Tellico - Murphy NC

( 5\18\2002)

 Boy are the trails going to be interesting. got rolling at 9am from the hotel to the trail system. there was me and the wife in a cj5.5,john barclay and ben pipenbring in a cj7,alan warren cj7,joe harper and his brother in cj8,kyle murray and his friend in a tj,jeff shearer in a cj5. got paided up and aired down.we waited for george waldrop to show, but he never did. the FS built a new bathroom at the paystation. nice to see my 5 bucks at work. we decided to try and run trails lower and upper 2. got to lower 2 and the rocks were big and wet. there was actually a stream of water running down the middle of the trail from all the water run off from last nights storm.we got to lower 2 just in time because there was only 4 rigs in front of us on the trail already, and a whole bunch of landcruisers just pulled in behind our group. our group made decent progress thru the lower section, but everybody had to pull cable to get past the last big obsticle. i think alan was the only one that suffered any damage. he broke his driver side axleshaft u joint and the passenger side mirror.my new buggy spring set up worked too well, and the flex pulled down my passenger side front shock mount.we ate some lunch and let kyle's tj cool down.on to upper 2. the whole group made it thru without any real problems. pulled cable on the rigs that had open diffs when they got stuck.boy was it COLD up there though, and the wind was blowing hard.it was only 5:30pm when we finished so we decided to do some easy stuff and went back into the trail system up trail 5 and out on trail 4.we wrapped up around 7:30 and headed out. ran into kyle barth and his girlfriend in his landcruiser on the way out.we never did run into george and i was worried because he was supposed to lead our group up little buffaloe trail tomorrow. well george dropped by the hotel later that night to let me know we were still on and we would meeting him at 10:00am in the Ingles parking lot in robbinsville. i was awoke sunday morning by kyle barth knocking at my hotel door.he broke a centering pin in his rear right leaf pack on his cruiser while in tellico last night.did a fix in the parking lot, but it made us alittle late leaving and we didnt get into robbinsville until 10:20. I didn't see george and was hoping he hadn't left without us. there was a cj7 in the lot with acouple of dudes in it i didnt recognize. well, turns out george was already on the trail and sent them to get us. alan warren didn't get a chance to fix his broke axle shaft ujoint, so he parks the cj and rides with somebody.we head out and meet george and his wife at around 11:00.george had his new tubular rock buggy with him he just finished building.as we are airing down i see my shock tower that got bent yesterday and i straightened is now bent again. i just unbolt the whole thing and run without a right front shock.we start up the buffaloe trail and its just plain NASTY! the rocks have grown and grab everything under neath your vehicle.and of course the rocks are right in the middle of the trail and with trees on both sides you cant go around. the soil was loose and wet and traction was tough to get.we get to the first major obsticle and it has grown two fold since last october. a monster rock ledge, then a smaller one, then a two foot tree root to get around all at once.half the group tries it, and we all have to pull cable. the other half with open diffs take the bypass. we get alittle further up the trail then the buffaloe god takes its revenge and starts breaking our rigs.i get high centered and trying to back off the rock leads me to hit a tree breaking off my cb antenna and bending my spare tire carrier. john barclay snaps his steering box brace, kyle murray breaks his winch cable, kyle barth breaks his drivers side barfield axle joint. we try to fix our stuff the best we can. its now 3pm and we are only half way up the trail. we decide its best to turn around and call it a day since we still have to drive back home.get the jeeps loaded, eat dinner, and head out of robbinsville at 6:15pm. get to charlotte at 11pm. what a weekend.

Hello, Meet John - hobbies include moving bolders with front diff and playing in the mud. Yet he does it very well.

Who put these bolders here?

Making are way through Robinsville.

Tom doesn't know it yet but it's about to hit the fan!

A little airing up when done on the trail.