GWNF - Oct. 30 - Nov. 1, 1998 Trail Report

Cast of Characters

The Trail
The primary trails we hit on this trip were the Second Mountain trail and Gauley Ridge Rd.  These trails are located approximately 15 miles west of Harrisonburg, VA on Rt. 33.  There is a sign marking the trailhead for Second Mountain on the right on Rt. 33.  The trails follow the power line roads up the mountain at times, switching back and forth under the lines.  The trails are open year-round, but the main entrance off or Rt. 33 runs up a gravel road that runs across private property and the gate is sometimes closed, but it is rare.  If the gate is closed (it never has been when I’ve gone), there is another way into the trails off of Rt. 612.
 

Friday, Oct. 30

I left work early to drive down to the GWNF to make sure that no one snagged the meadow that we would be camping in before we got there.  Once there, I set up my stuff, chopped a little wood and waited for the rest to arrive.  The first to arrive was John, followed by Bill.  Once we were all settled in we decided to build a campfire to cook up some grub.  WRONG!  About 20 minutes after the match was lit, a park ranger walked up to us and informed us that a ban on campfires in the GWNF had gone into effect that very day!  Apparently it has been the driest year in nearly 100 years and there are actually forest fires raging in other parts of the forest further north.  After dousing the fire we were given a written warning.  Oh well, so much for my S’mores supplies!

We sat around, telling lies and drinking brews until we heard a muffled voice come over the CB’s.  We were expecting one more that night, Bud Rosenberger and his son Chip.  The meadow where we were camping is quite well hidden from the road, but we could see his lights on the road, so we told Bud to stay where he was and we would walk out to him and guide him into the meadow.  Bud definitely wins the “Iron Butt” award for this trip, driving 10 hours from Buffalo, NY.  After a few more stories, we all decided to call it an early night and get into the warmth of our beds.
 

Saturday, Oct. 31

The plan was to meet at the meadow at 10am and head to the trails, and this time everybody was pretty much on time.  We decided to head over to the lake to get a good group shot while pretty much everyone was present.  That’s where the fun began.After getting the group shots, Bill put his truck down on a little mini-peninsula for a photo op.  Getting his truck back off of the spot proved quite difficult though and out came the strap.  A little description of the lake is necessary here.  It’s a big man-made lake, with a small dam cutting off a small section of the lake.  It has been so dry down there that the small, blocked-off section of lake is nearly dried up. After I pulled Bill loose, Bob directed him through an opening in the dam to the ground where the blocked-off section of lake once covered.  Almost immediately Bill lost traction in the soft, silty mud.  I went around the small section of lake to pull him again.  I decided to have a little fun and went through a section of mud on the way to Bill.  It wasn’t long before I realized that this wasn’t the best approach.  Before long my driver’s side was dug in nicely and I was stuck.  Rescue mission #2 involved Brian coming around with his locked front & rear pickup and winching us both out.  After winching Bill out, Brian tried to pull me out with a strap.  Even though he was on somewhat dry ground, the silty dirt had him spinning all four as he tried to pull me out.  Finally, we decided the winch was the best way to go and he pulled me out.  All this before we even headed to the trails!!!We returned to the road, and all agreed that it was time for a little lunch, so we stopped at McDorman’s Grocery, a small country store on Rt. 33, for some of their country ham sandwiches before heading out to the trails.  This seems to have become a tradition of sorts.

We proceeded to the trailhead for Second Mountain.  After airing down, I headed up to the top of the hill to ascertain that the gate was open.   The group joined me at the top of the hill and we proceeded up the multi-bermed initial climb up the trail.  Shortly afterward we came to our first decent obstacle, a mud hole followed by a large berm, and then another berm that drops off into another mud hole.  I made it through with just a little rear bumper rubbing.  After pulling up far enough to allow the other vehicles to park, I ran back to watch the others go over the obstacle.  Everyone else made it over with only minor rubbing, the only casualty being a rock light that got ripped off of Ryan’s rear bumper.  Mike wisely took the bypass in his ‘98 4Runner. Mike did take a couple of bypasses on Day 1, but did a very admirable job on Day 2 on the rocks.  A factory rear locker does help!

We continued on up the trail until we came to the turn off for the two big hill climbs of the day.  Ryan, Dale and Mike continued up the trail to get to a good vantagepoint to watch the group climb the hills.  We all climbed the first hill with little trouble.  It’s the steeper of the two hills and has lots of loose gravel, but is a pretty straightforward hill climb with no larger rocks.  Then came the more difficult hill.  I started up and got about half way before hitting a big rock with my front “skid-plate”. After backing down a little ways, I gave it another go, spinning here and there but made it up to the top.  John decided to take the bypass on the left side due to the carb stalling out on him twice last trip on these hills.  Brian walked up the hill pretty easily (after I had shown him the line of course  :-P ).  His truck kinda showed me the huge difference between having open diffs and being locked front and back. Patrick was up next.  Again Patrick put on a good show.  About two-thirds of the way up, he caught about a foot of air…under both front tires!  Patrick made it up the hill without incident after that. Joe, with his 35’s and front locker just walked up the hill, slipping a little here and there, but never really loosing traction.  Bill also took the hill on the left side.  Bud was up next.  He also crested the hill with few problems.  After we had all climbed the hill, we stopped for a bit to pose on a rock at the top of the hill and moved on until we came upon the “articulation ramp”, a ramp used for loading ATV’s onto pickups.

At the "articulation ramp" everyone got a chance to test out their suspensions and get a few good pictures.  I was quite impressed with how well Mike’s 4Runner did on the ramp.  The coil sprung rear really drooped nicely.  While we were all standing around, Bill decided to take a quick look up a trail that we had never explored to see if we should try it.  We waited for a while and heard nothing from Bill on the CB, so Ryan and I decided to track him down.  As it turned out, the trail dead-ended after a couple miles, so we decided to stick with Gauley Ridge.

We continued on to the intersection of Gauley Ridge Rd. and Long Run Rd. A short way up we hung a right down a narrow trail that many of us had been on quite a few times.  A little ways down the trail we reached a few good dry stream crossings.  At one point, Joe, Bud and Brian decided to take a path through the dry streambed that Mike Pelland had traveled the first trip in early October. After waiting for them to rejoin the trail for a while, some of us decided to head back and watch and Joe definitely gave us something to watch!  While stopping for a picture with his driver’s side front tire up on a huge rock, his passenger side tires slipped a little and Joe was on his way to a rollover.  Had Joe not hit the gas and turned the wheel at the right time, he would have laid it on its side.  It was the closest I have personally come to seeing a rollover.  Bill, who had jumped in the passenger seat for that section had a front row seat.  After everyone caught their breath and Bill mumbled something about having to surgically remove his underwear from his butt, we spotted Joe around the boulder.  Bud was next, but avoided the big boulder.  He did get hung up on his skidplate (which runs about ¾ of the length of the truck) and had to be winched backwards a little, but made it through relatively unscathed.  With some good spotting and dual lockers, Brian made it through the section quite easily.

We then came to the spot where we had cleared a large tree on the previous trip.  Despite the fact that the trail was open, we decided to take the “bypass” around where the tree had been, down a rather steep 5-ft. embankment into the streambed and going around where the tree had been before rejoining the trail.  All made it down the bank and around, with only minor rubbing on one tree that makes the turn down the bank an adventure for long wheelbase trucks.  Ryan once again gave “4Runner tree” a tap with his grill guard, for old time’s sake.  The bypass does generally cause a lifted wheel or 2, so Joe (noticeably shaken from his near rollover) decided that he’d bypass the bypass.  After one more nice streambed rock-crawling opportunity, we hit the end of the trail.  At the end of the trail we said goodbye to Joe, Patrick, Lesley and Soren and headed back to the meadow.

After cooking up dinner, I asked around to see who was up for a short night run through a couple of simple loops in the woods.  John jumped in to ride with me, while Bill rode with Mike.  Bud, Chip and Brian joined us and we were off.  We entered the first loop at a crossing of Dry River and continued along the trail until it rejoins Rt. 33 about 2-3 miles later.  These loops are fairly easy and can be done for the most part in 2wd, but it was fun.  The second loop through the woods enters the woods next to a salt shed and continues back to a river crossing.  During years when there is rain, there are some pretty good mud holes on these loops, but the dry weather makes this loop passable in 2wd most of the way also.  However, there are a couple of obstacles like the river crossing and a couple of short climbs that do require 4wd.  Wheeling at night can be a lot of fun, as Chip noted by telling us that night wheeling is “totally tubular”.  At the end of this loop we said goodnight to Mike, who headed back to his warm hotel room in town and Brian who was heading home.

When we got back to camp, everyone else had gone to bed to get in from the increasingly cold night air.  Bill, Bud, John and I stood around, telling a few stories before heading to bed ourselves.
 

Sunday, Nov. 1

The next morning everyone gradually woke up and cooked breakfast.  After packing up and looking under a few hoods, we all left the meadow.  John, Ryan and Bob decided to get an early start back up to Northern Virginia, so that left Bill, Dale and his crew, Mike, Bud and myself to do a little more 4wheeling before calling an end to the trip.

Everyone else missed out because we had some of the best 4wheeling of the trip that day! We took the loops through the woods from the night run first.  Then, we decided to try and rock-crawl down the river.  It was great!  I’ve heard it said that rock crawling is the most fun you can have going slow, and I believe it!  The dry riverbed made for some excellent crawling.  The rocks were big, but the path was passable.  We continued down the river until we came upon a rock face on the right side of the river and decided to take a group shot of the trucks.  Just before we parked the trucks, Bill came over the CB, “I’m amazed!  I haven’t even bottomed on many rocks!”  BAM!!!  No damage, but Bill was stopped dead in his tracks by a biggun.  We lined up the trucks, took a couple of pics and continued on.

We did come to one spot where there was actual water in the river.  Most of us climbed up a steep bank out of the river and took a look at the water from above.  There did appear to be a path through the water that was shallow enough to pass, so Bud drove through while the rest of us directed him from up on the bank.  He made it through without incident, only getting up about 2/3 of the way up on his tires.  Dale had to head home, so I pointed him in the direction of Rt. 33, which was only about 300 yds. away through the woods on a 2wd trail.  The rest of us continued along the bank and dropped back down into the riverbed about 100 yds. down river.
 

Bill took the lead and pushed on.  At one point Bill eased into some water to see how deep it was and decided that it was too deep to pass. Unfortunately his tires were wet and he was a little off camber and only spun on the rocks as he tried to back up and out of the water.  Each time he spun he teetered closer and closer to rolling onto his passenger side into the water.  We hooked up a strap and Bud pulled him back while I added ballast to the driver’s side by standing on his running board and hanging on to his “oh shucks” handles.  Again Bill muttered something about surgically removing his underwear and we pressed on.  Shortly thereafter we came across a spot in the river that was unpassable due to downed trees.  We decided it was a good time to end the day’s festivities and headed back into town.

We stopped to air up at McDorman’s Grocery and decided to grab some dinner in town before heading out.  We met Chance Ebersold from the Toyota 4x4 Mailing List at the Golden Corral in town, stuffed ourselves sick and hit the highway.  Once again a good time was had by all.  I, for one, am really looking forward to doing it again.  Hopefully next trip the fire ban will be lifted.
 

More pics from the trip
 

If anyone has any questions about the trails, feel free to contact me at fort.knox@verizon.net.