Calico Or Bust Oct. 11-12, 2008 (Now With A Detailed Write up and pics)

[Rocksurfer]

I missed the one day run to Lockwood/Miller's but I plan on going to Calico. It will be a little easier for me to commit to this run since it will be over the whole weekend. I may not make it out on Sat. but I will get out there by Sat. evening. Just thought I'd let you know what we are doing for Oct. Unfortunately due to what happened in Big Bear our club is a little wary of too many people on the trail so if we end up with the 30 rigs we had there we will split into smaller groups and maybe do different trails.  Here's a link to our boards official run thread.

CALICO GHOSTTOWN

[Rocksurfer]

I plan on making the weekend of it, should be camping at Mule Canyon and Phillips late Friday afternoon through Sunday. Some members are planning on getting out there Friday morning.

[Rocksurfer]

Wow what a weekend, it was very eventful for me from the start. Flat on the motorhome in front of the house (omen), made it all the way to Calico and as I was going up Mule Canyon everything shuts off, no power at all. Spent a few hours tracing the void of power and figured out that for some reason there was no power at the ignition. So I hot-wired the ignition through my CB wire to get it to start so that I could get it to camp at about 1:30a.

Saturday brought a brisk morning, club members included Fred, Brian, Eric, Paul, Lloyd, Robbie and myself. There were a couple of Eric's friends there so we had a good size group, and decided to do Odessa. Things went well and we really didn't have many issues at all to stop our progress just a few times we were slowed by a stuck, some needed spotting or as usual catching other groups on the trail.

Robbie drove my truck for the most part but when he stood it on two wheels I figured I better take over through the tough stuff. He did really good, and if I was geared lower he probably could have done the whole trail. We finished Odessa by a little passed noon and climbed up to the mines and had lunch there. We then took a mine tour with our guide Paul Acosta, he hit his head pretty good at one point in the mine and was bleeding into his forehead so we headed back out to attend to his wound. Wasn't really bad cut the top of his head but it didn't bleed for very long.

Once back on the trail we headed back towards camp to attend to my motorhomes issue but before we even got back across Odessa to go back up by Mule Canyon we were flagged down from someone above us yelling for help. We immediately started back up towards the mines. About halfway up Fred suggested that Lloyd and I should go back to camp and attend to my motorhome while they went and took care of the help call. So I turned around and Lloyd and I headed back to camp.

Once on top of the ridge we looked back across Odessa and saw two Jeeps where no trail existed, one was nose down just above a mine shaft and the other was above him. Unfortunately we continued to camp and didn't get to see and or help recover them from the spot they were in.

Back at camp Lloyd trouble-shot my issue, it didn't take long to figure out that my battery isolator was not supplying any power to the engine side of the motorhome. I bypassed the isolator by connecting my house batteries and engine batteries in series and the power returned. With that now taken care of I quickly set my motorhome up level, had a quick dinner and was going to head back up to the top of Odessa since it was getting late, but just as I was about to leave the rest of our group returned with their life saving story, it seems that the Jeeps had driven over the edge on purpose and put themselves in the trouble they got into. I'll leave the details to someone that was there but from my understanding they may have saved their lives since they were pretty stuck and were going to try something that my have severely injured or killed someone.

The day ended with a great happy hour followed by dinner for those that had been at the rescue. One note on the rescue I haven't seen Paul move as fast as he did in years, he paid the price though later and was feeling pretty sore back at camp.

Sunday dawned with a trip up Doran, I'm having trouble getting seat time in my own rig these days, Robbie drove most of the day but I did get to do most of Doran due to my lack of low gearing. We didn't have very many problems getting up through Doran, I did get a few new dents in my bed and have a rear shock leaking but other than that we did very well. We opted to take the bypass since the first section has gotten even worse than I've ever seen it. That thing is just ugly now. Once done we headed back to camp and everyone packed up and headed for home.

Turns out my thrill ride in the motorhome was yet to be finished. We stopped for gas in Barstow and it wouldn't start back up. This does happen from time to time with that 454 engine, the starter just can't spin it fast enough to fire up. So we sat at the station until it cooled off and it fired back up. Then just before I got home I noticed I had no headlights but what was worse was the reason, my alternator had quit, I'm figuring that it has something to do with the isolator problem and hopefully will come back when I put a new one in.

Besides the motorhome issue I had a great time and was glad to be there since we don't know what the future is for Calico. Paul says that the area in question for renewed mining is already in escrow, and if anyone would know what's going on in Calico it would be him.

I have a bunch of pictures, kinda tired right now and will post them as soon as I can.

[Rocksurfer]

Great writeup Ron!
What were these guys thinking!?? They drove their rock buggies off a graded road at the top of Calico mountain and down into a steep loose (make that 'one-way') canyon that narrowed and ended at an old mine shaft entrance and huge mine tailing...the lead buggy drove off the ledge just above the mine, and wound up stuck nose first in front of the entrance.
Eric Francour helped with good spotting to get both buggies down on flat ground-The first buggy was already sitting on its nose in fron of the mine entrance when we arrived. Good spotting by Eric and some guys pulling on a strap eventually got him back on all fours. Both buggies ran on propane, so they were able to keep their engines running while near vertical-The second buggy was still stuck above the mine entrance, and also had to (s-l-o-w-l-y) drive/fall straight down 'nose first' above the mine entrance edge while a bunch of us strapped him from behind to keep him from rolling on his roof.
Both buggies were finally on level ground (one buggy suffered a bent drag link), but were now found themselves trapped on top of a huge 300 foot high mine tailing with no exit roads. Both drivers wanted to "drive down" the mine tailing-a 300 foot 45-50 degree slope of very loose gravel and rocks! We convinced them that option was suicidal, and after some exploring we found a narrow off camber footpath they could follow to get them back to a road. Both vehicles eventually made it to the road with the help of a bunch of guys on a strap to keep them from rolling into the canyon below....
These guys were fortunate they had some help-and wise advice... Paul took videos of the action and will share them at the next club meeting at his house..

[AaronB]

 

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OK...

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More....

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Here's a few....

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These too...

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