{"id":4981,"date":"2019-06-12T21:43:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T01:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/?p=4981"},"modified":"2019-06-14T22:09:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T02:09:57","slug":"xj-list-royal-blue-scouting-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/xj-list-royal-blue-scouting-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"XJ list Royal Blue Scouting Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Royal Blue XJ List Scouting trip<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few of the XJ List members went to Royal Blue to see what\nwe could find.  Adam took us to an\namazing trail to the sand pits just west of the interstate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stayed at Eagle Rock Campground.  The tent camping area is new, and we ended up\nhaving it all ourselves.  It was located\nwell away from the regular campground and had a nice feel to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a short paved drive to the trailhead.  Most of our rigs are not set up for pavement\nbut we made it just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The trail turned out to be rather challenging.\u00a0 Erosion ha washed out the center in many places and my preferred approach was to straddle the ruts.\u00a0 Since it was dry, and my tires did pretty well with side grip, this technique worked for me.\u00a0 If it was wet, I don\u2019t think I would have had as easy a time holding the sides of the ruts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The driving was technical most of the time.  Between the ruts and small rock ledges, I had\nto pay attention to tire placement all the time.  This made the progress slow and entertaining.  I did not take any pictures because I was too\nbusy driving.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first named obstacle we came across is the Dragon\u2019s\nback.  It is a long, domed rock running\nalong the trail.  The top of the rock is polished\nsmooth and most of us elected to straddle the rut on the side of the rock away from\nthe drop off.  Frosty decided to try the\ntop of the rock and ended up rolling off with the base of his Toyota against a\ntree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took us a few minutes to rig up and slide him back onto\nhis wheels.  One he had traction again,\nhowever, he was able to drive out of the hole he fell in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found a shady spot in the old sand pits for lunch on the\ntrail.  We then scrambled our way down\nWidow maker hill and down to the creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near the bottom of the hill, our other Toyota suffered a\nsteering failure.  We attempted a trail\nrepair but ended up piggybacking it on Frosty\u2019s truck and hauling it off the\ntrail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we had a nine mile paved run back to camp.  This we took slowly as some of us were still\naired down and others had some death wobble issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back at camp we relaxed and made some minor repairs, ate\ngood food and told stories around the camp fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, some of the group headed to the shooting\nrange while others of us went on an easy trail ride.  We found a water fall and an interesting old\ndam on a creek that looked like a water reservoir. We met up at camp for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the afternoon, we made the long paved run back to where we had exited the day before and ran the same trail backwards. It was a totally different trail going the opposite direction.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was pleasantly surprised how well my old Maxxis tires\ngripped the rocks and made climbing easy. \nI was a li8ttle intimidated by the steepness of the climb but after I\ngot some confidence form making it over some large ledges, I began to enjoy the\nride more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took some time to explore some of the old mining\nequipment that had been left behind.  I\nwould like to know more about the history of the mine. It was apparently built\nto supply sand to for the construction of Norris Dam back in the 30\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It looked like the brought sand down via a cable car\narrangement as the large brake wheels are still in place on the mountain\nside.  At the sand pits we elected to\ndrive through a small pond that was deep enough to get water in the floor in\nthe deepest part. However, the bottom was solid, so it was an easy traverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We took a break in the shade again at the sand pit and some\nplayed on some of the rocks.  The exit\nlooked intimidating, but by again straddling the V notch I was able to go down\nbetween to large rocks with no drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going down the other side was the same technical driving\nthat we had experienced the day before. \nStraddling the V notches worked as well going down as it did coming up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We caught up with a group of ATV riders on the way\ndown.  When we got to the Dragon\u2019s back\nand I was lining up to take the straddle the notch to come down, they all\npointed and whipped out their cameras.  I\nguess the center site of the bottom of a Cherokee flexing looked exciting from\nbelow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We made it back to camp with only a short paved drive. We then set about grilling steaks and telling stories well into the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Royal Blue XJ List Scouting trip A few of the XJ List members went to Royal Blue to see what we could find.  Adam took us to an amazing trail to the sand pits just west of the interstate. We stayed at Eagle Rock Campground.  The tent camping area is new, and we ended up … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “XJ list Royal Blue Scouting Trip”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4981"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5004,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions\/5004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}