New Idria Surpentine Barrons

Participants

People	Vehicle
Bruce Bonar Stephanie Changaris	1994 NAS Defender 90 "Spot"
Vance Chin Holly Jessop	1980 SIII 109" V8 (Stage I)
Eric Cope Brigid Cope Brett Cope	1967 SIIA NADA 109" "Tipper"
Lynn Kot Jim Holmes	1995 NAS Defender 90
Jason LaBranch Erica	1970 SIIA 88" "Ganesh"
Rick Larson	1994 NAS Defender 90
Benjamin Smith Jan Barglowski	1972 SIII 88" "Dora"
Walt Swain John Hess	1988 Range Rover

Itinerary

Friday, 9 February 1996
• Some people attempt to camp in the same area
Saturday, 10 February 1996
• Meet at the intersection of Panoche Rd and New Idria Road at 10am
• Explore the dirt roads south and east of New Idria
• Camp near Spanish Lake for the night
Sunday, 11 February 1996
• Explore the dirt roads south and east of New Idria until people have to go start home.

Memorable Moments

• Driving through the dark with fog that cut visability to 50 feet
• Putting a GPS, laptop, ham radio, and map program together; powering them by Lucas; and they still worked.
• Driving through the town of New Idria (which looked like the typical company town)
• Walt driving his Range Rover into a muddy pit, stopping and backing up just because he could
• Rude dirt bikers
• Ben's many failed attempts at a clumbing muddy hill that noone else had a problem with. (A hub had disengaged and the 88 was only in 2WD)
• Hedge clippers
• Rick and Ben's Excellent Adventure with the ditch and 35+ degree lists to the port side.
• The guys trying to roll an abandoned pickup out of the trail
• Spanish Lake being less than picturesque.
• Campfire, felling a tree for firewood, and The Macallan
• The trail that tried its best to get Bruce to roll Dora.
• Ladybug swarms during lunch
• Toilet paper finish line across the trail

The Full Story

Quotables

• Ben watched Rick drive/slide past a rusting pickup body, narrowly missing as he slid sideways several feet on his MTs, and decided to hold up. The consensus was that the pickup simply must be moved. Then followed a very entertaining, but essentially pointless exercise in Moving The Obstacle Out the Way (But Not Really). Over and over, Ben would use his Hi-lift jack to raise some part of the pickup and then all the boys would try to push it over the cliff. They did manage to rotate it on its axis, but left the front of the frame sticking out into the road arguably farther than the body had been initially. -Stephanie
  

• When I realized there was a pickup in the way and that it wasn't going to move I decided to try and cross over back to the high side of the ditch. Obtained a real fun 30 degree plus angle trying to. My front tire wasn't biting though to pop me out of the ditch and I was getting ever closer to the pickup. At this time Ben had come around the corner and stopped. I couldn't back up the way I came (stradling the ditch) as Ben was getting stuck just back of me. -Rick
  

• Just before rejoining the main road, a relatively steep and narrow off-camber turn caused some excitement for Bruce who was in the lead driving Ben's Dora. As he came down, the soft dirt gave way beneath his left front wheel and he turned abruptly left down the bank to avoid a rollover. He managed to drive down the rest of the way while sitting in the pasenger seat together with Jan, the offical passenger. After we had piled rocks to fill the spots where the roadbed had given way, everyone gingerly brought their vehicles down the way they were supposed to. Not as exciting as Bruce's descent, but easier on the heart rate. -Stephanie
  

Gallery

Movies
Puddle and Mudhill--Saturday
Gullies, Trail and View--Saturday
Barrons--Sunday
Rock Trails--Sunday