Spinnin' Fours 4x4 Club of Southern California

The weather is finally cooling down, so at the last club meeting we planned a weekend club trip to Stoddard Wells October 17/18th. Some of us may go out on Friday and set up camp about 2 miles up Hodge Road which is off the 15 freeway between Victorville and Barstow. The Stoddard Wells OHVA is large and offers some fun trails for everyone-from easy to hard core-and is only 2 hours form the LA area. Let us know who might be coming for either the day or weekend.

I'm going to try to come out for this run, maybe just for the day. Here's the link and the directions to the camping location.....

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31

Directions start from Ontario, Ca. take your best route from that location.

Meet Point For Breakfast: From the I-10/I-15 interchange go north on I-15 to the Cajon Summit/Oak Hill Rd. exit, turn right and on your right-hand side will be the Summit Inn and a Shell gas station, we will be having breakfast there.

Final Destination: From the I-10/I-15 interchange go north on I-15 to Hodge Rd. exit and turn right we will be camping about 1-2 miles next to the open mine on Hodge Rd.

THE SUMMIT INN

FIVE DAY FORECAST FOR STODDARD VALLEY

STODDARD VALLEY

Need to know who's coming either for the day or camping -if we don't get enough interest or response we'll reschedule the run for a later date....

I won't be there, so don't count me in.

I'll be ging out for the day Saturday and we'll meet at The Summit around 8AM...

I'll meet you on Saturday at the Summit Inn. I'm looking forward to trying out my new Jeep.

Scott and I are heading out in the morning and are intending to meet up at the summit inn @ 8am if plans change call me on my cell 213 798 8083.

that is if anyone going reads this ?

Trip report: Scott Nissley arrived at The Summit Cafe driving my old Bronco (not to be confused with 'Freds old Toyota') with his brother Pat, who was driving his full size Chev. Blazer (which I believe belonged to Phil Cooper at one time?). Bill Hardin came driving his new '07 Rubicon with a 2 inch lift, 35 inch tires, 5:13 gears, winch, and new front and rear rock bumpers, etc., and was anxious to see how it would handle off-road. I thought the trail that crawls up a rocky wash in a canyon in the Northern hills of Stoddard would be fun and a good test for Bills Rubicon. I believe the trail is called Empire Stikes Back ? Our club has run this trail in the past, and I recalled it had some challenging rocky areas plus a steep and loose climb out of the canyon to the top of a ridge.

We arrived at the trailhead and dropped down into the rocky wash, which became more challenging as we crawled up the canyon. about 3/4ths up the canyon Bill and Pat decided to take the bypass out of the wash, and they would drop back down to the valley and circle around and meet Scott and myself on the other side of the canyon. Scott was struggling up the loose climb towards the ridge, and discovered his front air locker was not working, so I strapped him up the last 25 yards to the top. The trail dropped down steeply on the other side of the ridge, and about 1/2 way down Scott struck a sharp rock and cut about a 4 inch gash on his front left sidewall. He managed to limp a few more yards to a relatively flat area and put on his spare-the cut tire was trashed....
I made radio contact with Bill and Pat, and from our location on the other side of the ridge we could see them down on the valley below. While Scott was changing his tire I discovered a new rocky wash trail near us that was much like the one we just ran, but somewhat shorter-we may want to return sometime and give it a try -reminded me of portions of Sledge Hammer trail!
We aired up at the Outlet Center off the freeway and headed for home about 2:30-Damage: Scott lost a tire (one of the original 35s that I bought and installed on my old Bronco maybe 12 years ago!) and some rocks caressed some sheet metal on the passenger side of Pats truck while climbing up the wash , but we all had a great time!