navigator” for android and “motion X” for IPhone are good to have. These have been tested out on other trips and can be loaded with the planned route. If you have these apps let me know and I can email you the route file. If you want to buy a app before the trip it will cost you around $25 last I checked.