[forenote: I mistakenly submitted this to TT before Todd gently reminded me that Tony Twiddy had just done a writeup on Johnson Valley. My bad.:emb2:]

After 24 hours of calming my friend Jeff Holdstock down from the horror of watching his runaway swb45 spank his neighbor's house bed first, he agreed to transfer his already ready camping gear out of the 45 and into his trusty FJ40, which hadn't been out since SNT last November. We got our small group, which included Trail Crew member John Hoag and longtime cruiser owner Harold Hudson, together at Sunland Coco's 8:30 pm Monday and headed out for parts North. In his haste to make up for lost time, Jeff decided to leave without any doors on his 40. By the time we got to Palmdale,
we already knew that was a bad call.

Having battled headwinds pretty much all the way to Olancha, we decided to forgoany further elevation gain [read COLD] and camped in the dunes. Unfortunately, the wind only got worse, which didn't bode well for the others in the sand. The inclimentweather made me very happy I had chosen the 45, because I faced the truck into the wind and slept in the bed with my head towards the cab. If only my air mattress hadn't decided to start leaking, I would have had a very nice night.

Tuesday morning we topped up in town, chowed down at the local eatery and headed off for Saline. Though it was still very green, some of the colors had toned down from last month. The trip over South Pass was uneventful until we reached the bottom of the canyon, where we came across some county workers whose job is was to try and put the dirt road back together from the washed out mess we had come across back in January [the trip where I buried the 45 in the snow].

[note:Joe Somerville will be very happy to know that those really badly rutted washes that he encountered at high speed in his FJ80 are now all marked by rock cairns, the first of which I still managed to figure out just a little too late!] My alternator started acting up on the way in. Then the voltage regulator started acting up too. When I stopped to investigate, I discovered that I had also developed a pinhole leak in the radiator!
More on that to follow.

The hot springs were a little more crowded than usual, but the upper springs were still very manageable, and we got a good spot pretty close to where we last camped. I was very surprised to find that some of the firewood I had left behind in January was still there! Weather a little too cool and breezy for April, but stopped short of rain or a total blowout, so we really couldn't complain. We pitched camp, had a small campfire complete with guitar and some side-splitting stories from John, and hoped for a better Wednesday.

And boy was it ever! Exactly what the doctor ordered. After the morning constitutional, all vestiges of city life were finally washed away, and the desert calm and the desert pace finally emerged. We actually had to pitch an awning in the afternoon, and all took a rest from our........day of rest! I found a nice piece of weathered oak lumber at a vacant campfire, and decided to add it to my collection for Johnson Valley, which turned out to be a very fortuitous move. If I hadn't committed to meet up with Nolen, Rascal, Mace and the rest at Johnson Valley on Thursday, we could and would have had no trouble staying another day.

Having a spring-fed hot shower out of doors Thursday morning made it even harder to say goodbye, but we left anyways, as soon as I was done trying Jeff's spare voltage regulator out on the 45, which at first seemed to work ok. 5 minutes after we left, all the guages went dead [with a good fuse still in the block] and the alternator went into a nominal discharge mode. I switched back to the old voltage regulator,which was now pegged in full charging mode, turned on the headlights to draw down the charge, and headed out, leaking radiator and all. Half way up the canyon, the charging system returned to normal and stayed that way. YAY!

We topped up again at Olancha and parted company, with Jeff and Harold, who headed off for Red Rock, while John and I did our best to make our way down 395 to Johnson Valley. The inevitable infestation of bugs that was due to follow the desert wonderland proceeded to completely obstruct visibility thru the windshield. I noticed my water temp actually reach 165, which is pretty much unheard of, and attributed it to the headwind. When we next stopped for gas, John came over to inform me that I needed to take a look at my radiator. I should have taken a picture! There were more bees in my radiator than I had ever seen collected in a hive! I had to take a sheet of cardboard to reach behind the grill and scrape them off in masse.

I noticed John looking at the food aisle in the mini-mart of the gas station, and I told him that a righteous Texas BBQ was waiting for us in camp. True to form, ABSOLUTELY as soon as we pulled in, Rugburn walked over, shook my hand and handed me and John each a burrito stuffed with some awesome Texas prime and all the fixins. John decided to camp with the Trail Crew group, while I stayed with Nolen, Rascal,Mace and Rugburn for the evening, which basically consisted of the tail end of Rascal putting his junk back together from macing Wrecking Ball.

It seems that Bruce managed the perfect trifecta of breaking a Longfield, a rear axle shaft and a leaf spring all in one spot! With the two axles back together, Bruce decided to leave the rest of the work for the morning and we set up the chairs for some music. Chris [DHONDAGOD] came over to join us, as we contemplated duct-taping Rugburn's legs together for being the first one asleep at the party. Even with my best renditions of Jethro Tull, I could not avoid the calls for Toploader's legacy! Texas time finally caught up with Nolen and Bruce, so we all packed it in for the night.

Friday, I gave Rascal a few pointers on the fine art of removing stubborn spring pins before Nolen managed to talk Scott from Rockstomper and another FJ40 into running Sledgehammer as a threesome. Kate was in fine form, except for a minor tank venting issue, which we trail fixed. Then we headed down an equally nasty canyon called Jack North. Half way down the canyon, Nolen decided he wanted to shoot some video of his rig, so he told me to drive! My size 13 feet were a little uncomfortable with Nolen's pedal arrangement, but I managed to put in a respectable performance.

The 'little' guy on 37s

Our illustrious [sp] host Scott from Rockstomper:
[YES, that is rear steer!]

When we got back to camp Rascal was ready for Round 2. We had agreed to go out with Dogwalker and watch some filming for a new Pirate video, but we managed to lose him, and ended up running a couple of washes before heading for a smaller set of dunes that Nolen wanted to JUMP! Knowing that the top of my head was [and thankfully still is] basically even with the top of his roll cage, I decided to wait this one out on the sidelines. I honestly don't know why Nolen even bothered saying "I'm only going to do this once!" because not even a politician couldn't possibly change their story that fast! Granted, the first jump was less than worthy, as Nolen freely admitted to a dearth of desert wheeling. The second jump really was the best, but the videocamera was on manual focus, and the scene was blurry. So one jump became three, and the third was the most futile of all because the camera failed to even turn on!

Not only that, but Kate's power steering became non-existant as soon as the truck landed. My first instinct was the steering box, whose sector shaft Nolen swears is just 'work-hardened.' Turns out he dropped the serpentine belt, which in turn dropped because the idler pulley shattered when it hit the frame! :eek: :eek: After returning to camp and venturing into town for a new pulley, we went to install the spare belt only to find that there was only and 1/8" clearance of the belt to the frame rail. Dubious that the rig could have been designed like that, I decided to pry on the passenger side motor mount, which Nolen swore it couldn't be the problem because it was only two weeks old! When the engine lifted half an inch, there was little doubt about the problem; the solution was another story.

Frustrated by his all too recent pilgramage into town, Nolen wanted other options,and I, being the Markiver of the desert was only too happy to oblige. I dug out that nice piece of aged oak I had picked up in Saline, and we proceeded cut a couple of slabs out of it and beat them into the motor mount to hold it up. The first test run proved less than satisfactory, as Nolen's BamBam [think Flinstones] approach to spanking the Back Door trail managed to torque the wood loose. Not to be thwarted in my quest to bootyfab the great Kate, I suggested shorter blocks of wood held in place with, you guessed it, duct tape!

Nolen applying the finishing touches:

Friday night's dinner was equally awesome, with ribs, chicken and all the Shiner you could handle. Woooody, the great BBQ king tried futiley to enlist defectors, but to no avail. We ate more than we should have, again foregoing the campfire because of the all-too-common winds of Johnson Valley, and went to bed on Texas time again. I was restless, and got up again at midnight and wandered over to the Trail Crew's camp, to find that John was still up with my old camerades J.B. and Rob Paisley. Storytelling lasted until about 1:30, at which point I pumped up my now very sorry airmattress one last time, and improvised a bedcover out of my Oz tent rainfly for the incliment weather.

[a brief explanation: the anomalous California rains this year have so saturatedthe ground of the high desert that the heat of the day produces not only a shortterm convection current at sunset, but a very moist nocturnal release from the ground, a desert sweat of sorts. The stormfront that passed thru did not actually rain on us, but kept the dewpoint up]

Saturday morning, the nervous energy of the big day was rampant for everyone but me, since I didn't have to worry about breaking my already broken junk or otherwise falling short of expectations on the trail. We missed the lineup and Mustard Dog came over to round our slackers himself. In typical Pirate fashion, we came late, cut in near the front of the line, ate some serious dust as a consequence, and spanked our trail in short order. Rascal had the benefit of watching Kate find and work out the line and so he made the trail look even easier. By the time we were a third of the way up, we were already so far ahead we had time to reset the bead on Rascal's right front tire without rest of the group catching up. Mace was so bored at how well his junk was running that he ended up taking a really sick line near the top.

Rascal spanking the first waterfall on clawhammer:

We hung around with Mace and Rugburn for a bit waiting for the LV boys to make their way up the canyon, but finally got bored beyond belief and went to hit a couple more trails. We looped around, climbed into the entrance of WreckingBall just long enough for Rascal to have a flashback, then doubled back for a climb up Jack North. Topped out at the mailbox, ran the exit to Sledgehammer, where Kate ran out of gas [literally]. Siphoned a gallon off of Bruce and made our way back to a full-on sandstorm in camp.

I hung around a little longer than I had planned, partially because Dogwalker was in the house, and partially because I knew that unlike last month's pilgrimage to Katemcy, home was only 135 miles away this time! After showing Dogwalker my bootyfab motor mount and helping load his junk with all Mace's unburned firewood, I loaded TP's mangled brushguard and Nolen's mystery carb into my junk and headed for home.

More pics to follow.

Nice story and pics. Someday I'll have to make the trip down.

good write up it look forward to seeing more pictures soon

Thanks for the writup Mark...good times.

Damned glad Twiddy juked you on the Tails article Mark. Can't get enough of your story tell here or on Mud. Was the Toploader music you refered to, Kumbaya??

Mark - great story! It was great to see and hear you again - I really enjoyed the sing-a-long. We really should have taped up Rugburn... :D Also - thanks for the tech - without the torch I really don't think that the sping pin would have acquiesced. You my friend are fun to argue with!

Awsome story! Just the kind of things this board needs from time to time! Perfect!

Damned glad Twiddy juked you on the Tails article Mark. Can't get enough of your story tell here or on Mud. Was the Toploader music you refered to, Kumbaya??

Wadda ya think? :shaking:

Awsome story! Just the kind of things this board needs from time to time! Perfect!

Sooooooo, do you want to tell us ANYTHING about this video, or is it TOP SECRET?

Great story, Mark. Thanks. Did you ever figure out whether your volt reg or alt had a problem? Or just electrical gremlins?

Great story, Mark. Thanks. Did you ever figure out whether your volt reg or alt had a problem? Or just electrical gremlins?

No Walt, I haven't. Hope to get to it by the weekend. Once I added it to the list of things to do to the 45 [along with the rad, the brake hoses, the cab sliders and the lift] the impetus to finish for Moab vanished, so with little time left, I just shifted focus over to the 40.

Jeff seems to think it's a wonky ammeter guage, so I am going to go with that for now.

More pics to follow.

Found the second discette. One of Mace clawing Clawhammer:

This is how you know Mace is BORED!

Rascal's determined to test ALL of his replacement parts :eek:

I think those doughnuts dogwalker spun in rascals rig helped seat everything for saturday....

its a good thing you guys did not pull a hells angels on my sorry jetlagged ass and piss all over me.
there was definately enough beer...

Thanks again for all the great hospitality

OH MAN do I want to get back out to Saline Valley....

Hopefully Nolen can provide a shot of me piloting his junk down Jack North. Hint, hint. :p

Found the second discette. One of Mace clawing Clawhammer:
Was that the exit to claw??

Mark said this stuff just does not excite him.....too bad. Must be hell getting old.

I was shooting video of you driving mark, sorry.

Here is "Air Bruce" once again proving that White men can't jump :D

lol

you are clipping video now I take it??


And dam good writeup Mark :)

lol

you are clipping video now I take it??


And dam good writeup Mark :)

No I took that with my camera.....Jack...

Great pic, Nolen, that last one. Perfect positioning of the Cruiser with the sun reflecting off the bib, the trail snaking its way down the canyon, the canyon sides framed, the flowers in the foreground, the mountain range in the distance, and the shadow edges serving to move the eye throught the shot. Perfect TT cover shot. Todd should be mad.:D

Again, great shot.:)

No TT article on this run.......we just ran an article by Twiddy so all the pics are free game. :D

A few pics from camp

Nolen on the bottom of sledge