Trip Reports
| Rainbow Falls | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date: | April, 29th 2009 | |||
| Trip Leader: | Mike Borum | |||
| Members Present: | Paul Beaudean, Sue Fisher, Rob Cooper, Dave Peaslee, Matt Dodds, Russ Rose | |||
| Guests Present: | Kellie Johnson | |||
| Picture Link: | Mike's Pics | |||
| Description: |
When I agreed to lead a spring trip during the March club meeting when the trip calendar was being built, I wasn't sure where we would go, so it was appropriately deemed the "Mystery Trip". I thought doing a trail close to home--with just enough dirt, mud, rocks, and views--made a lot of sense because the weather in April can be unpredictable in the Rockies. And even though I hadn't done much wheeling at Rainbow Falls Park, I knew it could fit the bill.
But when six other members showed up at our meeting place ready to break out of this past winter's choke hold, it was a great surprise. Rob Cooper brought along a friend in his mauve TJ; Matt drove the red YJ, Dave had his trusty black Range Rover, Sue drove her svelte Rubicon, Russ towed his sprightly blue Samurai; Paul fired up the blue Tacoma, and I had my screaming yellow Rubicon. We hit the trail quickly after airing down a bit and discussing the area with a local forest ranger. She happily gave me a new map of the trails in the South Platte district, and made sure we all understood the importance of staying on designated trails and not wandering into closed areas, or roads not marked, or marked for ATVs and dirt bikes only. We said, "yes, ma'am". We were hoping for some snow bashing fun, but there was only a little in the shady areas, and nothing to get excited about. Since I didn't know the myriad of trails too well, Rob agreed to lead us all around. Soon we found the "playground", featuring several large rock steps that are reminiscent of the Double Whammy in Moab, but with more dirt! We took turns climbing the steps, making a loop to the bottom and doing it again and again. We gave our rigs a thorough thrashing at times to power up and over this crazy neat obstacle. Only Russ in his skateboard-sized Sami had issues, as it seemed the steps on one of the many lines were exactly the same distance apart as his wheelbase! After a quick tug of a winch cable, he was climbing out of his pickle. Coming back down for lunch, we encountered 3 or 4 fairly deep mud holes. Of course, none of us could resist going through them, and a few decided to hit them with a little more gusto. Matt hit one pretty hard and started to hear a strange noise immediately afterwards. It seemed he's sucked a bit of the muddy water into his smog pump, and it was not happy about it. Once we got back to the staging area and had lunch, Matt and Paul headed home, and the rest of us decided to do a bit more exploring. We wandered some more around the roads, hitting some areas where there were deeper ruts, bits of snow and mud, and tight trees and bushes. Soon we came out into a rural area, and watched a small herd of young elk grazing in a meadow. We unlocked our hubs, reconnected our sway bars, and felt a few flakes of snow beginning to fall. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day of wheeling! |
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