It was a frosty 37 degrees Saturday morning. The entrance to Gulches was a huge lot of frozen red clay, signaling a muddy day ahead. We met up at 9 and realized we had a pretty cool group: 3 father-daughter pairs and Shipwreck Mimi!
Devin took the lead with his daughter Ryan and the map. We started out with some awesome obstacles like Best of Intentions, Twisted Intentions, and Twister’s Sister. The group met up with some great people who helped newbies like me navigate rocks I’d never thought my JL could do.
We broke for lunch around noon at camp. At 1:00 pm the Gulches park held a Tennis Ball Challenge, which involved getting tennis balls off cones in challenging places and putting them on cones in equally challenging places, without touching the ground. We spend a few hours watching people get high-centered, flooded, and breaking things trying to win $100.
Around 3:00 we hit up the rest of the park, covering most of the grounds. We helped a Toyota Land Cruiser whose front tires were swallowed by mud. I ended up having to winch out of a slippery rock bed, and Mimi crushed a boat to pieces on Shipwreck, getting winched off of it. Devin crawled up a tree with his front passenger tire on I think Papa Gulch, and David was a boss down Death Valley.
Finally calling it around sunset, Devin started a fire back at camp, and we aired up and washed our rigs of all the clay – as much as possible.
I can say that I never would have thought my rig capable of the double-black diamonds I did on Saturday – and I would have never done them without the guidance and encouragement from everyone! This may have been one of Mimi’s last trips with us, so it was amazing to have her along. She also took on some great obstacles with her Jeep. And permanently altered their decorations! LOL
Erika Luke
2019 Sport