Wheelin’ in Big Bear

At the Fire Station

Waiting on the trail for everyone to air down

Our group of Liberty’s

Donna and I went on the Second Annual Big Bear Run this weekend with the LOST KJ West 4WD Club. It was a blast! This was our first organized off-road trip. I had driven off-road with my 4×4’s in the past, but never with an organized group, and Donna had never been four wheeling before at all.

Most of the people on the trip camped Friday and Saturday nights and made a whole weekend out of it, but we just went for the day on Saturday since we had other commitments. We got up at 5:00 AM, left the house at 6, and made it up to Fawnskin at Big Bear Lake by 8:10 AM. We met up with everyone across the street from the fire station in Fawnskin and waited for everyone to show up. It turned out we had 26 Jeep Liberty’s (KJ’s), and 10 other vehicles. The others were mostly Jeep Wranglers, but also a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Jeep Scrambler (a longer wheelbase version of the Wrangler). Our liberty was the only one that was completely stock. Everyone else had lift kits and most had skid plates too.

After 9 AM, we all headed out together and did a sponsored trail that was maintained by the Ridges and Gully’s club. When we arrived at the trail those that hadn’t already aired-down their tires did so. We had already aired our tires down to 20 psi. You do this to increase the traction on the rocks, and smooth the ride. It makes the contact patch of the tire larger and makes the tire more flexible.

Once we got down the trail it opened out into a big sandy wash area. There were lots of motorcycles there running around. We all parked on a hill for a group jeep shot. Then we went up Jacob’s canyon trail to a crossroads near gold mountain. Here the group split up into three. Our smaller group was the new/unlifted group, we were headed to 3N16 and 3N08. The other two went up Gold Mountain and down Holcomb Creek.

Whoa!

As we went down the 3N16 and 3N08 trails, it got pretty bumpy and there were lots of rocks. Since we had no skid plates on the underside of our KJ, I had to drive so that no rocks would hit the bottom of the car. In general you do this by driving with your tires going over the big rocks, that way it lifts up the middle of the car so they don’t hit it. Sometimes the ditches and bumps were so big that it lifted a wheel or two off the ground as you can see in some of these pictures. It can get a bit scary as it is tipping, but it is really fun! I did all the driving today since it was Donna’s first time four wheeling ever. But she wants to do some of the driving next time! Though that will be after we get skid plates and a lift kit on the jeep.

Kirk, Donna, & Don at the Pigmy Cabin

Don crossing Holcomb Creek

Butler Peak Fire Lookout

Hazy view from the top

Hummingbird

Donna likes four wheeling!

After a while we stopped at a site that had a “pigmy cabin”. I don’t think there were real pigmy’s living there, its just that the cabin site was quite small. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs for a while and take a walk to the cabin.

After lunch we went down the Holcomb Creek trail for about a mile until we got to the major creek crossing. Don, the leader of our little group went across it and up the other side for a ways and then came back. A few other jeeps tried it, but we didn’t Don said it would be too hard and most people need locking differentials to do it.

After that we headed up Butler Peak to the fire lookout at the top. This is a really neat little place. The look out is a 12’x12′ wooden cab built in 1936 at the top of 8535 foot Butler Peak. We got there at around 4:10 PM and fortunately they would still be open until 5:00 PM. The view is pretty good, but it was very hazy today, so you can’t see very far. They say that on clear days they can see Catalina and the ships in the ocean! When we visited them the people there were also participating in a HAM radio contest this weekend. It was an unusual contest in that they were using VHF and above frequencies to go long distance. Normally this isn’t possible since VHF is just line of site. Usually the atmosphere does not reflect the radio waves. However, in this area they were experiencing lots of tropospheric ducting, and this allowed them to communicate long distances with VHF. They had already made contact with people all the way in South Carolina from here in Southern California! We walked around the look out and also took a picture of a hummingbird feeding there.

The whole crowd at the BBQ

Mike cookin’ it up!

That was pretty much the end of our wheeling for the day. We had originally planned to head home at this point, but we were having so much fun that we decided to stay and go to the BBQ that everyone else was going to at Mike’s cabin in Big Bear. So we drove back into Big Bear, filled up with gas. Then we went to Von’s and Donna got some meat for the BBQ while reinflated the tires. The BBQ was great! There were tons of people there and even more food! Everyone was very nice and would come up and ask us if we were the couple that had gone around the world. They had a raffle for some jeep stuff and we bought two tickets. We won a CD with the Jeep Liberty service manual on it, and a isolator for a high lift jack. We don’t have a high lift jack, ….yet. Then after the raffle they took me aside and said that they had another item for the raffle that they were planning to raffle off, but they figured that there was only one vehicle here that needed it. Ours. So they gave it to us! It was a lift kit for our jeep! Then they said they would arrange to have it installed too! Wow! Thanks Guys! We had a great time and will definitely come back for more. While we were there we signed up to volunteer for the upcoming Camp Jeep event too. Thanks for a great trip Lost KJ West!