Destination: Rausch Creek Offroad Park

Some of the guys of our group departed Saturday morning.  With about a 2-3 hour drive to get the the park by 7am, we left in the early hours of the morning.  Along the way we hooked up with others in various places.  We hit our designation around 7:15 am and by that time the staging area was already packed with event attendees, some who had camped out over night, many in mobile homes and house trailers, others in tents.

The Staging Area of the OK 4x4 Tour 2006 was a busy place as people prepped their rigs for a day on the trails.  The hissing sound of tires airing down was everywhere as vehicles were being prepped for a day on the trails.  Vehicles poured in for the next hour or so and the registration line at the OK trailer was backed up as people signed in and received their event tee shirts and dash plaque that were included as part of the cost for attending the event.  A large plateau-like hilltop serves as Rausch Creek's staging area.  Ok arranged the event with 7 lines extending back from the one end of the staging area.  Vehicles were lined up based on which type of trails the riders wanted to do.  Our group of vehicles were in one of the 7 lines but then broke off into an eighth group, which was great since the line we were in was pretty long.  Although we ended up pulling out last it wasn't much of a wait to get the other groups rolling.