LOWER SHAFT CANYON (Johnson Valley/Fry Mtns.) BROKEN!! WITH PICTURES!!

[Rocksurfer]

Well as some of you know my club is slowly creating a couple new trails in Johnson Valley in the Fry mtn. range and over the holiday weekend they set out to conquer and open Lower Shaft Canyon thus connecting Lower Shaft and Middle Shaft. Well the accomplished opening Lower Shaft and now you don't have to bypass this section leaving only Upper Shaft to be groomed into a usable trail and completing the entire route. Lower Shaft is even tougher than the middle section and required lots of sweat and blood from our members to create this trail so treat it like you own it..... wheel the hell out of it!!



They also played around on Crowbar and Ballerina Rock and had some success in climbing Ballerina.... and then they drove back down it!!!     If you have ever visited Ballerina you'll understand going up is hard enough but driving back down is out-right scary.



They also broke more ground on Crowbar past the bailout but that is incomplete and you will have to turn around and go back to the bailout at this point. TurtleTruck says they were able to get about 200 yards or so further up Crowbar.



TurtleTruck, the scout and trail boss for these trails put up an excellent trip report of the historical breaking of Lower Shaft, without him and his perseverance to complete these trails we may have given up, here's a link to that report and the thread from my clubs bb on the trip:



Thread (lots of pictures on page 3):
http://www.spinninfours.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1004&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


Trip Report (with tons of pictures):
http://www.spinnin4s.com/trips/fry11_06/index.html

[79coyotefrg]

cool

[Lady Di]

Damn I miss being out west!

[BigMike]

Man that must be fun paving new grounds and opening up new trails like that, especially when you don't have to go through the bureaucratic grabage we have in the Sierras.


Thanks for posting the pics

[Rocksurfer]

That is the beauty of open areas, you can find your own way. Though remember in playing in these open areas you don't want to just tear it up stay on the established routes as much as possible, since there is still sensitive vegetation and creatures out there, here's one little fella that was hanging around, checking us out, he was given a helping hand so that he wouldn't get hurt.

[Hammer Hog]

That was one cool spidy for sure. I strattled it when breaking that trail. That's TurtleTruck following.




What a cool couple of new trails. Can't wait to take some friends back through there.

[Rocksurfer]

This is about the only thing I miss living in Arizona, wheelin' with my buddies.

[6.72:1]

I want to go to the west!

[Troy]

i ran part of crowbar last year with turtletruck and friends and it was a butt kicker, but very entertaining
you didn't know what was happen next, can't wait to try it again,

nice trail report mark

[Gittinit]

I want to go to the west!

x2

[toyotaexo]

does anyone have a map of all johnson valley trails including all new trails?

[TurtleTruck]

does anyone have a map of all johnson valley trails including all new trails?

To my knowledge there is no one map that has all the trails.  The area is so large that the detail would be much too small to be usable.

A very nice satellite map of the Hammer Trails is here.  It has all but the newest trails on it.

Maps to our new trails are on the fifth page of this post on our BB.

There is also a nice Hammer Trail guide here.

[toyotaexo]

thanks for the info!  satlite map is  nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hammer Hog]

Here's a link to the maps we've help put together...Hammer Trails 8)

Feel free to copy and or print them 

http://www.extremewheelers4christ.org/map1.html

BTW, You can click on points of interest for more details.