Glamis goes off without a hitch! (or a sub frame…)

In my time here at G4F I’ve seen some odd things; fireworks landing on Russ’s dads head, propane bottles blowing up on there own, battery powered blenders (for nutritional purposes), people who become enraged when they see a strap heading their way, etc. G4F’s 2007 Glamis club run was no different. What started out with a separated sub frame and ended up with a yellow Lab riding on a Yamaha quad was another epic G4F adventure.

Early Friday afternoon Matt & Gail Unwin, Tracy & I (Mike Parsons) were the first to arrive in Glamis. We set up camp and we started scouting a way to the infamous “China Wall” that would be passable in our Jeeps. After a couple of miles in the soft sand I decided that it would be too tough for some of the stock vehicles in our group and scraped the idea. We got back to camp in time to wait by the road for team Fichtelman and our resident rodeo cowboy John Landers with Debbie driving their fifth wheel. Most of us sat around the bonfire while our dinners were cooking. For some reason food always taste better when yer’ camping. Tracy cooked a roast, asparagus, corn, biscuits and Ice cream for John, Debbie, Tracy & I. A little known fact was pointed out that when you’re camping food has no calories. I’m not sure of the source for the info but I’m assuming Haagen-Dazs is behind it somehow. Anyway, after a long night of talk around the fire we retired. At about 5AM I called Steve Unwin in regards to bringing out Russ’s spare tire (Side wall puncture) which he said he was already part of his plan. With that small crisis averted I immediately went back to sleep. When I woke up I found Steve, Nora & ? Unwin in their 4Runner, John Z & Roe in their Grand Cherokee and Duane in his gorgeous TJ all ready for our first run.

Our first stop was “Osborne Overlook” (no relation to Ozzy). From here you can see almost the entire set of dunes, it’s truly beautiful. We proceeded to the west canal where half of us went on one side of the canal and the rest went on the other. Driving next to the canal we were able to see hundreds of carp, some of which looked to be close to ten pounds. About every five miles there’s a bridge across the canal where we could drink sodas or switch sides. About fifteen miles out we switched from the canal to the sand highway and from there we made our way across the open sand dunes to Patton’s Valley. Patton’s Valley is known for its big sand hill climbs. Buggies are tested here and there’s always a race going on (except this time). Russ wasted no time at all attempting to take his 8,000 lb F350 up several spots. Watching Russ was more than John Z could handle who promptly hit the hill with his Grand Cherokee. At first they started at the bottom of the hill being careful not to stress the suspension to much. Patton’s wall laughed as it denied run after run of the silly rock crawler’s futile attempts. Then John Z got a brain storm, he took off with a running start at the hill and made it close to the top. There was of-course a reason most folks don’t do this in on road vehicles. The approach to the hill is littered with whoop-dee-doos before it goes from perfectly flat to really frickin’ steep. John didn’t let a little thing like that slow him down. He was the first of the group to climb Patton’s Wall. My ego was not to be out done and I went up next. With Both John and I sitting on the top of Patton’s Wall, Russ was “Hell Bent” on climbing that hill. On his last run he skipped over the whoops at 60 mph where he plowed head on into the hill that made a sickening sound by bottoming out and proceeded to climb up to the top with us. In all my years at the dunes I’ve never seen an F350 go up Patton’s Wall but then again Russ has never tried it before.

We ate lunch after conquering Patton’s wall. Then we took off for the foot hills to take us back to the sand highway. After a couple minutes John Z radioed that he had a problem with his accelerator sticking open. I pointed out that it wasn’t his pedal that was broke it was his lead foot. Upon further investigation we found that his shock tower had completely torn away from the sub-frame (Chrysler forgot to install a real frame in the Grand Cherokees, oops). I couldn’t help but notice when I looked back at Patton’s Wall that it was smirking at us, as if to say;
“Thought you won, didn’t ya”

If you’ve wheeled with John Z then you know nothing bothers him. In fact, I’ve never seen anything even bum him out. I’ve watched him drop a rear diff, he said;
“No problem, I’ll park it and we’ll finish our run”
Then we went out for pizza. Now I’ve seen him bust his front sub frame loose from his shock tower and he said;
“I’ve got chain… lets tie it up then I’ll drive it back to camp” (No pizza this time)
He is truly an even keeled guy. First we used Russ’s winch to pick his Grand Cherokee up off the ground. Then we used Matt Unwin’s winch to pull his shock tower into a more tolerable position. Then we chained his shock tower to his sub frame and John drove it home.
With our Sand run cut short we went back to camp and broke out the quads and headed for Oldsmobile. Steve was riding for the first time and doing pretty good. He kinda’ had to since we taught him how to ride on the way to Olds. Nothing like learning the hardest first (eh Steve?). At one point Steve was on top of an ominous looking dune that dropped into the abyss with an even more ominous looking transition to the next safe spot. He stopped, so I went back. The look on his flush face said it all. It was sort of like, “Are you frickin’ kidding me!?!” You showed me how to start this thing half an hour ago and now we’re here! I led him down to the valley where his confidence came back and we went rite back over the dunes to Olds where the girls were hanging out in the Polaris and Duane’s Jeep. Russ let me ride his two wheeler for a while which made me want to sell my quad in the worst way. On the way back Tracy switched with Steve so she could ride for a while. I was practicing wheelies in the whoops and just about flipped it. Russ was there to laugh point and taunt. JD had a front row seat and watched the whole thing.
Back at camp we sparked up the bonfire with some liquid kindling, Tracy made dinner for John, Debbie & I (Stuffed chicken with sauce, mashed potatoes, Garlic bread & ice cream). Afterwards we sat by the fire and enjoyed seal bombs while decorative Sobe bottle gas fountains colored the night sky (Truly serene).
The next day Steve, Matt, Lexus the Jeep dog and I went into the Chocolate Mountains to do some exploring where we found a gold prospector named Jim. He showed us how his equipment worked, expressed his hate for Diane Feinstein and gave us a nice little tour of the illegal operation he was running. Once we were deep in the mine Steve discovered several nervous bats. It was comedy at its best! The bats saw Steve got scared and tried to fly past him. Seeing the bats come at him Steve tried to get out of the way (Keep in mind we’re in a small tunnel). Steve looked like he was being electrocuted! He was jumping and swatting. If he was on fire he wouldn’t have bounced around any more (Big tough guy terrified of a couple little flying mice. LOL). Steve’s dad Matt, had was totally unaffected by the bats but looked rather disappointed in Steve’s reaction. I just about peed myself laughing and Jim the illegal prospector hadn’t showed any emotion yet (Probably due to breathing massive amounts of bat poop over the years). That would also explain the story Jim was telling about the big Hoover Dam break of 1920 where the railroad filled up box cars with desert sand and drove them over the side to plug the breach. Anyway Jim told us about a water spring that was discovered during the whole Hoover Dam thing (Whatever…) about ten miles away. According to Jim, the spring was located while the box cars were being filled and it had been producing water ever since. He went on to further to say that the area was so lush and green that you would swear you were in a tropical rain forest. Sad as it is, we took off to find the rain forest in Glamis. Two hours later Steve comes over the radio and suggested that good ole’ Jim might have been pulling our leg. Then just as he said we found Jims rain forest.
Now I’ve personally never been to a tropical rain forest…but… I’ve got a hunch Jim’s never been out of Brawley either. I’ll give him the fact that there was a trace amount of larvae infested water covered in yellow jackets. Although I’m still not convinced it wasn’t an abandon septic tank. I’ll even give him the fact that I saw some grass/green weeds. But if this is a rain forest the tree huggers have failed miserably. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder…?
When we got back to camp Lexus the Jeep dog was having a fit so Tracy gave her a ride on the quad which seemed to settle her down. After that we packed up and hit the road.
Everybody who went had a great time! Zero bitching, lots of food and good times, what a club! G4F conquers yet another off road obstacle!

Mike Parsons