MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

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tobyw
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MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Sun Aug 07, 2016 4:01 pm

Mile Hi Jeep Club's 50th annual All-4-Fun event was held July 30-August 6, 2016 in Empire, Colorado. I've been attending this annual shin-dig since 1979... Full write-up to follow, but I'll leave these here for now:

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OldGreen
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby OldGreen » Sun Aug 07, 2016 8:51 pm

Who's the fat kid and what's he holding?

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby SPR » Mon Aug 08, 2016 8:19 pm

Many of us are bombarded with acronyms which often can be confusing and don't help the reader unless used multiple times in a document. Please say what you mean and mean what you say... Does that make sense? It's ok if doesn't.
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby Lurch » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:43 am

Looks like a good time. I look foward to hearing more and seeing more pics.
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby OldGreen » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:00 pm

SPR wrote:Many of us are bombarded with acronyms which often can be confusing and don't help the reader unless used multiple times in a document. Please say what you mean and mean what you say... Does that make sense? It's ok if doesn't.


First sentence of the first post....

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 09, 2016 5:08 pm

MHJC

Mile
Hi
Jeep
Club

Say it with me now... Mile Hi Jeep Club.

This is at least the 4th or 5th one of these I've posted over the years. Are you paying attention? It's OK if you're not.
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby TJDave » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:35 pm

OldGreen wrote:Who's the fat kid and what's he holding?


Is that your spring? Mmmm. Flexy! :shock:
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby OldGreen » Sat Aug 13, 2016 11:00 am

I will deposit a few videos here. There are more still on the Gopro for later.


Toby a few seconds later.


Now the Wall at Spring Creek



And the breathtaking decent from Red Cone


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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby Yrjan » Sat Aug 13, 2016 12:27 pm

"Coming down from red cone" the last video posted looks amazing! the view is breathtaking! I am so jealous!

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby OldGreen » Sat Aug 13, 2016 12:42 pm

It sucks that I accidentally erased the video coming up Red Cone. It is truly amazing. The overall scenery factor is off the charts. The wheeling is great as well but no so much that I had a concern of tearing stuff up too bad to drive home.

I think it would be really fun to take five or six rigs and run these trails expedition style.

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:44 am

I won’t go into the rich history behind this family-oriented event, but instead focus on this years’ experience. If you are interested, the Mile Hi Jeep Club website has plenty of info on the event through the years: http://www.MHJC.org

This year my family unit was already in Denver, so it was up to me and the trusty wonder mutt to drive solo to Colorado, retrieve said familial unit, and get to base camp in Empire, CO for the first day of trail runs on Sunday, July 31st 2016. After a rushed couple evenings of prep after work, the motorhome and LJ were loaded up, washed up, and ready to hit the road:

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We launched around 8:30pm on Wednesday night, letting the sun dip behind the horizon and cool off a few degrees. I drove until about 1:30am, making it to the East side of Boise, and filled up with fuel and found a quite parking lot to catch a couple hours of shut eye. Only slightly later Thursday morning, I was East bound and down watching the sun come up somewhere near Mountain Home, ID:

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From there it was just a hop, skip, a jump to the Utah border:

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Some interesting rock formations as you roll East out of the back side of Ogden, UT toward Wyoming:

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If you have ever had the pleasure of driving I-80 across Wyoming, then you are undoubtedly familiar with the gentle breezes that the area is known for. I took a break at Little America for ice cream, and to let my forearms and biceps recover from sawing the steering wheel back and forth to combat those gentle breezes:

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Central Wyoming also has some pretty cool rock features:

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As the sun was setting Thursday evening, I had finally made the Colorado border on a beautiful stretch of lonely two lane highway (my apologies for the blurry pic, the conditions were not ideal):

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I pulled over for the night sometime well after dark, on a random Forest Access road. When I woke up and headed out Friday morning, I quickly realized I had just spent the night quite literally on the Continental Divide:

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The drive down toward Granby, CO in the wee morning hours was stunning:

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Colorado, surprise surprise, is also chalk full of cool rock formations:

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Just outside of Granby, there was a hot air balloon rally about to start:

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And finally, sometime before lunch on Friday I arrived at the destination for the week, Empire, Colorado:

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Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:46 am

Trail Day 1: Miner’s Gulch

Miner’s Gulch is a nice scenic trail through some typically beautiful Colorado high country. There were no obstacles of particular interest, it’s really just about being there. We did run past a few old structures and burial plots that were neat to look at, most of which having been there since the late 1800’s. The day started off bright and sunny, and ended with a rain shower that is pretty common in the mountains this time of year. Here are a few shots from the trip:

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Trail Day 2: Wheeler Lake

Wheeler Lake is a fantastic little trial just outside the bustling community of Breckenridge. There are a couple of fun obstacles, and a lot of cobbled rock similar to what you find on the Manastash side of the Naches area trails, albeit with much more impressive scenery. Still, it wears you down after a couple of hours. At any rate, the views are well worth the trip and watching some of the newbs on the obstacles was also a good time:

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On the trip back down, Jim and I hung back from the group to play around a bit more on one of the rock outcroppings. Unfortunately, Jim found the flex available in the rear of his LJ outmeasured the spring retainers, and his passenger-rear coil popped out:

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A couple tries to flex it out again to get the spring back into place were unsuccessful, so we enlisted the help of the bottle jack to force some articulation and got the spring back home in no time:

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Back at the bottom of the trail, I peeked my head into the abandoned mill to see some of the equipment still remaining:

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The long day took its toll on the female minion:

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Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:47 am

Trail Day 3: Red Cone

Red Cone is another one of those uniquely Colorado trails. There is simply nothing else like it anywhere in the United States. Again the trail is not difficult per se’, but the views (and elevation) are simply breathtaking.

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Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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tobyw
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:49 am

Day 4: Vendor Day

Wednesday is always vendor day, show-n-shine, and kids’ games day at All-4-Fun. This year neither of the minions wanted to partake in the kids’ games, even though they had human bowling!!!

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Regardless, we walked around the various vendor booths and around camp to take it all in:

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After seeing everything we could see around camp, we hopped in the Jeep and went to a nearby mine for a tour:

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The day was capped off back at camp with, and I’m not kidding here, performing pigs. Apparently this act is world famous, having even appeared on America’s Got Talent. It was very entertaining to say the least:

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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:50 am

Trail Day 5: Spring Creek

Spring Creek is rated 8/10, and was the second most difficult trail on the menu this year. The most difficult trail, Sidewinder, was 65+ miles from camp and described as an 8-mile long trail that for 7-1/4 miles was passable in a stock 4wd. That last ¾ mile, however, was essentially buggy only territory… Needless to say, based on the distance from camp alone, we chose to leave it off our docket. Anyhow, we have run Spring Creek before and it’s a nice little trail with one rock face that, for some reason, gives many people cause for pause, and the rest of the trail is just regular old rough and rocky Colorado trail. Again, it was a good time just to watch those with a profound lack of talent have a go at the obstacles. I believe there were 4 out of our 11 rigs that cleared the rock face without winch assistance, with Jim and I on our lowly 35’s and the other two successful rigs on 40’s:

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We ended the day back in Empire for ice cream:

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Thursday night was Warn Night, with a delicious meal and a live band performing on stage in the midst of a few give-aways provided by, of course, Warn. Sadly, no one in our group walked away with a new winch this year, but the evening was a lot of fun regardless.
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby tobyw » Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:51 am

Trail Day 6: Bill Moore Lake

Being the last trail day, we wanted to make it as short as possible to ensure we got back to camp at a reasonable time in order to start breaking camp and preparing for the trip home. Plus, Friday night is door prize night, where many thousands of dollars’ worth of vendor items are given away to the registered participants. And you must be present to win. Needless to say, getting back to camp Friday night is a big deal. So we chose Bill Moore Lake because the trail head is about 1.8 miles from camp, and it’s only a 3-4 hour run, meaning we were back in camp in plenty of time to do what we needed to, even if it was absolutely pouring rain:

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On the way up, Jim managed to find the extension limit on the other side of his LJ, this time popping out the driver-rear spring:

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The weather up top made the lake sort of earie to look at:

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Back at camp, door prize night went smoothly, with my old man winning a very nice set of LED headlights, Jim winning a gift bag with a few vendor tidbits, and me winning a set of Mountain Off Road Enterprises “Bombproof” motor mounts with an integrated 1” motor mount lift. Things wound down around 10:00pm Friday night, and we said our goodbyes and rolled out of camp in the pouring rain to try and get a few miles under our belt and avoid the traffic headaches of everyone leaving camp early Saturday morning.

The road trip home was uneventful, so I passed the time with a few scenery shots:

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We made it home fairly early in the day on Sunday, August 7th. Rumor has it the 51st annual All-4-Fun event will be held near Leadville, Colorado next summer, and we are already making preliminary plans 8-)
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Re: MHJC 2016 All-4-Fun

Postby OldGreen » Tue Aug 16, 2016 1:23 pm

My $.02:

Nice report Toby!

We rolled out on Thursday morning. I was in the LJ following Lori and Jess in Jess' new to her Mini Cooper. We arrived in Ogden just in time for IN N Out burger and a good night's sleep before heading off through Wyoming. In Rock Springs, we had lunch at a place we Yelped. . .Broadway Burgers. This joint was worth the trip by itself.

Onward to Empire and, ultimately, Idaho Springs via Winter Park on Friday night.

We did Air BnB for the closest house we could find to the event grounds. . .9 minutes by freeway. 15 minutes by frontage road.

I put up some videos earlier but there may be a fewX more coming.

Day 1: Miner's Gulch.

Jess drove most of the trail. At some point, the number of rigs in the rearview mirror started getting light. We determined that some of the corporate sponsor types could drive very well. *snicker*. Here is Jess cleaning the section that caused them so much angst.



There were some "obstacles" on the trail. One Jeeper was heard saying, "I thought you said this trail was rated a 5? Yeah, maybe plus 4!" Toby was kind in his description of the less seasoned drivers. They provided MUCH of the entertainment over the course of the week.

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipO ... jeda6C9I8g


Day 2: Wheeler Lake

This trail started out with a beautiful drive. . .the Obstacles on the trail were called "Flopper" and "Wedgie". Here's a link to my Album. Google is being "interesting" so let me know if they don't show up:
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipM ... dK4mgUJkhy

Day 3: Red Cone

WOW. I have had my breath taken away a few times but this trail was amazing. See my video in a post above. The last 1/2 mile to the top was amazing. Loosish hill climb with drop offs of more than 1000' on both sides. Pucker Ridge no longer has any Pucker Factor.

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipO ... c7nHIBe9Oc


Vendor Day: Bring money. Good deals everywhere. . .See Toby's pics.

Day 5: Spring Creek.

Not much for scenery but the wheelin' was good! This trail, along with Wheeler Lake are "must do" bucket list kind of shiz. In the group, there was a busted front driveline and a tire that was relieved of all of its PSIs. . .permanently. Other than that, the "Wall", the "Hard Left" and the "Rock Garden" were fun places to play. No issues . There is a video above

Day 6: Bill Moore Lake.
Final Day of the trip. I didn't touch the steering wheel all day. Jess drove the whole trail beginning to end and did a bang up job. We did manage to pop another spring out (guess I need bumpstops and retainers. . .who would thunk it?).

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipM ... KkKJwbtynt

From there we attended the festivities and spent one more night in our rental house before heading down the hill to Golden to help Jess move into her new pad. Saturday was spent assembling 400 pieces of IKEA furnature followed by an epic and bank account draining shopping trip on Sunday. After a supper of shrimp tacos at Wahoo's, we bid a tearful farewell to our first born, loaded up the LJ, put the auto pilot on "West", turned up the AC and headed for home. . .via In N Out.


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