This weekend Donna and I went to Camp Jeep. This is a gathering of Jeep vehicle owners in the Santa Ynez mountains for three days of 4×4 trail rides, events, exhibits, concerts and more. We had a fabulous time.
Here we are getting ready for our first trail ride (trail E) on Thursday morning. It was the “Scenic” trail. It wasn’t actually that scenic due to the fog.
This Cherokee was in the aisle next to ours. He had 9 antennas on his jeep!
This is the whole group of jeeps that first morning at 7:00 AM.
Coming out of the fog.
Donna and Nanette from our L.O.S.T. KJ West club.
After the trail ride, we went back to the Camp Jeep compound, and looked at lots of the booths and things. Here Donna is in a brand new 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the 5.7L Hemi engine and stability control. We got to test drive them on an airport runway nearby. You could do a full stop from speed and slalom course through water to try to make it slide out. It didn’t! Amazing stability control!
This is the Jeep 101 course. They have a small man-made off-road course that you drive their vehicles over. If you notice on the side of this picture all the air dams that have been removed from the Grand Cherokees! Whats up with that?
Donna in the Jeep Liberty on the Jeep 101 course. Over the course of the event we tried all the jeep models on Jeep 101.
Next stop was the Jeep Rubicon course. Here you can only drive Jeep Wrangler Rubicons over a bit more difficult course. I got a manual transmission model and Donna chose an automatic. The Wrangler is a much different vehicle than the Liberty that’s for sure. Much harsher and not as easy to drive.
That evening we had dinner at Mother Hubbard’s Restaurant with the rest of the LOST KJ West club that was there. Pretty good food.
Clint, the president of our club, had his birthday while at Camp Jeep. Many members of the club got together and purchased a
navigation system for Clint’s jeep for his birthday present. So, while we were at dinner someone installed it in his jeep. Here is Clint reading the card on the back of his Jeep that says to go and check channel 25 for a message.
He went into his jeep and after a little prodding, noticed with great surprise his new present!
He is a very happy birthday boy!
Here is our campsite at the Flying Flags RV Park.
Back at Camp Jeep on Friday. This is a very nice Jeep Liberty that they had at the front gate area. This morning we also went on an ocean kayaking trip that we didn’t take the camera along on due to the water. We did have a fun time and I intentionally dumped one of the instructors in the water since she never got wet.
This is one of the concept cars that they had on display. It is called the Jeep Rescue. I really like this one and think it would be a real “Hummer Killer” if jeep ever put it out.
I liked this one too it is a jeepster style. The roof comes off.
This mountain rescue Liberty had really big tires (35″) but you could tell that it was just for show. If they hit any bumps with those tires they would just hit the fenders.
They also had a motorcycle jumping show at camp jeep. Very fun!
Friday night, they had a concert for all the attendees. We brought out our chairs and had free dinner too. (They gave us a free $5 coupon for food and a free Sobe drink).
One of the artists was Tyler Hilton.
The headliners for the Friday night concert was Los Lobos. They were great!
On Saturday morning, we went on Trail Ride C. This was the intermediate trail. There were many more Jeeps on this trail than on the one on Thursday. Still foggy though.
On part of the trail is a section of switchbacks. They go through very fine talcum powder like sand. A lot of the guys ahead of us were just bombing through it fast like this guy. This causes the ruts to get even deeper.
This Cherokee was driven by a fairly inexperienced driver. She had the wheel cranked to the left and it was just pushing the tire along the rut, and when it finally caught hold, she drove up the uphill bank and rolled the cherokee on its side.
Fortunately no one was hurt. Just a little bruised ego. That’s me standing on the drive shaft helping them out of the jeep.
The news went out on the radio first that it was a Liberty, but no, it was a Cherokee!
A trail guide came by in a wrangler with Clint’s daughter, Shawna, to help with the roll-over. Alex came to help in his Liberty. Here he is attempting to climb a hill that eventually broke his jeep. They think he broke his front differential or the transfer case here. Anyway, his Liberty is just 2wd now.
They pulled the Cherokee back over by tying a strap around the rock-rails and then to another strap which was in turn hooked up to the wrangler.
The talcum powder-like sand prevented damage to the paint, but the side was dented pretty good. The blood-like stuff is transmission fluid. The passenger window broke, too.
The roll also pushed the tire off the rim. We put on the spare tire and then they backed it down the hill.
We turned around and bypassed the switchbacks and completed the rest of our trail ride. Here we went down this steep hill. You have to make sure your wheels are spinning so you don’t skid and slide.
Back at Camp Jeep we visited the Warren Miller Experience. Warren Miller makes awesome ski films each year. We got to preview segments that are going to be in the 2004 film. This is Jessica Sobolowski and Jenn Berg, they were athletes in the film.
They also had a cool zip line at the main Camp Jeep compound. Here we are at the bottom. You have to climb up this net to get to the top.
Then you walk across this wire to get to the main platform.
And finally you zip on down!
The first band on Saturday was the Rosenbergs,
followed by the So and So’s.
The audience on Saturday was bigger than the day before.
Mr North was an irish band from Dublin. They were pretty good.
The headliner was LIVE
Here we are at the Camp Jeep Globe at the end of the day.
These are all the goodies we were given at Camp Jeep. Click the picture for a full size version. Look at all that swag!
This is all the stuff we purchased while there. Our favorite is the new Sirius Satellite Radio! (Click for full size)
A fun weekend like that makes for a very dirty jeep!