PUPPIES, WHEELIN’ AND ADOPTION!
Our latest adventure to Big Bear was a great one As usual there were plenty of stories and issues to deal with. Those who are not usually involved in the organizing the events only hear half of what goes on. Let’s start with the Corps Curse. There are several things that fit into this category. In this case it was the ride up to the mountain. No matter how hard we try this never goes as smoothly as planned. I was going to leave at noon and beat the traffic but I spent two hour working on Ryan’s Jeep so he could go. I didn’t miss traffic and he didn’t show. I finally reach the edge of the mountain around 4:30 just to find out that the 330 highway was closed. No one mentioned this, not even the place we were staying, go figure! I manage to do my best to control the onset of road rage. I started calling all the people driving up behind me. Joe got the message and managed to stay a half hour behind. Turby should have been just behind Joe. I had talked to him three times about how to make the 38 detour. Now this is the same kid that gave me the “Yes Dad” speech before heading up. I was just trying to make sure he knew his way. I reached the mountain at 5:30 and I finally got a call from Turby around 8:30. He wanted to tell me that he didn’t remember all the windmills on the way to the mountain. I just had to laugh and said “Yes Son,” there are windmills just not near Big Bear.” Turby found Big Bear at 10:30. He now holds the record for the longest drive to Big Bear ever MORE IMAGES FROM THIS EVENT.
Saturdays run up the mountain might as well been called the puppy run. We’ve had very pregnant wives and babies on the trail but we’ve never had this many puppies. The weather was beautiful and this was a perfect day to run the trail. The mishaps and problems were kept to a minimum. Robert once again tried to reinvent the Kevin scale but that wasn’t allowed to happen. If you had closed eyes on John Bull you would have thought that Mikey was driving a P51 Mustang. Ok, maybe just a Jeep with a WWII aircraft motor. He didn’t find the humor in his carbureted motor but I did. It wasn’t funny however that Ryan and Ken left the rest of us to move all the rocks, we won’t forget it. On the Kevin scale Ken gets a zero and Ryan gets a minus one for tricking me into helping him with his Jeep just before I left. We also cannot forget that Seth left Ron speechless on the trail and that Turby gave him a hug. probably the most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Ron but all very funny. A really great time can be judged by how much fun you had at your friend’s expense and if I use this measure, this was a really great run. It does help that these are some funny ass people even if the jokes on me
One of the main reasons for going up to Big Bear this weekend was to claim our trail 2N19 as part of the Adopt-A-Trail program. Our trail is really a set of trails. 2N19 A, B, C and D. I won’t lie most of our trail area is not hard core rock crawling but there is a large elevation change and beautiful views. The ratings for the majority of the area we are adopting is a 3 but the crown jewel of our trail is 
over, we are free to make it as challenging as we want. We weren’t able to make it to the peak because the snow was still too deep. The trail will be a blast for snow runs. Imagine making snow runs in April and May! There will be lots of work to do to reopen the trails to the public so we will all have to be engaged. Until then these trails are all ours. We will be the only people allowed into this area until it’s reopened. A whole page will be created with information on our trails and the opportunities that will be available to the club. There are too many benefits to list here. This will be a great resource for our club members!
