Saturday Night MUDFEST

After Dinner at a local Steakhouse we arrived back at the cabin around 7pm.  Darker clouds were rolling in and it seemed that it was about to cut loose on us very shortly.  There was still another hour or so of daylight so some of us decided to hit the trail again for an evening run.  As soon as we hit the trail it started to rain pretty good.  Our destination was a mud hole down by the creek.  If we're going to get wet and muddy, let go for the gold.  Along the way we hit a few smaller holes, one of which Chris needed a pull.
  

After crossing the creek we arrived at the mud hole.  Still raining.  The mud hole has three crossings to it with no way around.  Bordered at the low end by the creek and an embankment at the high end, the three crossings range from tough to very tough to impossible.  By now it was getting dark so the pictures are not the greatest.  The rain had picked up to a downpour.  We decided to cross the tough end first.  Everyone made it across including Curt in his Geo Tracker.  

  
We looped around and came back.  A few of the diehards decided to take a dip in the center section which looks like a soup bowl with steep drop-offs and thick goo.  First to drop in the soup bowl was Curt in his Geo Tracker.  This thing was amazing.  First he attempted to climb out the opposite end which was about a 3-4 foot vertical wall of mud and grass.  It wasn't working since it was like hitting a wall.  Curt fought with some seriously deep ruts to turn the Tracker into the other mud hole to get a better shot at climbing out.  Never did it appear that he was stuck since the Tracker was able to keep moving during this attempt at the soup bowl mud hole.

Curt managed to get the Tracker almost crossed over but became high centered, ending his shot for the gold.  

"Stick a fork in me...I'm done."

With that we hooked up the Warn winch and he pulled himself out.

Next to attack the Soup Bowl was Carl in his TJ equipped with a Rubicon Express lift and Super Swampers. Even without lockers, Carl's got the right setup.  His TJ worked the Soup Bowl hard and although he couldn't claw his way out the bowl, he did cross over and tear his way out of the mud hole flinging mud in every direction. 

The rest of us crossed the tough end of the hole.  The longer wheel bases would have had a hard time in the Soup Bowl so we decided to save it for a better day.  It was dark and pouring like crazy by now and we were seeing flashes of lightning.  Time to move out.  Our trail run out is a great combination of long rocky hills and seriously sloppy mud.  We rode out across the mountain ridges with lightning lighting up the trail.  This was to be our last run for the weekend and what a run it was.  While picture taking was at a minimum due to the heavy rain and lack of light, we had loads of fun and considered it one of the better trail rides of the weekend.  Definitely a place to pay another visit to in the future. 

Bad Cheese Curls...