Strawberry Island (BC4x4 members)

Strawberry Island (BC4x4 Members)

I'd have to say that Sunday was probably the best trip I've had to Strawberry Island. We had an awesome group of people, and it was great meeting everyone who showed up. We'll have to do this again for sure...

The brave souls in attendance were (from left to right):
- Eric and Passenger(?) (YJ)
- Dave and Laura (Cherokee)
- Rick and Dean (Bronco)
- Chris (Ramcharger)
- Dave and I (Samurai)
- Shayne and passenger(?) (Samurai)
- Chad and Denton (Chevy ZR2 - not shown)
- Jaime (Blazer - not shown)

The day started out raining which meant that the trails were going to be extra slippery. All the way to Strawberry Island Dave and I were talking about how we didn't think anyone was going to show up due to the crappy weather. It turns out that we were the second to last one's there; as we drove in we saw the line-up of vehicles sitting there waiting. It was then that we knew that we definately had a die-hard bunch. Way cool...

After introductions and a group photo we were on our way. The award for first stuck goes to Chris in his Ramcharger. Because the trail was so slippery he slid into some ruts he was trying to avoid and wound up sitting on his diffs. Thanks to Rick and his Bronco he was pulled out in short order. As we continued on we got to a mud bowl area with 5 or 6 different lines through it with most of them being of the 40 inch super swamper type. Only 2 of the lines looked passable but had off-camber runs up to them that would have slid you into one of the huge ruts. These wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't rained all night but because of this and since we didn't want to spend the rest of the day shoveling, winching and pulling in the same spot we opted to turn around and try a different trail. On the way back I managed to run into a huge stump on the driver side which stopped us dead in our tracks. I didn't see it through the trees hanging in front of the window and so claimed our award for first damage of the day (some small dents in the front driver fender and a half torn off fender flare).

Once we got to the main area we all played in the mud pits for a while before heading out again. Later on in the day we came back to the main area again and all played for a bit in the mud. I think that one pit claimed Shayne, Chris, Chad, and Dave and almost claimed us in the Samurai. Somehow we managed to keep our vehicle moving and managed to get out by doing the forward/reverse/forward/etc thing. I can't remember if anyone
else got stuck there. Of honorable mention here is Chris's mach 10 run at the mud pit, unfortunately he had some water in the distrib so petered out half-way through otherwise he might have even caught some air on the other side (air is good ). There was another couple of guys there as well in a 4-Runner that they had built specifically for Strawberry Island. It had a snorkel and had an extended exhaust pipe up past the roof line. Apparently it wasn't too waterproof though as he kept getting water in the distributor. Judging from the abuse they put that truck through, I don't think it will last too many more trips to Strawberry Island.

After playing we then headed back down the main road and followed it past the entrance into another trail. After following the trail for a bit we came to about a two foot mud wall in front of us with some 2 foot walls on either side. Everyone made it up with some speed and some good wheelspin. Eric tried to show off in his YJ by doing it in 2 wheel drive (must be a jeep thing ). Unfortunately he couldn't make it so once we mentioned to him that he was in 2 wheel he shifted it into 4 and with some speed drove up and over. It was pretty dark in the trees so only the picture of Shayne above turned out.

After that we came to a nice soupy swamp area. You had to drive along this off-camber path along the edge of the swamp keeping your passenger tires in the ruts so as to not slip to the left and into the deeper bits of the swamp. We all made it through there with no problems but had to turn back as we came up to another swamp with some too-deep ruts running through it. No problem, there are tons of other trails...

Image of mudpit2-stuck-sami0001thumb.jpg

We went back to the main area again and played a bit (notes included in above paragraph) and met up with Jaime and Chad, then Cherokee Dave convinced us to go try another huge nasty looking mud pit that we had passed earlier. I can't speak for anyone else but I definitely had my doubts. This mud/water/swamp pit was pretty big and definitely nasty looking. Dave (of Cherokee towing) took the first run through and made it look easy. Apparently if you stayed to the right it wasn't that bad. Everyone made it through without getting stuck by following Dave's line. Of course, that's when the testosterone starts flying so then we all have to try different lines through the deeper more ominous looking parts. One area of the pit managed to claim our samurai's first stuck as well as the YJ, tying us for the award for the best stuck. Dave towed us out with his Cherokee after a couple of runs at it without too much trouble but Eric in the YJ had to use three of our vehicles as a winch point to tow himself out of the ruts. His 4 wheels were completely off the ground. We had to have the Cherokee, our samurai, and Rick's Bronco all strapped together in order for Eric to winch himself out. He later admitted that he figured he could go through that same spot that we had gotten stuck in since he has 33's and we're only running 31's. Whoops, made for some great pictures though . While this was happening, Shayne's samurai was claimed, as well as the other guys 4-Runner in another deep soupy part of the mud pit. Unfortunately Jaime couldn't get her front hubs to lock so she was unable to try out her truck in the mud. ;-(

Special thanks goes to Shayne for his winch (which was used quite a bit), Rick for being a winch vehicle anchor and for being a tow vehicle, and especially to Dave of Cherokee towing who had a tow strap permanently attached to his rig. Also, have to thank Eric for his sure-footedness; seems everytime he jumped out of his rig he slipped and fell on his butt. Hee Hee.

Thanks all for coming out, it was great meeting everyone, hope to do it again soon.