Second Annual Big Bear Forest Fest
Holcomb Creek Trail (3n93)

Ah. Finally. A weekend off. It's been something like 3 months since I took a full weekend off from work. I even took an extra day! What a treat. And what an event! This trip was definitely worth taking the extra day off. The Big Bear Forest Fest is an annual event hosted by the Inland Empire 4 Wheelrs as a fund raiser for their club. IAlong for the run was my good friend Cong. He's the one who took all of the great pictures you will find in this report (all thumbnails are clickable, and will open the full size image).

We arrived in Big Bear at around 12 PM on Friday afternoon, ready for a full weekend of fun and relaxation. By 1:30 we had camp set up, and by 2:00 the Jeep was tuned for high altitude and I was ready to relax! By 3:00, beer in hand, I was reflecting that it just doesn't get any better than this. Boy, was I wrong! :-)

For once, I got to sleep early, and woke completely refreshed at (ack!) 5:45 AM. It was the first time in a long time that I actually enjoyed watching the sun come up. We made breakfast, did some last minute tuning on the Jeep, and headed over to the line up for our run at 8 AM. We had a quick Driver's meeting, and then headed out for the trail. This was a "locker recommended" trail, and my heart was pounding, since all I have is a weak LSD in the rear. Ah well, you never go anywhere if you don't try. Here goes nothin'!

Heading out to the trail took about 10 minutes, and then we came up to what looked like a big pond. We all stopped to look at the first obstacle, which was across the pond. It is this nasty looking loose dirt hill climb with ruts at least 4 feet deep. There was a bypass, but it was not to be used, since it had been made by unconcientious and law-breaking people who obviously had no concern for the surrounding environment. I'm not one to turn down a challenge, so off I went...

That first hill climb was a doozy. I tried on my own about 3 times, and got no further than a third of the way up. Then I had some expert spotting from another IE4W member ( I can't remember the name; I met so many people this weekend), and walked right up it (tires spinning wildly and kicking up big clouds of dust). Larry McRae (the Trail Boss) explained that this obstacle is placed at the head of the trail to discourage casual users on the trail. In other words, the forestry dept. wants to make sure that only well equipped rigs will make it through, making it more certain that they don't get stuck further in. We drove into the forest for maybe a mile, with some nice easy hill climbs, and then we came to Rock Garden #1. It looked harmless enough...

On to the fun stuff! -->