Report: Calico Clean Up 2007

[RAT]

WOW! What a turn out! Those who didn't go will never believe the amount of JUNK we hauled off the trails. Way good turn out, I don't know what the tally was, but looked like at least a couple hundred rigs out on the lake bed. Wish I could have stayed the night again but had to get back to Vegas, baby... Hats off to Mark (FJ Crawlin). What a show...

Rat

[Jason]

WOW! What a turn out! Those who didn't go will never believe the amount of JUNK we hauled off the trails. Way good turn out, I don't know what the tally was, but looked like at least a couple hundred rigs out on the lake bed. Wish I could have stayed the night again but had to get back to Vegas, baby... Hats off to Mark (FJ Crawlin). What a show...

Rat

That just bums me out more for not being able to make it. I had to work. Big thanks to all that did go and helped clean up the trails.

[Drewminator]

That just bums me out more for not being able to make it. I had to work. Big thanks to all that did go and helped clean up the trails.

Yeah! X2!

[JJsKJ]

Good to hear a bunch showed up and worked hard. WTG!
I wish I could have been there but had to finish getting ready to wheel tomorrow. Anyone get any pics of the festivities?

[sarah]

Thanks to everyone who came out to wheel with MJR for the day - we broke up into 3 groups with the BLM and installed over trail 40 signs, picked up a bunch of trash and had a great lunch.

Rick & I, Freewaydan & Karen, Jeep Virgin & Family, Dukes69 & Jeepgal, Deamer, Mike, Nailer & Jasmine, Rat, MadMike, Blktj, Russ, Materdaddy & Tiff


I have a few photos that I still need to download. Hats off to Mark and the crew who helped put this event together.

[Roberto Miranda]

Hello guys, kudos to the organizers and double kudos to the participants ...it was a great event...please, enjoy some pictures of it...

Roberto




http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slidesho...e&conn_speed=1

[1 Bad F N Z]

unofficial count was a little over 500 participants. I led group #8 up onto the West side of Calico to clean up a couple of shooting sites. Had my box trailer loaded to the gills. Not to mention what others brought back. Mighty fine event, and thumbs up to Art and Mark for all they did, Kevin.

[sarah]

Roberto - didn't know you were going, wish we could have met you. Were you with the sticker rig guy? I promised him a sticker, but didn't see him after that - I also didn't mention it'd be a JEEP sticker

[Kodiak Spirit]

FJ cruiser guys

We ran across the FJ cruiser night run, we must have been about 40min ahead of you all going down Odessa. I tried to warn them.... all those nice roof racks. I did notice that there was a surprising amount of lights on the roof racks, and none of them were lit. I guess it helped the night run to do it in the dark. They had an H3 with them and boy that thing could hop like a rabbit untill they folded their steering linkage. The H3 looked like a newbee trying to stop with ski's at the bunnyslope.... toes all pointing in.... and they didn't really want our advice, so we helped one of them get his FJ back down "safely" (dude sorry about that rear quarter panel and the doorhandle) and rolled on home. We would have rolled with the MJR crew but we were assigned to Odessa so we didn't want to mess with stuff. We picked up so much trash and glass...

[NAILER341]

Hello guys, kudos to the organizers and double kudos to the participants ...it was a great event...please, enjoy some pictures of it...

Roberto




http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slidesho...e&conn_speed=1

hi roberto,
i also did not realize you would be there. i have enjoyed the pictures you post, and would have liked to have met you.
maybe next time.
nice pics as always, though missing the pictures of your pretty lady friends

see you on the next one.

[sarah]

It was nice to meet you Kodiak, and Desert Jewel. Sorry we scooted off so fast to eat lunch in the truck, we were trying to keep the sand out of course. Right after lunch we headed for the FJ rescue flop situation. Silly FJs!! Tight canyons are for jeeps

[steelman]

Roberto! Ddidn't know you were going to be heading out there...great job! Wish I could have made it but had too much going on here at the homefront. Maybe next time.
See you at the next meeting!
(and bring Janette ha-ha!)

[Roberto Miranda]

Yeah, I know, I do a lot of stuff, but the best part of all...I do nothing for this one...I was not even planning to attend this event, I was saving my wheeling time for the Anza Borrego trip this week with the NorCal guys...I was on the "Los Amigos Invisibles" concert of Friday night with a bunch of Venezuelans and Alexis invite me to do this run with him, he need pictures... and Carol said yes!!! I guess that she forgot about Anza Borrego or I didn't remind her about it, anyways, I had a few hours to be ready...I just packed the camera, my sleeping bag and some shirts...it was a great event...you can "stole" all the pictures you want, that's why I shared in first place, I need to delete some of them to reach the 90 pictures per trip in order to up-load it into our web (www.yopo4x4.com), but I need to do the write-up too, in English and Spanish...bummer!!!

[Russ Chung]

Calico Cleanup 2007

Here are a few pictures of the cleanup. I arrived just as the drivers' meeting was starting, so I didn't get a chance to say hello to -- or take pictures of -- all of the group.



Here are some of our group members just after the drivers' meeting. From left to right, Brian (blkTJ, orange MJR shirt), Tammy (Jeep Gal, brown MJR shirt), Chris (Dukes69, gray MJR shirt), Erik (Nailer341, blue MJR shirt with back to camera), Jill and Sarah.



Tiff and Matt (Materdaddy), Brian (back to camera), Tam, Mike (MadMike), Erik (blue shirt), unidentified BLM employee (in uniform), Zoey (on leash), Chris, Sarah



MJR was assigned one of the elite jobs at the Calico cleanup—we were given the job of installing trail markers. The BLM staff had previously determined where additional trail markers were needed and they gave us maps that were marked with the desired locations. This job required brains (to be able to read the maps) and brawn (to dig the holes for the trail markers).

Brian and Kurt (RatPatrol) digging holes for the trail markers:





Erik assembling a trail marker:



The finished result:



While installing the trail markers, we picked up the trash that we found. This is Kurt’s truck making a trash run:

[FJ Crawlin']

Outstanding job!

MJR once again set the bar for being reliable and well organized without any issues. Not only did you folks receive the highest level of compliments from BLM, but you stepped up when called upon to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Earlier in the day while 99.9% of us were busting our humps and breathing in the finer air of the dry lake bed, a very small (1%) group elected to leave staging early and take off on their own-intoxicated from what I understand. It appears these young and stupid folks decided to take a single track trail that was RED and off limits to explore. An older blue Toyota pick up ended up going nose first over to only be stopped by mother earth herself as the truck began to go over. As the bozo group with them began the recovery process, it appears one of their straps broke as the vehicle was just about recovered back to trail side and ended up going back over and causing a more significant amount of damage.

Now as I'm strolling through staging hoping for a bite to eat, these young dudes approach me and inform me that their buddy flopped and they could use some help. Without a second thought, I grabbed Rick and assigned the recovery task to MJR and the SBNFA patrol group. As this was being assigned our raffle was very near and ready to start.

I pulled a few goodies from the raffle and slid a meal and drink over to Erik and a t-shirt for his daughter for the extra effort of your group. Unselfishly, you folks went the extra mile. MJR made our event a success in many more ways than you folks realize and I greatly appreciate your energy and "can do" attitude. Thank you!

In addition to the trail markers you installed, we removed all the graffitti in the canyons, filled (2) 40' roll off containers of scrap metal and filled an additional (3) containers of trash and crap. I don't have all of the final numbers, but can tell you that we generated over $4000 for BRC, Friends of the Rubicon, and Discovery Trails. BLM is absolutely in a state of awe and expressed their absolute gratitude for our volunteer efforts. Again, you set the bar and made me proud to be a part of such a group. Hats off to you all!

Mark

p.s. If you have pictures, please post them (other than the Toyota) so that I can forward to BLM for a future project and more funding.