events – Santa Barbara 4WD Club

Panamint Valley – Dec 2025

In early December 2025 Fernando, Jim & Danny went to Panamint Valley.

Much of western Death Valley was closed due to recent storm damage, but the Pleasant Canyon-South Park Canyon loop was open. Since the trail had been snowed-in the past few February club trips this was a great opportunity.

Danny, who was towing Annabelle with the Sprinter, left SB super early, and Jim and Fernando caught up just before Trona, where we refueled and got our traditional fried chicken from Chesters for lunch. Passing Ballarate we set up camp in our usual spot near the Surprise Canyon wilderness. The weather was perfect, low 70s on the valley floor, clear blue skies and absolutely no wind!

We set up camp with some daylight to spare and decided to check the condition of Surprise Canyon and Chris Wicht Camp, the trailhead to Panamint City, which we had not seen for a couple years. We discovered the road was blown out and impassable (at least for our vehicles) prior to Chris Wicht Camp.

Next we checked out the condition of Jail Canyon,

stopping at the Corona mine and checking out the infrastructure artifacts.

We headed back to camp and relaxed by a fire on a beautiful and starry (until the full moon came up) night.

We woke early the next day and headed up beautiful Pleasant Canyon, stopping to check out various mining operations artifacts.

World Beater cabin was occupied, the current tenants enjoying a fire in the crisp Fall morning. They were the only people we saw all day.

On the way up we checked out a couple lightly used side roads to old mines, seeing how far we could make it. Some were still snowy, and we were the first tracks since the recent storm.

We tried to make it to World Beater Mine, but the road was blown out requiring a careful reverse down a steep rocky shelf road. The road to Radcliff, an active mining operation, was closed.

The road to Cooper Mine (or Copper Mine, depending upon which book you are reading) ended with a snowed-in dead end, requiring careful retreat in reverse to get to a turnaround spot.

The group stopped for lunch near Rita’s Cabin and then continued on through Middle Park Canyon, looking down towards Death Valley and Striped Butte, which we saw in February from Geologists’ Cabin. We took the lower and more direct south-facing routes to stay out of the snow and get to South Park Canyon, wanting to be sure we had enough daylight to get past Chicken Rock and a recent landslide over the trail before dark.

Chicken Rock is scary, as advertised. Members check out the photo album for some videos, including Danny’s from inside the vehicle.

Briggs Camp was unoccupied, and it is in amazing condition, the Friends of Briggs do a great job.

We made it to the landslide, which had been cleared enough to get through with some spotting. Which was a good thing as the sun was getting low and it had taken us all day to get there.

We returned to camp and had another great night sitting by the fire with no wind.

The next day we spent hiking, exploring nearby canyons. We refueled in Panamint Springs, and treated ourselves to some delicious burgers at Panamint Springs Resort.

We drove back to camp in the dark, and enjoyed our third and final gorgeous windless night by the fire.

The next day we had a leisurely morning packing up and headed home, stopping at the Pinnacles for lunch.

Goleta Holiday Parade – 2025

The Santa Barbara 4 wheel drive club again joined in for the 2025 Goleta old town holiday parade. The parade was held on Saturday night. December 6th.

The Grand Marshall this year was Mr. James Marchiando. He is a lifelong Goleta Valley resident with deep roots in local agriculture and was honored for his dedication to farming, family and community. He drove his 1959 John Deere tractor in the parade, carrying four generations of his family.

With spirits high & Christmas music abounding, and with 73 entry’s and 1,766 total participants and an estimated 5-6,000 spectators we entered on to Hollister Avenue from Orange Avenue and proceeded up the packed parade route through old town to the Goleta community center.

Our group included Fifteen members from our club that participated in this year’s event, our riggs included a combination of TJ’s, JK’s, Gladiators, and several different makes of pickups. Matt even joined us on his Birthday.

Decorations included lots of Christmas lights, garland large lighted ornamental figures & inflatables of several different kinds.

Our decorated caravan was even accompanied with some all time favorite Christmas carols to boot.

The Goleta Old Town Holiday Parade is a wonderful community event that celebrates the holiday season and brings people together.

We were proud to be a part of it and look forward to participating in the future.

Thank you to all the incredible volunteers, sponsors and the Greater Goleta Santa Barbara Lions Club for organizing this event.

Floats restocked – 2025 Fiesta Parade support complete!

Early on Saturday morning August 16th, ten members SB4WDC rallied up at the Santa Barbara carriage Muesium to preform our annual restacking of the fiesta floats.

This completed our volunteer commitment to the 101st fiesta parade organizers & committee membership

There were sweet treats to get us roll’en and good attitudes coupled with some hard work, we had all the floats stacked and stowed away until next year’s event.

Many thanks to all our members who came and pitched in.

See a quick recap at:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNbVvl_SepOCPp_fvEIJUEvMUo8e3uuJqM513w0/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Fiesta Parade – Aug 2025

The Santa Barbara 4 wheel Drive Club once again volunteered to pull the eight major floats in this year’s 101st Fiesta Parade.

The parade is the largest equestrian event of its kind in the nation with over 400 horses in it this year. It is the main fiesta event attended by thousands of locals, families and visitors that line the Cabrillo parade route along the beachfront.

There were also numerous vintage horse-drawn carriages carrying this years’ Grand Marshalls Marta Holsman Babson and Henrietta Holsman Fore as well as local dignitaries from our Mayor Randy Rowse to local business leaders, mounted law enforcement officers and longtime fiesta supporters.

Our club had a mixture of experienced and first-timer volunteer float pullers.

This year’s volunteers were:

Dick,

Darrell,

Kirk,

Brent,

LIz,

Oliver,

Kristina,

Jason.

Special thanks goes to Tim who again was the club’s liaison to the city officials and the Old Spanish Days Committees to make sure all went smoothly and that we were on the same page.

Additionally, this year we were fortunate to have a substantial police escort early Saturday morning when we also had the responsibility of returning the 8 floats to the Carriage Museum parking lot. The officers stalled traffic, blocked intersections and kept us moving all the way back.

The weather was beautiful with temps in the mid 70’s . All in all it was a well run, smooth experience that was enjoyed by everyone.

See us in action at:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DM4OeCtu-ey4-gza53-Rfr0phrlcBjHnVlP93E0/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Club BBQ – July 2025

In the midst of the Dog-Days of Summer on Sunday July 27th, our members again enjoyed our annual summer BBQ.

This relaxing summer social event was again graciously hosted by Jerry and Tami Macala .

They opened up their home and patio to approximately 30 or so members who all supplied wonderful side dishes, appetizers and desserts for our pot-luck gathering.

Grilling duties were again provided by Brent who grilled up tri-tip and chicken. Jerry and Tami also provided ingredients for shredded pork tacos with all the fixings. Everything was so good and eagerly enjoyed by everyone over the course of the afternoon.

Temperatures were just right and there was even a slight breeze.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this annual fun club social event.

Check out the fun at:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMqBraxRSgTGoaklaXgYqFTX-pDXBk4Jb8WpZc0/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

West Camino – clean-up – July 2025

For the Month of July, 17 members of the Santa Barbara 4 Wheel Drive club spent our mid month “Sunday-Fun-Day” on a mission to do a trail clean-up on the West Camino Cielo Trail.

This is a well-used, popular off road trail used by many in our area.

With a large “dump-style” trailer provided by one of our members, Ryan. The Club with 17 volunteers & 15 rigs set out and got to work..

With some initial recon done the week before by Bryan Ford and Brian Slattery we developed a well thought out plan with members walking the sides of the road using long handled grabbers from the Winchester Gun Range to our stopping/lunch point several miles in.

We spent additional extended times at the heavily used, well worn pull-out locations scattered along the trail all at the same time keeping a sharp eye out for rattlesnakes.

We were able to collect everything from spent shell casings to plastic bottles, paper plates, metal targets of every shape and size imaginable, dumped furniture, cabinets, and even remnants of an old trampoline.

All in all we filled the large dump trailer to the brim.

Members relaxed and enjoyed a hot dog lunch at the end of our day before hauling out everything we had collected and heading home.

All in all it was a good day in which everyone was very satisfied with our efforts to clean up the forestry trail we all enjoy so much.

See more at:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMXAO-TuuM3ADWt2xyyyIroUT_IHByWx4uyyzQ0/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Fiesta Parade Prep-work – June 2025

Tim rallied together a small band of volunteers and a boom lift to free the float stack from their winter storage.

It was a good year for leaf capture, so they needed sweeping, blowers, and debris scooping.

Fortunately, Kirk was at the ready to fuel the team with treats and water! Kirk also rounded up his son Robbie to join James in the float stack climbing.

Tasks better handled by those under 50!

True to the expected 2 hour effort, the floats were all down occupying a vast corner of the back lot. Now anyone(s) can push/pull/steer them to a decoration staging area.

Let’s hope they don’t take out the “bakery” or the fence in doing so!

Sunday Funday – May 2025

This weekend the SB4WDC enjoyed our mid-month Sunday funday run by spending the morning in the Santa Barbara mountains.

Fifteen members & two dogs ran the West Camino trail on a beautiful spring day. The weather was perfect.

It was a busy day with lots of other folks out and about in the area as well enjoying some trail-time.

All in all club members enjoyed some much needed dirt-time + some social interaction and even some sweet treats.

Special shout out to relatively newish members Tony, Tad & Anne who joined in Sunday and were able to get some of their first 4/low hill climbing & obstacle opportunities in their new jeeps. They did great.

Members: For more images, check out the club’s website folder for this and all our events!

Randsburg- April 2025

I met up with Ralph, Sharadi and Bailey at the 150 offramp about noon Thursday and we headed off towards camp stopping in Mojave for fuel and snacks. When we arrived at Goler Heights George, Pam and Brian F were enjoying the shade next to Brian’s camper.

Ralph and I set up camp and then joined them in the shade.

It was warm but comfortable if you were out of the sun. There was some wind each afternoon but Ralph’s windbreak (motorhome) made it tolerable.

Later in the afternoon Matt, Steve, Brent, Sebastian and Julie arrived to join us.

Friday morning Dave, Bobbie and Joe got there in time to start the Friday run on schedule.

I think we had 10 rigs on Friday’s run and it was similar to last years route except for the trail boss getting a little lost toward the end.

We headed up Iron Canyon and stopped when Matt noticed an oil odor. It looked like it was coming from the transmission but seemed to be engine oil. All the fluids were full so we continued and made it up the steep loose shale hill without any problems. From there we continued to the top of the hill and then down a steep narrow ridge to Colorado Camp. Colorado Camp is just a fireplace and chimney now.

We continued south on Mesquite Canyon to EP204 and headed up to the Walsh Cabin at the top of the mountain.

This is a BLM stewardship cabin donated by Mike Walsh and Jim Jackson.

The views from here are spectacular looking south toward Mojave.

This spot is so windy that the cabin is secured with cables over the roof. We then went back down the mountain to Mesquite Rd and sent Matt down the canyon to the highway which was the quickest way back to camp.

The rest of us headed back to camp by way of Goler Wash and the Narrows. We stopped at Holland Camp before we got to Goler Wash. Holland Camp was first owned by Burro Schmidt but he got too busy on his tunnel project and sold it in the late 30’s.

There are several railroad tie structures, water tanks and a landing strip with sock still there.

From here to Goler Wash is where I took the wrong trail and got lost. We found some rocky off camber hills that some people didn’t seem to enjoy but finally made it to the Narrows and camp without much damage.

Saturday morning we started the run with 11 rigs. We had lost a couple of members that were worn out from the Friday run but added Ken, Bryan S and Bryan K with Blake.

We headed up the highway and entered Last Chance Canyon. I was in front so I didn’t see all the action behind me but we did stop a few times to regroup..

I think Sebastian had to be winched over a rock and scraped his bumper coming off the ledge road. Julie did say they were having a problem with low range or traction control.

Bryan S was the only one to attempt the notch and made it with only a slight fender scrape.

We had lunch at the Dutch Cleanser Mine.

They mined Calisco pumice here which left massive caverns along the ridge of the cliff. After lunch we headed east past the Holly Ash Mine, the reconstructed Post Office and down Bonanza Gulch to Bickel Camp.

Bickel Camp was established in the 30’s by Walter Bickel and is still run as a tourist attraction by his family and volunteers. The camp is pretty much the same as the day he left it.

Next we headed across the valley to Burro Schmidt’s tunnel. I took the trail that went to the top of the mountain and dropped down to the tunnel from above. Several of us went through the tunnel and I still have the scabs on the top of my head to prove it.

There are many theories as to why he dug the tunnel but my guess is that he was just crazy.

At this point I made 3 suggestions on routes back to camp and we decided to take the fastest route down Mesquite canyon to the highway. Bobbie and I needed gas so we decided to go into Jo-burg to fuel up and then ended up at the Joint in Randsburg. Bryan S and Bryan K joined us there for a well deserved beer.

Sunday several people packed up and went home but Brent, Brian F, Bryan S, George & Pan, Bobbie & Joe and I headed to the towers on Government peak, We took the fun trail with some challenging dry waterfalls and made it in record time of just over an hour.

We had to do some rock stacking but everyone made it with no visible damage. It helps to have a small group of capable vehicles on this trail. We continued east from the towers then looped through Randsburg back to camp.

I want to thank everyone who joined me on this weekend adventure. I hope you’ll forget the pucker moments and join me again next year. This is a fun club and I never felt I was herding cats.

Dick

For more (200+) photos and video, see the Members Only section of our club website!

Cougar Buttes – March 2025

A dozen Club Members embarked on an exploratory run in/around Cougar Buttes and the areas north and east. The weather forecast gave us pause several days in advance, yet we attempted to press on.

Jim was one of the first to get his tent up, just in time for the first batch of hail.

Thursday and Friday nights were far below optimal camping conditions given the strong winds (two tents were damaged over the weekend by the winds), yet daytime runs were still outstanding

Thursday evening did allow for a good view of the lunar eclipse.

Friday was dedicated to the local rock formations and sand plains. This allowed the group to grow as more arrivals landed

By the end of Friday, everyone who could attend was in camp. Unfortunately the winds limited socializing. We observed multiple large campers in the area with our crew being the only one biased towards tent shelters.

Saturday the run was a long loop to the north and east. This extended beyond the Johnson Valley OHV areas onto a variety of public lands. In total we covered over 70 miles.

After a lengthy gravel road section we broke west into open rangeland. There was an abundance of indication cattle had recently been there, but none today. This connected us to an access road along a high pressure gas line. This included some shale climbs, loop trails and a little wash driving.

The geology was changing as we pushed north, encountering volcanic layers and some eroded canyons. We noticed a big horn watching us from above, the first we had seen in this area.

For lunchtime we checked out a box end canyon where the volcanic layer has held up allowing the erosion to collapse the canyon wall below almost in a concave fashion.

After lunch our path took us far enough north to view the truck / train traffic along I-40. We needed to loop around a wilderness reserve area. The trail back south brought us through sand washes bisecting volcanic flows.

As we crested and tipped back down towards Johnson Valley, Danny was able to connect via radio with friends down by the King of the Hammers site.

Eventually we decided that half the group would work their way south and east to check out the KOH site while the other half turned west and returned to camp.

For several, the prior night’s brutal winds had us questioning that a comfortable evening and a fire would follow. Since we needed to leave early on Sunday anyway, several bugged out. The crew back from KOH did benefit from improving conditions and were able to have a fire and enjoy some local fireworks.