lithium1330 Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 you know you're taking a Rover on a road trip when you spend more time packing things for the truck than for yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinw.rrc Posted December 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 you know you're taking a Rover on a road trip when you spend more time packing things for the truck than for yourself. such is a Rover life. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulD Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 I'll be topping up at Lost Hills, off the 5, where Premium is 2.32 -- Yay!!! See ya'll @ Avi Gas. --Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinw.rrc Posted December 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 See you Thursday morning! Safe travels! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 5:00 AM. Time to head out! See you guys Santa Nella. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinw.rrc Posted December 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Woohoo! We are getting Starbucks and then hitting pavement. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted December 28, 2016 Report Share Posted December 28, 2016 Hey now, it's 7:41 and I'm still at the Chevron. I thought this was a military operation based on the tight schedule! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinw.rrc Posted December 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 So... no campsites available at Red Rock campground so off to Laughlin and staying at a hotel. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 Chris and I are at the Avi now. Saw Paul's RRC in the lot being admired by a couple toyota guys who are also running the road tomorrow. We also spoke with another group on the radio earlier today who are running tomorrow so it looks like we'll have plenty of company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psykokid Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 So... no campsites available at Red Rock campground so off to Laughlin and staying at a hotel. I was going to say something about that. Your chances of getting a campsite there without a reservation is slim to none as Red Rocks between Christmas and New Years is a big destination for people who rock climb, since it's warm and close to Vegas.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinw.rrc Posted December 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 I was going to say something about that. Your chances of getting a campsite there without a reservation is slim to none as Red Rocks between Christmas and New Years is a big destination for people who rock climb, since it's warm and close to Vegas.. unfortunately they don't take reservations either. First come, first serve. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psykokid Posted December 29, 2016 Report Share Posted December 29, 2016 unfortunately they don't take reservations either. First come, first serve. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk There's some group sites across the road from the main campground area you can reserve at https://www.recreation.gov/camping/red-rock-canyon-campground/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&parkId=74978 for future reference. Like I said before, those sites have probably been reserved out 6 months in advance.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRover Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 We're back! Happy New Year to everyone! 🎆 Just finished unloading the truck since we had a high likelihood of rain at home and will post more later. While most of the gear dried out on the drive back, the tent is still a bit wet from a really good rain/thundershower we slept through Saturday evening. Also had to pull up the carpets and foam/rubber pads in RedRover to dry out, due to a particularly deep water crossing before Afton Campground, where we took on a little water inside. I used a shop vac to suck out most of the water from the carpets and foam; additionally I applied a technique from our highly-esteemed Paul Dunn to lift the pads from the floor to completely dry, away from the metal floor. I found a few spots of rust at some of the weld joints that likely have just happened over time -- I'll clean those up tomorrow. Had i known I was going to do such a water crossing, I would have probably pulled up the carpets and pads before departing for Mojave and just put down the rubber mats we typically put over the carpet anyway. Trips like this remind me of how versatile the Range Rover Classic is; we went through about 180 miles of desert, muddy lake beds, sand dunes, rocky trails and deep water and yet once the tires hit the pavement, i reclined the seats and had a very comfortable drive back to the bay area. I'll post more details later. Jared Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lithium1330 Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 New Years in Mojave - this was a fantastic trip to ring in 2017! Thank you Erin for coordinating this event with our friends at AZLRO!It was great to finally meet some other NCLR members face to face. I need to check the trip meter, but I believe the total is around 1400 miles (for those of us who left Sunday morning). For me, it was the longest trip in the D90. Before this was the Bodie trip. And despite a few minor issues, the truck made it home this evening under its own power:- small coolant leak (appears to be from hose to the pump)- aux gas tank cap leaks - need bigger cap, I guess?- vapor locked at a sightseeing stop - I think I may need to replace the fuel filter and/or old fuel pump. - left tail-light went out- water ingress on passenger side while fording 32" of water (some wet carpet, but I hope someone got pix and video!) Marie, my girlfriend, met up with the group on Friday at the Kelso Visitor Center,... and joined the group for 2 full days of adventure. It took her a little bit to warm up driving off road, but I think she picked it up rather quickly. The LR2 with factory everything, including its all-season tires, performed really well on sand, gravel and rocks. She even ascended up a climb that looked rather steep, all without much drama. About the only thing the LR2 didn't do was the water crossing under own power. We weren't sure where the intake was (possibly under the headlights, so Lutz towed her across. Thanks, Lutz! All in all, a memorable weekend for her. LR2 water fording... https://goo.gl/photos/T3yLwSZG8rF1NPoR6 Here is a photosphere at one of the stops on the mojave... https://goo.gl/maps/mWKhqYkgWG82 I've attached a few pix below...and uploaded all 160 of them here: https://goo.gl/photos/zC41uNsUAVdGd1Gd9 If someone (Tom?) can create a folder for this trip on smugmug... I'll upload to there as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 In case it wasn't clear, some folks headed back yesterday morning direct from Afton Campground since they needed to be at work today. The rest of us headed out to run the last 15 or so miles to Camp Cady which pretty much means heading up the Mojave River. Our leader hadn't done this part before so we didn't know what we would be in for. Paul, Lutzi, and myself stayed on for this leg. It started out a big suspiciously as we left the camp and turned off the road to the first trail. The book says there is a gate here and just leave it as you found it. Except we found it buried about half way up in dried mud/sand/dirt and apparently it had been that way for a while. So at this point we started to drive 'by the force' - i.e. just go up-river along any trail we could find. We were doing fairly well for the first mile or two then the trail disappeared into the river with no sign of coming out on the other side. A little exploring and we saw a trail marker mid-river a little further up so our leader in an RRC powered across with a little wheel spinning. Glen in a Ford Expedition was next and nearly didn't make it, needing several back and forward attempts to get across as he went a little different line than the RRC and was heavier. At that point Paul decided maybe he'd gotten enough water in his truck yesterday and that he'd head back home. That left me in the LR3 and Lutzi in his D2 who both made it across without any problems. From here we really didn't have any notable trail to follow. The heavy rain the night before had washed away most traces of prior passages and raised the water level so it was a matter of picking your own path as well as possible up the river wash. This is a really unusual occurrence these days since we are always following established trails and this was basically cross-country driving. However since it was an active river wash we weren't too worried about it as the next good rain will wipe out any evidence of our passage unlike the desert where tracks can linger for years and years. There were many more water crossings but none that posed any great challenge. We eventually made it up to Manix Wash were our route was to leave the river bed and head up hill. Though our leaders had been un-erring to this point, they accidentally turned a bit too soon and started up a different wash that quickly turned into a boggy sand/mud mix that sunk their RRC. The Ford behind them saw this and was able to hammer the throttle and get around them to higher ground and I and Lutzi were able to stop on firm ground a little further back. At this point everybody climbed out of the RRC to assess but found it wouldn't shift back into gear as the shift interupt had packed it in. It only took a few minutes to find a work-around, then with a few scoops of the shovel they were able to drive out. Glen in the Explorer almost made it out under his own power but eventually sunk as well. Lutzi came around and pulled him back about 10' which was all it took for him to get pointed back down-hill and make it down to firm ground. It was a very odd soil, one area might be firm and 2 feet away you'd sink without it looking any different on the surface. Once turned around we got ourselves headed in the right direction. Turns out the wrong turn was because our leaders thought we were still along the Mojave River and were looking to turn up Manix Wash when in fact we were already in Manix Wash but there was so much water in it it looked like the river. Once we'd sorted that bit of navigation out by consulting our various maps via radio it was quick work to get up and to the smooth and easy power line road and from there on to the end of the trail at the Camp Cady marker. Here are my photos/videos. Unfortunately it seems my phone won't focus when zoomed in so some of the videos aren't great. https://goo.gl/photos/36on7QVc23WvKDUf8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 Out of curiosity I looked up the factory fording depth for the LR2 - they say 19.7". So probably a good thing we decided to tow her across since we were looking at over 30" of water based on the water-lines left on our rigs. http://www.landroverusa.com/vehicles/lr2-compact-suv/vehicle-specs.html On the one hand, the older rigs (RRC, Defender, D2) are easier to mechanically waterproof for deep crossings than the late-model rolling laptops like the LR2/3/4. On the other, none of the new rigs had to worry about flooded footwells. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 I should also mention we had no break-downs from any vehicle. At one point on day one Chris's Defender didn't want to re-start after sitting for a short time but just releasing the gas cap fixed that. We had a couple light bulbs go out, likely from cold water/hot bulb interactions during water crossings. Chris's aux tank splashed a little fuel out the cap when max'ed out full early on but that's likely just a poor cap seal and only occurred when the tank was topped off and he was bouncing around. I threw an orange suspension code at one point when on a graded power line road but it self-cleared when I re-started the truck and never came back (I didn't bother pulling the code to see what it was). We had some water ingress on the earlier trucks but it's not like there was 6" of water inside. Our leader's RRC did short a wire on the brake light harness at the end and was popping fuses (the result being the shift interlock wouldn't work) and they had a bushing fail on their panhard rod so the drive home was likely a little squirly. No flat tires, no mechanical break-downs. No issues at all really. Pretty good for 8 Land Rovers of various vintages over 1200+ miles of highway and trail driving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomOwen Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 I've seen a few photos trickle around the interwebs so I created an album Gallery: https://norcalrovers.smugmug.com/Trip-Photos/Mojave-with-AZLRO-2017/Upload: https://NorCalRovers.smugmug.com/upload/KXQ3gs/mojaveazlro2017 Welcome home, looks like a great trip! Don, see if you can "share" your gPhotos album with me at Tom@TomOwen.NET or TomOwen1 (native gmail), I *might* be able to bulk upload from there... thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulD Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 Great trip! Thanks everyone for an awesome adventure. Day two and three was my fave -- plus the whole cairn thing. Awesome teamwork, everyone. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TD1 Posted January 2, 2017 Report Share Posted January 2, 2017 Great trip everyone. Lots of cool scenery and was great getting to spend some more time with the NCLR and AZLRO crew. I quickly uploaded some photos on the link Tom posted, but also have a bunch of super high-res photos (huge files- 72 mb). I will email around a link for the dropbox is anyone is interested in taking a look once i have had a chance to get rid of the out of focus/bad ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulD Posted January 3, 2017 Report Share Posted January 3, 2017 Boy, the section of drive back between Barstow to the Tehachapi Grade was a challenge -- super strong headwind!. I even got passed by an RV (mind you, it was a diesel pusher). --Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted January 3, 2017 Report Share Posted January 3, 2017 Boy, the section of drive back between Barstow to the Tehachapi Grade was a challenge -- super strong headwind!. I even got passed by an RV (mind you, it was a diesel pusher). --PaulNo kidding. I came through there later but it was still blowing strong. I dropped down to 60 mph and was doing like 3000 rpm much of the time. I think my gas milage on that section was about 12 mpg. By the time I got home it had come up to 15.3 and that was running 70-75. Still not as good as the 16.1 I got on the way down when going the other way on the same route. I'd attribute that to the headwind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lithium1330 Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 So, I found out the folks we crossed 146.460 signals with outside Bakersfield were from Bay Area .They had planned a trip on Expedition Portal, and were same group camping next to us at Beale Mountain Friday night. Popular place for New Years. ... and now, we return to regularly scheduled program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Ah, I wondered if they were from ExPo. I used to read it pretty regularly but have slacked off in the last couple months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teds Posted January 12, 2017 Report Share Posted January 12, 2017 Awesome pics! I have wanted to run Mojave trail since before I owned a rover. Hoping I can make the next trip. Is this going to be an annual event? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.