Calico Clean Up Event Report

[1 Bad F N Z]

What a great event, so good to see my friends at MJR there. Wished I could of spent more time with you all, but Mom and I were staying busy, trying to be of help. My R/A kicked in after all the bending over picking up trash, filled the box trailer, and called it quits. Max, Sarah, Rick Kurt, Mitch and all the rest great to see you again. Highlight for Mom and I was Max let me hold his beautiful daughter, even after I tried to catch the pizza on fire in the motorhome. They should have a safty label telling you to remove the cardboard, before putting pizza in oven.I know the old Cruiser scored 2000 on the ramp, as I was siting in my lawnchair enjoying my Rum and coke. See you all on the 31St, Kevin.

[RAT]

More pics

Doug (fishpoet) led us on a run to find the Saint Louis mine on Sunday morning. We had tried on Friday, late in afternoon, but it got dark and I was trying to drive into mine shafts for some unknown reason, so we went home for the night. Sunday we had the same luck, or lack of it and didn't find the mine, but we found some geocaches, some pretty cool mines, and a very cool little down hill obstacle coming back from Calico Overlook. It took some rigging, some nerve and some patience but everyone got down without incident.


















Fun little place to come down into WallStreet Overlook.
The rest of the pics of the weekend are here:
http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...2008/?start=80

[Schmo]

What a great weekend!!! Sure was great seeing everybody again and having a chance to meet some new faces as well. The night run was probably the highlight for me, yet getting winched down that hill (thanks agian, Black ZJ) was most memorable! It was really cool to spend some time with those responsible for setting up MJR . . . you guys Rock! Thank you for all the hard work you've put in to put this site together and bring such a great group of people together. I look forward to seeing you all on the trail again soon!

[NAILER341]

that sure was a great time. it was nice to meet those of you i had never met before, and to see those of you that i haven't seen for too long.
it was fun hunting down trash to pick up, but i have to tell you, i was surprised how little there was in our area.

i guess that is a good thing.
it seemed the dumpsters were a lot less full than last year as well. i hope that is due to less trash in the desert and not less organization.

either way, it was a good time out there doing our civic duty.

the night runs were fun, and the sunday morning run was a good time as well. sorry i had to bail on you guys sunday morning, but i had to make it back for a birthday party.

i hope you all made it through the trail unscathed

[KINGSIZE]

It was nice to meet a few new people and see some old friends.

Sorry I had to cut off from the group at the end of the day due to a nice large crack in the radiator. 210k miles on the factory radiator....yeah i think its time for a new one

robert@genright.com

[USMC 0369]

Barb and I had a GREAT time out there. Barb was amazed that the Valdez actually made it there and back in one piece. Well, except that dip stick problem. It was really good seeing friends, getting advice, getting out on the trail and doing some good for the Mojave.

I'd be interested if some numbers came available on total amounts of trash collected. I'm hoping that the reduced amount of trash we saw was due to people understanding more about carry-in/carry-out. Education seems to be working? Can we hope?

I was really wishing we could have made camp after the clean-up and stuck around for the fireside fun & maybe a run or two. We got home at around 9pm as it were and I was again, a little frost-bit. Apparently the Valdez actually got up to around 80mph on the way home!

Barb took a few pictures, here are some of them. I put the 'scenery' pictures in a photography thread.

[CENTER]First place we stopped.






The Glass Hillside




















And finally; Giving Chris a couple of good chuckles.
[/CENTER]

[Mr. Orange]

Fantastic Birthday Weekend....

That was the best time I've had in long time.....

It was my first time in that area ever, and to top it off, my first night run. Come to think of it, don't know why I never wanted to do it before, but I will definitely be looking forward to them now.
It was good to finally put most of the faces to the forum names, and to see some familiar ones again.

Thanks to all who made the runs safe and fun.
Special thanks to Doug for winching us all (almost all) down the last 'little' hill...


Sorry if I was acting weird on this trip or lagging behind, it's our first pregnancy, so I was going extra slow....the bumpiness was obviously not the best feeling for her....
Bonus points for my wife not only going and camping out, but for supporting me on the night run.
Ivana said she thought she was having more fun than me by merely walking next me on the night run....:thumbs_up

We are working on the photos now, and will post some in a few....

Thanks again for making our first experience out there a blast!!!!

[rickashay]

Once again a great time with MJR. Fourth trip with all of you and it gets better with every run. M&G Cleghorn,Last Chance,Nightmare Gulch,and now this... Nice seeing everyone I've met before and meeting others for the first time. Looking forward to the next one.

[dirtman13]

What a great weekend. We had a blast. We did everything from easy Geocache searches to winching Jeeps down steep descents. It was nice to see some of you again and to meet some new folks. We ended up staying one more night, got home this morning and I’m beat. That was defiantly one of the best trips we have had in the Jeep. I think my GPS memory almost maxed out with all the tracks and waypoints.
The weekend started with a run up Odessa Canyon.



At the end some chose the difficult route. For the record the strap on the front of these Jeeps was for safety only and was not used to pull them up. Nice driven guys.



After Odessa we made our way to Bismarck mines. We spent some time exploring the mines including a trip through one mine that took us about 1/8 of a mile under ground to the other side of the hill. That was awesome.


After a pretty cold night in the canyon we made our way to Mule canyon to meet up with the MJR group.

On the way to the clean up area we had a little problem but were back on the trail in no time.

Some pics of the clean up.


We ended up in area that had a little glass to clean up.




Finished the day with a night run through Odessa and some Geocaching.

Sunday a few of us went on a nice little adventure looking for the St. Louis Mine. This was a great trip that took us through Doran Canyon and more imporantly around Gatekeeper. Thanks Doug.



On the way up the canyon Kurt got brave and let my son Cody drive. Thanks Kurt, now he wants his own Jeep.


As we reached the top I had a little trouble with a rock. Ironic because another rock fixed it.


Once we reach the top we headed for another Geocache and a spectacular view of Calico.

On the way back to camp we came across a nice challenging down hill that required a little winching.




I took a ton a pics and most can be seen here

[FishPOET]

I made arrangements for someone to watch the shop on Friday and after talking to Rat Patrol, Tracy and I decided to head out Thursday night after work and meet Kurt in camp. I got home at 6pm and loaded up the Pearl while Tracy was loading up the camper. We hit the road just before 8pm and we were in camp just before 10pm. We offloaded the Pearl, leveled the camper and called it a night.

Friday morning saw MJR starting to arrive around 9am. We had a total of 8 families in camp by noon. At 2pm we took our first trail ride up Odessa.

Stuck on Odessa


Navigating the narrow shelf road




Climbing the narrow shelf road!






We stopped at Bismark at 4pm and a few of us headed off in search of St Louis Mine. We never found it and gave up the search after Kurt almost backed into an open mine shaft. We re-grouped at Bismark and headed down Phillips Loop and back to camp. We sat around the campfire sharing stories well into the night.

Saturday morning and afternoon were spent cleaning up. There was a night run on Saturday. Another campfire with more tall tales.

Camp on Saturday


Sunday found us back on the trail again at 10am. We headed up Doran via the bypass.



















After a short stop at Bismark we headed off looking for St. Louis Mine again. After a couple of wrong turns we found the right road and the remnants of a couple of old mines. Onward and upward we climbed to the top of the peak southwest of the Calico sign.



Back down we went and found a shortcut back to Wall Street Canyon. Back to Bismark Mine, over to Sweetwater and down Phillips Loop and across back to camp just after 4pm. Tracy and I packed up and said our goodbyes. We got home at 8pm.

The weather was great all weekend and the MJR fellowship was fabulous. We are already looking forward to the next trip.

[Shadly1]

Hey, I wanted to thank you guys for a fun weekend. I've never done anything that hairy before. It was a great test for my new springs. I would have never attempted some of that stuff if it wasn't for all of you. My only damage was an alternator, a motor mount, and a couple of dents in the gas tank skid. Not too shabby considering how hard I was on it. I look forward to some more events. Here's some pics...



























I've got some videos too but they'll need to be vidcapped, edited and hosted somewhere. May take some time.

[Desert Jewel]

Had a great time! Thanks again, Rick, for changing out that tire and for Kurt for letting me ride passenger on the night run

[Mr. Orange]

Still working on what size is the best to post....


Almost rolled over....


The 'last downhill'....The winch session.




Our Camp...

I give up....this :censor:ing photo bucket is screwing up. Every time I change the stupid size of the pic and link the code, it reverts back to the original size!!!!I've changed the size on the bucket, but only one changed size when linked to it....:mad:

[dirtman13]

Almost rolled over....


I didn't think anyone got a picture. That's great. :thumbs_up
And for the record, I only leaked water from my windshield wiper reservoir.

[JJsKJ]

So this spot has gotten chewed up bad enough now that it is tough to drive past w/out a spot and people hanging on the pass side??