12-26-12

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We took a ride today.
We all met at the Shell station in the middle of town at 10:00.
There were four jeeps in the group. Junior was the leader although his son Michelle did all the driving. Dennis and Cheryl were in their white jeep. Tom and Lillie in there blue jeep, and a friend of Juniors, Andres, rode with me.

From there we drove south to the first BLM campground where we headed southeast toward the mountains. We drove across the flats
on the narrow trail until we came to the trail to Dripping Springs.
We drove up the wash and played on the dry waterfalls for a while.

Denis (Junior) managed to get his jeep up on the rock. 

We stopped at Dripping Springs for lunch.

After lunch we continued up the trail over the hills and past the mailbox cabin (Apache chief B&B) and up the north side of the Hog Back trail. Going up the north side of the trail is kind of rough but the new lockers on my Jeep made it easy. There are two ways to go on the south side of the hog back trail; there is the ‘easy way’ and the ‘other way’. Last year we drove up and down the ‘other way’. There are several spots where the trail is boulder strewn. There are a couple places where the trail is steep with soft dirt and round rock. I had to be towed over that one on the way up last year.  This time we were going down so it was just a matter of putting the jeep in first gear and rolling down the hill.

Michelle used a little to much brake and slid off the trail a bit at the bottom.

From there the trail got real bumpy with lots of boulders in the way. I heard a lot of metal on rock contact.
We had one more challenge, a steep hill like the one we came down but not quite as long. I tried to take it easy going up the hill but close to the top I lost traction. I had to back the jeep down the hill and try it again. This time I got a run at the hill and went over it with no problem. Every one else made it just fine.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We came out at the second BLM campground.

Patti went to Parker with Debbie but said that she over did it and was feeling poorly when I got home.

Tomorrow the group is taking another ride to the mountains north of Salome.