Our friends who organize Pour Overlander events in support of Valor on The Green once again encouraged club members to participate in their social event.
Several members brought their adventure mobiles and set ups
Talking adventures and encouraging others to get out and explore.
The event ( Valor on the Greens) seemed to be a success with merch for sale, breakfast burritos cookies and coffee. To learn more about this group, search
In addition to the club members demonstrating their Riggs, other members lent their support and social experience
Two complete sets of golf clubs were also donated to the valor on the green organizers on behalf of our club as well
Thank you everyone who got up early and came out and displayed their riggs on behalf of our club to raise money for our vets and first responders . As well as those additional club members who also showed for support
Our crew was lined up to begin pulling the 8 floats in the 2024 Fiesta Parade at 6:30 am. We were out and onto the streets at our assigned time, weaving through the street closure obstacles to fine tune our ability to judge where the float might contact the curb.
Tim knows this parade routine!
Kirk took the lead float which had an early horseless carriage and two sister with ties back to Fiesta in the sixties.
Next Brent and Noel pulled a float with many Former Spirits of Fiesta while others in the group walked.
Next in float line was the Carvers pulling the Chumash float
Followed by Liz
Next was the Allen group
Followed by Richard and Christina
Then Art
And commanding the 8th float was Mike and his group of dancers rocking the parade route
The 100 year celebration of the Fiesta Parade was a complete success. No mechanical, human, or logistical surprises foiled our contribution to the event.
With the mechanical repairs made, 15 club members set off on another day of the volunteering for the Old Spanish Days Fiesta Parade. Today’s activities included unstacking the floats, making sure the tires and carriages were in good shape, cleaning and staging them for usage.
A quick top off on the tires will ensure they roll easily. A task much easier to accomplish before they are placed on the ground
Next comes the debris removal as a years worth of items have happened
And finally they are lined up for one last maintenance of the chicken wire and to be ready for the decoration teams
They are large platforms with custom designed carriages developed and fabricated by the club. Everyone had a great day and we were complete within 3 hours of clock time!
Thankfully we were complete before the marine layer broke up
The club’s commitment to this recurring community event was on full (behind the scenes) display on July 7th. Tim had coordinated the fabrication of some new connection point devices for the floats. These were needed to ensure safe handling through the unstack/restack portion of the float storage.
Thanks Tim for leading the way in both the development of the solution, fabrication and preparation for others to help in the upgrade action.
While there was some precautionary spider relocation work needed, teams were quickly deployed underneath and above each float in the stack.
These teams were then supported by members who were outside the stack coming up with solutions and additional tools when some of the bolts resisted to cooperate with the plan They also helped ensure those above were pairing with the team underneath as each of the 32 connection points were addressed
While some of the work was rather dirty, and some people looked like they were taking a siesta mid task,
it truly was many hands and a combined time donation of over 15 hours (not counting fabrication time) that made it come together
A few of us showed up Thursday to get our camps set up in preparation for the weekends activities. It was a little windy but we were still able to have a campfire. During the night and early morning we had more members come in to camp.
We had 13 vehicles on our Friday run. We went up Iron Canyon heading west as we have done in past years. One of the hills was long and fairly steep with loose shale near the top. Bryan K had drive shaft problems so he was running in 2wd with no front drive shaft. He lost traction about half way up and required rescue. Bryan S was able to get a strap on him and pulled him up the rest of the way.
It’s amazing how much traction that long wheelbase Gladiator has.
At this point the group split with some continuing up another hill and the rest going down the other side. This was the only experience with herding cats I had on the trip. Our GMRS radios worked great getting us back together.
We then went to the Walsh cabin at the top of the mountain. This cabin has a great view of the valley looking south toward Mojave but is held down by cables because of the wind. It was very windy while we were there but it was warm wind.
We then headed back down the hill toward Goler Wash. The trail to the wash was bumpy but not difficult. When we got into the wash we encountered a couple of waterfalls that we either had to go over or around.
Just before we got back to camp we went through the Narrows which is a narrow pass through a solid rock cliff. That night the wind stopped and we had a great campfire.
Saturday we had 19 vehicles head out toward Last Chance Canyon. At the trailhead we aired down and had a driver meeting.
Due to some rain earlier in the year the canyon had changed with a few more rocks added. The going was slow and we got to practice our rock stacking skills and towing capabilities. At the last meeting Kevin asked me whether an F250 could get through there and I thought it could. What Kevin didn’t know was that his automatic front hubs weren’t working. So a 1wd F250 can do it with a little help from your friends. Many thanks to Gary for turning Kim’s brand new Rubicon around in the canyon to do some winching.
After the canyon we headed headed to the Dutch Cleanser Mine to look at the snow caves. This mine was worked from 1919 to 1958 mining pumice for the Calsilco Corporation which was used in the manufacture of tooth paste, paint, insulating material and many other products.
Since we were running late we bypassed the Rock House and went down Bonanza Gulch to check out Bickel Camp. We then went across the valley on the on the easy road to Burrow Schmidts tunnel. A few people went through the tunnel to check out the view.
I was planning on going back to camp by way of Goler Wash but Jerry pointed out the approaching rain clouds so we headed back through Mesquite Canyon to the highway. We all made it back to camp before the rain started in time for dinner. Later a few of us sat around a campfire in the rain.
Sunday morning 6 vehicles headed up to Government Peak by way of the waterfalls. Kristina was the only one without lockers and required a little help on a couple of the obstacles. I give her credit for trying this difficult canyon.
Kerry blew out a rear tire on the big waterfall which took a while to change. Note to all – Make sure your jack works, fits under your axle and you have the correct lug nut wrench. Thank you Brian for the tows when needed. Another note to all – there are places where space is limited and slow speed control is required. A tow strap works and a kinetic rope sucks.
We reached the radio towers at the top of the mountain and admired the views.
The clouds were approaching from the west so we bypassed the Randsburg tour and headed back to camp on the easy road. We got into a little rain on the way but camp was dry and we were able to pack and air up before the rain came. The drive home was very wet in a couple of areas.
I want to thank all of you who participated for being prompt and obeying instructions. It made my job much easier. I hope we all learned a little about winching, towing and rock stacking. This is a good group and I hope to see you all next year.
