The Gutter, 9/21/07
The Gutter (9/21/07) Trail Report from my perspective (Stacey Osborn)
So, we left home at 5:30am Saturday to meet up with a few folks at a Dunkin Donuts on Norton at 6am and caravan out to Western MA. Bill and I met up with Meg, Eric, and Bill B. Meg who is not yet a member parked her TJ and rode along as a passenger with Eric in his TJ. Bill drives a black H1. So at that point it was us in our YJ, Eric and Meg in his TJ, and Bill in his H1.
We caravanned up 495 to the Mass Pike (90). We pulled off at the Charleton rest area to meet up with others. We met Frank (YJ), Chris (Bronco), Mark (Bronco), Derek (YJ), and Liza and Bob (CJ). So, our caravan now consisted of 3 YJs, 1 TJ, 1 CJ, 2 Broncos, and 1 H1… eight rigs in all.
We continued westward to exit 4 and went up route 91 North. Our final meeting spot before heading to the trail head was at a 7-11 in Sunderland, MA. We actually passed one of my all time favorite restaurants Goten. It’s a Japanese Steak House. (Yes, I know that was random and off topic)
We were supposed to meet up with two other rigs at the final spot having 10 in all. Jon and his brother Ben were there in his Bronco. However, Ryan, dear ol’ Fluffy, apparently bailed out on us.
So, we had 9 rigs in total, 3 Broncos, 3 YJs, 1 TJ, 1CJ, and 1 H1 with 13 people. Bill B with his H1 was the trail leader. I had only been here once before in winter time with lots of snow and ice so the trail was very different. Since we’ve had one of the driest years ever it was very dusty and most of the water parts were dried up.
As you’ll see in pictures there were a few primary obstacles. The rest was primarily bumpy and challenging but not enough to stop and get out so I didn’t get those pictures. It would have been much more difficult and probably cause some undercarriage damage for stock rigs but an experienced driver could probably handle it.
We stopped for lunch in a shady area where Chris was playing with a large rock. He gave himself a good scare and got that adrenaline rushing. We got the grills set up and Eric cooked up burgers on his grill while I cooked up the Hot Dogs, Cheddarwurst and kielbasa on ours. We also had homemade pasta salad, plenty of macaroni salad, chips, pickles, plus homemade cookies and brownies for dessert. With FTR, you’ll never go hungry on the trails.
After lunch we turned back and headed down the trail we came up. Bill noted that will full bellies people tend to drive a lot more slowly on the rocky trails. We stopped a few times on the trip down and I tried to force more cookies and brownies on folks.
We got back down to the trail head pretty much unscathed just after 3pm. It’s a narrow and rocky trail so I’m sure there were scratches and dings and dents here or there but no serious carnage. Everyone aired up, reconnected sway bars or loaded their rigs as is on their trailers.
Since a few of us were heading back in the same direction and we had our GPS, I was designated to get us back to the highway to head home. Of course, the darn GPS never takes you the way you want to go. It was trying to send us on many back roads including one I knew had a ton of construction to get us on the highway further east. Since we had folks following us, I opted to ignore the GPS and bring us back the way we came in on so there would be less turns to lose them. However, because the GPS and I were not telling my husband the same thing he got a bit upset with me thinking I was getting us lost. Although, to his defense, he has good reason… I have done that once or twice with my infamous short cuts, lol.
We got back on to 91S and headed down towards the MA Pike. We had to pull over once for Derek to readjust since he found out the hard way that the well nuts he’d tried to adhere his soft top with didn’t work out so well at highway speeds. Luckily that’s his old windshield frame and his fiberglass one is still down at our house waiting for a few more mods to get put on. He said last night that he’s thinking it’ll be time for the hardtop soon anyhow. That stop took only a minute or two and we were on our way.
We got back to the MA Pike and everyone went their various ways. We got home around 6:30 or so which was before dark… gotta love that! It is nice to get home early enough to unload the rig the same day.
All in all it was a fantastic day. We had the most amazing weather for wheeling... sunny, dry, around 75-80 for a high. Plus, we had a great group of people, delicious lunch, entertaining conversations, and no carnage!
My pictures are uploaded online here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/MzOzzieTJ/TheGutter
Thanks for reading...
-Stacey