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**Mike** · 11-08-09, 09:56 PM

Mr. Green's Adventures - Day 1

Jim (BlackZZR) is absolutely right, this is an excellent event!

On Friday morning at the Logandale, NV Fairgrounds, Sharon and I met up with Jake (Cherokee People) and our friend Robert that caught a ride with Jake. After signing up for trails for both Friday and Saturday, we lined up to run the Rock Bottom Trail. This trail is rated a 3+ (on a 5 scale) with some 4 options.

Just getting to the trail head has some great views:

The Gatekeeper can put some serious body damage on your vehicle if a mistake is made. Luckily, we had some expert spotters from the Vegas Valley Four Wheelers:

Jake had a tough time with traction with only one locker:

Just past the Gatekeeper, the trail has two options. One leads to a killer V-Notch and the other leads up some tough ledges. Both are great, but on Day 1, we climbed the ledges to the right:

The middle portion of the climb has a bit of a V-Notch:

The after the upper portion, the trail leads to a great play area with lots of options to get to the top of the plateau. I think that all of the options were explored by the folks on the run. I tried this line, but had trouble with my rear locker and backed off. Joe from Nevada made it look easy:

Others tried it as well:

Here's a couple of the other lines:

The area is all red rock and has been twisted and formed by some serious geological pressures. It left some cool rock formations:

We made our way through a killer S-Turn ( -will post in Day 2- ) before reaching the sand dunes at the end of the trail:

After heading back to the main road, we went to the Shedder Bowl using a back way for speed. The Shedder Bowl and Trail has been renamed to be more family friendly. It used to be spelt with a 'itt' instead of an 'edd'. Regardless of what you call it, you will not have trouble finding a trail from the Bowl:

The Shedder Bowl is one big play area with several ways to enter and climb out of the depression. One of the toughest ways is to climb up through the 'Bath Tub':

Two folks tried, one made it (video coming) and the other came close but broke the welds on the ram for the steering and had to stop:

We watched for a while and then the group headed down into the bowl to play:

Afterward, we took the Shedder Trail back to the main road. It has several cool obstacles, but the best is this tough climb:

When we got back to the Fairgrounds, we aired up and went to play in Las Vegas with some other friends for the evening. It was a great day. The Day 2 report will be posted soon.

**RAT** · 11-08-09, 10:01 PM

Nice Mike. Looks like a great place to go explore. Thanks!

**aw12345** · 11-08-09, 10:08 PM

Some sweet looking rocks looks like a great fire road

**dirtman13** · 11-09-09, 07:46 AM

Great pics Mike. Thanks for teasing me.

**FishPOET** · 11-09-09, 08:36 AM

Looking forward to part 2

**Mitch** · 11-09-09, 07:59 PM

Mike,

Great report and pictures! As always.

Mitch

**Mike** · 11-09-09, 08:30 PM

Mr. Green's Adventures - Day 2

Sorry for the delay in posting Day 2 Doug. I fell asleep at the computer last night and decided to write the post today instead. Art, you would really like the fire roads in this area. I'll post some videos soon. Chuck, you know that I just love teasing you! I think I'll plan a weekend with Rat Patrol to explore the area and then we'll have double the pics to show you!:devil::devil:

All seriousness aside, Day 2 was just as spectacular as the first day. A good thing too, I needed something to keep my attention. I only had 4 hours sleep before we hit the trails again (Hey, ... it IS only an hour from Vegas after all!).

For Day 2, we chose the Bronco Falls trail. It is a very short trail, but with the influx of folks for the Saturday festivities, we had 14 vehicles on the trail.

We had several of the same folks as Day 1 on the run with us which made it even more fun since we were starting to get to know several folks. We even had the same Trail Leader that we followed to the trail head:

It was a tight squeeze getting everyone together at the starting point:

The trail is all rock crawling, but it really consists of two main obstacles: two rock falls climbs. The first one was somewhat challenging since I was still fighting with a finicky rear ARB, but it was a bump in the trail compared to the main event:

The real reason to run this trail is the last obstacle. This is Bronco Falls:

Pictures are never as impressive as standing at the bottom and asking youself "this is FUN, right?".

Actually, it is absolutely exhilarating! There is an extra credit line at the top (seen in the pics) that three of our party attempted and all made it. A mistake here could be very, very bad.

After we topped the falls, the trail let us out at the Shedder Bowl. The Bowl was packed with folks playing, so we decided to take the group back to the Rock Bottom Trail. On the way, our trail leader had a minor breakdown so while we waited, we watched some of the buggies play on the big rocks:

We were soon back at the gatekeeper for Rock Bottom. Here is the owner of Olympic 4x4 making his way through the tricky obstacle:

At the split in the trail, we took the left option and headed to the V-Notch. This is not like the short V-notches that I have experienced in the past. This obstacle goes on for about 100 feet with the chance of real damage being high. This full-sized Dodge Powerwagon slipped off the rocks and wedged hard:

Trying to get out, he broke a hub, so we all backed out of the wash and used a winch to keep the Dodge off the rocks while another Jeep strapped the big truck back off the rocks. He backed out and used an escape trail to exit once we got him free.

The next rig got him self in a tough spot. Luckily, his Jeep has the most impressive flex that I have ever seen:

This side of the trail by-passes the play area that we hit on Day 1, but it has a spur to go out to it. There were several rigs playing in the area so we went on to the S-Turn.

Sharon took video on Day 1 so she chose to ride with me through the obstacle on Day 2. Here is the video of Mr. Green from Day 1:

Same obstacle with the view from the inside:

After playing in the sand dunes again, we headed back to the Fairgrounds and aired up. The sun was fading, but we took off down the paved roads to the Valley of Fire State Park which is nearby:

The light was not the best, but the park still put on a nice show:

I definitely want to go back in better light.

On the way back to the Fairgrounds for the BBQ and Raffle, we were treated to a beautiful sunset:

The BBQ was excellent. A local restaurant catered the event. Unlike Jim (BlackZZR), I didn't win crap at the raffle, but I did get a fair amount of swag and t-shirts from vendors.

This is a great event and the proceeds from the event go to the Southern Nevada trail Fund to help to keep these fantastic trails open to the public. I recommend this event. The Vegas Valley Four Wheels do an excellent job of hosting it.

If you want to see a selection of my pics, check out this link:
http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...009/?start=all

**Mike** · 11-09-09, 11:08 PM

Video of the Bath Tub Climb

Here's the video of Kelly Marquis climbing up and out of the Shedder Bowl through the 'Bath Tub'.

This is one tough climb!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMVUd9I6q4M

**FishPOET** · 11-10-09, 07:15 AM

Great trip report and absolutely amazing photos/video!!!

The video Sharon took from inside shows just how steep the drop was.

I liked the way Kelly used his suck down winch in the last video.

**blackZZR** · 11-10-09, 04:05 PM

now Eric is just playing with the obsticle,

I mean he is taking his 4 door through. If ya notice how much he believes in the ability to get out of somewhere, Check out the fact he has a roller fairlead in the rear of his rig.
and just so it gets use, it is hooked to the bumper so he can lower the tire to the ground. He keeps threatening me with that rear bumper system. Oh by this time next year that rig will be orange.

**Mike** · 11-10-09, 10:15 PM

Originally posted by FishPOET View Post

The video Sharon took from inside shows just how steep the drop was.

Sharon was taking the video from the outside. The inside video is from my GoPro Hero camera that my friend Tycho gave me. You can see it's shadow attached to the windshield in the shadow of the Jeep as I drive over the ledge. It's a really cool little camera.

**KCJ401** · 11-12-09, 02:12 AM

Originally posted by Mike View Post

Here's the video of Kelly Marquis climbing up and out of the Shedder Bowl through the 'Bath Tub'.

This is one tough climb!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMVUd9I6q4M

I love the video, but hey I gotta love it, it's me ! Had a blast great event, had a great time met some great people !

**Mike** · 11-12-09, 08:10 PM

Originally posted by KCJ401 View Post

I love the video, but hey I gotta love it, it's me ! Had a blast great event, had a great time met some great people !

Ha! That's funny that you were already on this forum. It was a great climb and a great event.

**KCJ401** · 11-12-09, 08:29 PM

Originally posted by Mike View Post

Ha! That's funny that you were already on this forum. It was a great climb and a great event.

Im a member of so many forums I forget where Ive been !

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