Organized Event: 48th Annual Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari

[Russ Chung]

The 48th Annual Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari was held in Truckhaven March 5-7, 2010. The weather forecast included a chance of rain and high winds, so I decided against setting up camp for the weekend and just drove down for the day. Geeb (Geebo) and Drew (Drewminator) canceled at the last moment, and I had hoped to meet up with Erik (Nailer341) but I couldn't find him. I thought that his Orange YJ would be easy to locate, but all of the orange Jeeps I saw had round headlights
Normally I wouldn't wheel alone, but in this case, I was one of about 400 vehicles on the well-marked trail that was laid out by the TDS event organizers. The trail was marked with green arrows (easy), red arrows (moderate), and blue arrows (difficult). I followed the red arrow markers, except that when I got to the (in)famous Obama's Notch, there was a long delay; I heard on the ham radio that there were three disabled vehicles blocking the trail in the Notch and the trail committee was working to clear the blockages. After a brief wait, I decided to skip Obama's Notch and continued on the main trail. I completed the run by about 2pm, and headed to the exhibit area.





During the afternoon, the skies became overcast and the wind picked up. I decided not to stay for the raffle, and I gave my ticket to some friends who were staying for the raffle. To my great surprise, I got a call later in the evening; for the second year in a row I won a prize!!

[GP4Play]

Cool deal Russ,got to make out there someday.Being on call at work sucks sometimes.

[WAM]

Assuming you like the hard notches it's a shame you had to skip Obama's notch. It was a long series of the tightest notches in the run. I had to multipoint six or eight of them. But my Rubi doesn't turn very tight. And yeah, we got stalled in it when a Samurai had a TCase failure. But they somehow got him out after just a 20 minute wait. These TDS guys can really run an event.

You said 400 cars. But there was only one ticket per entry, no extras sold. And at the drawing it appeared there may have been 1400 entries based on the ticket numbers announced. Dunno, I never heard it officially announced.

You did good making it a one day trip. Sunday it started raining early am and there was a flash flood watch until 4pm. We left around 10 and it was getting to be a mucky mess. Fortunately we went in mid-week with our club and knocked off Pinion Mtn Rd, Diablo Dropoff (both ways) and all the scenic canyons down around Cyn Sin Nombre.

[Russ Chung]

You said 400 cars. But there was only one ticket per entry, no extras sold. And at the drawing it appeared there may have been 1400 entries based on the ticket numbers announced. Dunno, I never heard it officially announced.

Many of the registered attendees choose to do their own runs with club members or friends among Truckhaven, Ocotillo Wells or Anza Borrego's many other trails instead of participating in the Official TDS run. About mid-morning I heard over the radio that just under 400 vehicles had passed the first checkpoint.

In past years, the first few obstacles acted as a "metering valve"; there was a wait for those obstacles, but once you got past them, the vehicles were spread out enough that there was little delay at subsequent obstacles. This year, I think that the first part of the course was easier, and as a result, the vehicles got through the first part of the course quickly and stacked up at the harder obstacles along the second half of the course.

[Geebo]

Well looks like a fun time..BTW I didn,t cancel at the last minute on 2/6/10 I said I,ll try my ass off to make it on this run and later that day I asked for directions ..so I,m flakey for sure, but did not cancel at all..never said I was going... was hopin to go though..LOL Thanks ,Geeb

[Ol Man]

In talking with one of the TDS organizers on Thur, he said they had about 750 pre-registered and that they usually double that by the start of the runs Sat AM.

[NAILER341]

I was there and looking for some of you as well.
I was hanging out with Chilidipper, and SpearheadBill.

Did anyone win the raffle? Certainly none of us....

[Schmo]

Well looks like a fun time..BTW I didn,t cancel at the last minute on 2/6/10 I said I,ll try my ass off to make it on this run and later that day I asked for directions ..so I,m flakey for sure, but did not cancel at all..never said I was going... was hopin to go though..LOL Thanks ,Geeb

Were you still high off the paint fumes or what?

[Drewminator]

Looked like a good time Russ. Yeah I had to make a decision on this run or the IDTT run. Since the weather was a decision factor, I decided to do the upcoming IDTT run instead. I wish I could do them all. :bonk:

[Geebo]

No Joe I was coming down by then!! and out of paint..lol

[jkcrazyjim2]

Where is Obama's notch? I was there the weekend before doing my own thing with beautiful sunny weather.

[Dog Man]

TDS is a great event had a blast and damn near froze to death at the raffle ( still a loser ) but damn they gave away alot of stuff this year 130 tickets pulled. ( worth about $800 each )

few pics of the run

[Russ Chung]

Where is Obama's notch? I was there the weekend before doing my own thing with beautiful sunny weather.

Obama's is on the south side of S22, a couple of miles southeast of the microwave tower. The approximate coordinates are N33 15.5 W116 04.8

[Geebo]

Dang , I like that last (camofloge) rig..what,s it called and what year is it? any body know..great pic,s..so can some one learn me how to spell that word

[inVERt'D]

Dang , I like that last (camofloge) rig..what,s it called and what year is it? any body know..great pic,s..so can some one learn me how to spell that word

Camoflage--you almost had it. That sir, is a Mercedes-Benz Unimog; I believe it is a variant of the 404.1, which was made between '55 and 77. I'm no authority on Mogs--I got that from a quick search.

Looks like a nice day there, thanks for the pics, Russ Chung.