2016 Potts Mountain
July 30, 2016
Trip Report by Lucas Hardin
Very successful trip! I had a great time. Perfect weather. ~82 degrees during the day with a consistent breeze and 65 at night.
The trip started friday with Ron, Carl and his roomate Tim, and myself individually heading to ghe Pines campground in the early afternoon. I ran into Carl and Tim in Boones Mill, VA whilst they were packing up from changing a tire that chucked the tread carcass. We hit the road again and had an uneventful trip the rest of the way to the campground where Ron was there waiting for us. We set up camp, had some delicious steaks, and prepared for the next day of wheeling.
Saturday we got up and unloaded the Bronco and all aired down. Dave showed up, we had breakfast, and lined up to hit the trail. A semi local jeeper showed up looking for a group to tag along with so we took him in and headed out to the lower trailhead. Potts was the busiest I have ever seen. We hit one traffic jam at the first mandatory obstacle which the locals call “the bridge where a 4 door jk had taken a bad line and high centered. Once he was clear I proceeded to show everyone how not to drive by bouncing my way through. The short wheelbase rigs had difficulty holding their line on this spot. Ron, Dave and I all got stuck in the same holes. Aaron our guest in his open-diff xj made it look easy after a good spot through, as did Carl. Dave got hung up in the same spot i did and ended up breaking a u-bolt off his front axle. Ratchet strap and some chain had him back mobile again.
The next real obstacle was “the stacks” everyone in the group had some difficulty here. Its a steep off camber climb with two badly-placed trees to keep you from the optimal line. Everyone had to carry momentum through this one. Carl made it throufh gracefully with some rock stacking and a well placed bump. Ron and I both got hung up on our rear diffs and essentially resorted to lots of momentum to make it through. Aaron decided to winch after a few tries.
After this we spent the rest of the time taking in the views and trail riding. We opted to not do any of the optional play areas this time. There are three new areas that have been added this year that all look pretty fun for the more extreme rigs. I will be making a trip sometime before the trail closes for the winter to try them out.
Everyone made it back to camp safely. I headed into Roanoke to meet with some friends and got back just in time for a night ride on some fire roads. We probably ran 20 miles or so of dirt roads in a couple hours.
The next morning we all packed up and headed home. I left something at camp and turned around a few minutes into the trip to find Dave back at camp with trailer hub issues. Not sure what caused the issue but we were able to repack and reassemble the hub in question and head home.
