January 1, 2005    The Official Newsletter of the New Mexico 4-Wheelers    www.nm4w.org

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The December potluck/party/meeting was held at the beautiful Corrales home of Barbara and Jerry Marx.  Members enjoyed a sit-down potluck, including ham, meatballs, and libations provided by Barbara and Jerry.  Members brought all kinds of delicious appetizers, main dishes, salads, and desserts (all or which had the calories “shaken out”, as Chuck would say).

Member families present: Baca (Paul-Baptiste, Eveliina and 8-week-old Kaisa), Bontly, Brady, Capener (Rich and Camille), Cline, Duggar, Kausche, Lavy, Marx, Miller (Tami and Darrin), Ohnesorg, Peeples, Rector, Sierra, Tanner, Thompson, Werkmeister (Mark and Debbie), Whiston (Frank and Donna), and Wolf.

Guests: Mike and Angela Cook (voted in as members under New Business).

After a long, leisurely gorgefest, the meeting was called to order at 7:50 p.m. by President Leon “Rocket J. Squirrel” Duggar.  First order of business was a thank-you round of applause for our gracious hosts, Jerry and Barbara.  Next was the motion and vote to dispense with reading last month’s minutes.

In the spirit of the season, Sheriff Santa Rector had no infractions to report or fines to levy.  At the request of Trip Chair Jason Lavy, trip reports followed.

Upcoming runs:

January 1, 2005, Sagebrush Flat. Wolfie will lead.  Meet at the Conoco station at Hwys. 550 & 528 at 9:00 a.m.  NM4W adopted this Santa Fe National Forest trail about five years ago.  To fulfill this commitment, members are asked to bring trash bags and help with cleanup during the run.  In the past, there hasn’t been much trash so let’s keep it that way.  If there’s snow, it will be a moderate run.  If dry, it will be easy.

February 23-26, Chile Challenge. Register by January 29^th for earlybird rates.  The Saturday evening raffle is the main source of income for SWFWDA, so sell tickets!!!  Contact Leon to get your supply replenished.  Glenn put a link for the event registration on the NM4W web site Schedule Page.  He also posted the annual “Which Trails are You Planning to do at the Chile Challenge” list, also linked to the Schedule Page. 

Past runs:

November 12-13, Caballo. Wolfie said it rained, rained some more, and then snowed on the way home.  The slippery rocks made for a challenging run.  Everyone was impressed that first-timer Debbie Cade and her son Ben in her TJ and relatively new member Nancy Crowley and Rod Martin in Nancy’s trusty CJ-5 got through the trail unscathed.

November 27, Cedro Peak. Glenn led a smallish group up this scenic area in the Tijeras area.  No problems, lots of mud, the play areas were fun.

November 27-28, Arizona. For a change of pace, several made the trek to the Phoenix area for warm weather and new trails.  On Friday, six vehicles ran the Reno Pass Trail.  In spite of being 50 miles from a city of 3+million people, no one was encountered on the trail.  The Crown King trail on Saturday was a tougher trail with some serious rock crawling in places.  It started out in saguaro cactus terrain and ended up at 6,000+ feet in the Ponderosa pines.  We had a delicious lunch at the old ore mill that’s been converted to a restaurant.  Those attending were Lauri and Jeff Rector, Mark and Joan Wolf, Dan Colwell and family from Prescott Valley AZ, Mike and Alex Wolf from Peoria AZ, Kristy Ohnesorg, Mike Coe, and two German four-wheelers that Mike met in Moab.

December 4, Christmas Tree Run. Glenn said no one rolled over (unlike last year when someone’s brother was driving a bit too fast, braked, and then rolled a Grand Cherokee, no one was hurt). This year everyone enjoyed playing in 18‑inches of snow.  Pat and Sue managed to find even more snow on their return trip through the village of Ponderosa and had fun getting through it.

Historian Rich Capener requested pictures for the scrapbook.  Other officers were unable to attend; there was no Treasurer report.  Bob Norton stayed home to work on the quarterly Drive Lines newsletter.  Jason Lavy was “volunteered” to submit an article on NM4W activities to Bob.

Old Business. Jerry Marx expects to place a t-shirt/sweatshirt order after January 1^st, so get requests to him before then.  So far, about six people have placed orders.

On behalf of the club, Jerry presented a check to All Faiths Receiving Home and Bill Cline did so for the Valencia County CYFD.  Both groups were very grateful for the $300 donations.  It was suggested that the letters of acknowledgement be placed in the club scrapbook.

New business. Pat Brady said the corporation papers were not filed last year, so the club must pay a small fine and the $15 fee.  After officers sign the paperwork, Leon will send it in.

Robert Auge contacted Chuck about the club’s willingness to help put on another 4x4 101 class at Auge’s dealership in Belen.  A vote will be taken at the January meeting.  If the club decides to help, Pat will again do the engineering work on the obstacle course.  There needs to be a strong turnout for the work party to build the course.  The tentative date is April 16, 2005.

Mike and Angela Cook were voted in as new members.  They drive a CJ-7 (Mike) and a TJ (Angela), are friends of Jack and Stella Sierra, and have attended several Chile Challenges.

Sue contacted the church (Heights Cumberland Presbyterian) about using a room for the January through April meetings.  Marcia mentioned that Don Miller should be contacted to see if he’ll be able to resume the Secretary duties in January.  (Note: Just recently, Don emailed members that he WILL be resuming Club Secretary duties beginning in Feb!)

The meeting adjourned at 8:18 p.m.

Friday morning, November 26^th, had 4 vehicles meet at the Cracker Barrel in north Phoenix at I-17 and Deer Valley Road.  Joining me was Jeff & Lauri Rector, my brother Michael and his son Alex, and a friend and his son Dan Colwell and Bryce.  We had some breakfast and headed across town.  After stopping a couple of times to be sure we had enough fuel for the day, we headed north on Beeline Highway to the turnoff to Bushnell Tanks.  There we met Kristy Ohnesorg and Mike Coe (in Kristy’s Jeep) and a couple from Utah named Sonia and Jocko (actually they’re from Germany).  We aired down our tires and headed east towards the start of the trail.

I was reading the Arizona Trails book while driving and missed the turn onto FS 524.  After a short tour around an old water tank, we went back down the road about 1/4 mile and found the turnoff.  The trail started out fine and got gradually better as the day went on.  My brother had not been out in his 30” tired, but lifted, lockerless Cherokee for a long time, and this would be his day to remember how to go four wheeling.  He followed my friend Dan, who has a well-prepped Cherokee himself and likes to exercise the suspension and rear locker.  None of us could believe it when he started following Dan through the hard stuff and was actually making it!  Even Sheriff Rector said, “What’s he doing following him”?  I finally got my brother to look for other ways along this trail, as it had some bypasses for the harder obstacles.  These obstacles were actually nothing more than trail washouts.

All was going well, as the weather was great and the trail was hard enough, but not too difficult.  It had its share of rocks, dirt, washouts, climbs, and scenery.  Everyone made it to the top of the pass by 11:30 AM and we decided to have lunch.  About the time I stopped, my brother said he had a problem.  A quick “look see” determined that his left front spring had popped out of its holder.  The little hold-down bracket had fallen off causing the spring to shift.  While Mike went to look for the bracket, Sheriff Rector, myself, and Jocko worked to get the spring reseated on Mike’s Cherokee.  At that point we decided to reattach the sway bar to try and hold the spring in place.  It worked, as the spring held all the way home.

After eating lunch, we headed down the other side of the pass towards Punkin Center.  I came down the hill and decided to turn left onto what looked like an alternative route to the bottom.  After following the route for quite a ways, I called back to the others that it looked ok.  They all followed like lemmings!  And, it turned out that this was a short trip to an abandoned mine.  There was some off camber the last part of the trail and I heard more than one complaint.  Even Sheriff’s Rector’s wife said “The Sheriff’s wife is going to fine you”.  Gee!  It was a nice side trip and the lean wasn’t that much on the side of the cliff!

We finally made it down to the bottom and aired up our tires.  Everyone really enjoyed the trail and we never saw another vehicle all day.  That’s amazing for a trail so close to Phoenix!

The next morning we all met (same group of vehicles, except that Mike Coe drove his own Jeep and Dan’s wife Nora and daughter Erin and my wife Joan also joined in) near Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, to head up to Crown King via the “back way”.  My meeting place was slightly off, as the roads had been rerouted since I was last there (maybe 15 years ago!).  But, we all caught up with each other and headed into the trail.  We stopped when the road turned to dirt and aired down our tires for another day of wheelin’.  My brother Mike had fixed his Jeep the night before, so he got to take that sway bar loose, but not before we went a long ways on this “easy” trail.

This time it would be different!  There were a lot of vehicles out this day!  We aired down and headed for the trail.  It started right away and we stopped for a bathroom break.  One group caught up with us and waited to let us go ahead.  We also decided to change channels on the ole CB, as others were using the same frequency.  Mike suggested 16 (4X4) and that was a good one as no one seemed to be on it.  We headed out; it didn’t take us long to catch up with another group and the first obstacle.  It was a hill with several moguls on it, and two vehicles ahead decided to turn around.  That didn’t hurt our feelings any!  This trail is becoming much harder than the book describes!  It must be because of all the use it gets!

Mike and Jeff tried the hardest line and made it look easy.  Both days were great wheelin, as the rains earlier in the week had settled all of the dust and we loved it!  We followed a group of three Jeeps for quite a ways before I went up a hill that was pretty steep and washed out.  I waited for the others, and to my surprise, my brother had some problems.  My friend Dan and Sheriff Rector helped him out by building a road, which allowed him to finally make it under his own power.  You see, he had no tow hooks, so we couldn’t pull him!  Dan, Mike Coe, and Jeff all took a more difficult way and all three made it look easy.  At this point, we passed up the three Jeeps that we had been following.  It was very nice of them to let us go by.

We followed along the trail until we finally got to a wide open area near the creek.  This looked like a nice place to take another break and let everyone catch up.  It was actually lunch time, but all of us were anticipating a sandwich at the restaurant at the top that my brother Mike, Dan, and Mike Coe had all bragged about.  After a short break, we got going again, and this time stopped at Fort Misery.  Fort Misery was an old cabin built by a guy named Al Francis, who hauled freight from Oro Belle (an old mining community) to Crown King and didn’t like his job or home place.  After this spot, we kept going until we reached the snowfall near the top of the mountain.  We had several ATVs and motorcycles pass us, as this is a popular route.  There were hard spots along the way, but no one had any major trouble.

After a short break and some “snow ball time”, we headed for the restaurant.  We finally made it at about 3:00PM.  We all had something to eat and then headed down the mountain, east towards I-17.  We made to I-17 at about 6:15PM and had to air up our tires and reconnect sway bars in the dark.  Everyone said good-bye and declared what fun they had, and then we all headed our separate ways.

It was a very enjoyable holiday for me, as I got to see family, eat great food, go four wheelin’ with some great friends and family, and drive my Jeep!  As Kristy always says, “I love my Jeep”!!  Hopefully, next year I can do this again!  It was great weather for both days, and little to no dust made it even more fun to ride those trails.  I will say that Charles Wells writes some great books that do an excellent job of describing the trails, routes, and turns.  Thanks to him, we had fun!

You and 12 other vehicles have just driven several miles down the road on your way to the trailhead.  Excitement ran through your veins as the howl of mud terrains roared over the asphalt.  Lots of people who are way less fortunate than you (those driving little Hondas, Nissans, and other silly cars), gaze at you with envy as your convoy passes.  Nearing the trailhead, the leader stops the group after making sure everyone is well clear of the main road.  All of a sudden, there’s a hubbub of activity, hissing tires, and other stuff going on.  What are you supposed to do now?

Your fellow Jeepers are locking their hubs, disconnecting their front sway bars, and airing down their tires.  Chances are, you won’t need to lock your hubs.  Most late model 4-wheel drive vehicles have automatic locking hubs, which automatically engage when you shift your transfer case into 4WD.  However, some people install aftermarket conversions kits, which replace auto-locking hubs with the old-style manual-locking type.  Check your vehicle's owners manual if you are unsure which type of hubs you have.

The purpose of your front sway bar (actually, it’s an anti-sway bar), is to increase the lateral stability of your vehicle during higher-speed turns on the road.  You know how when you’re traveling about 30 mph or so, and you make a hard right turn, the vehicle leans outside the turn to the left?  The anti-sway bar’s job is to minimize that body roll towards the outside of your turns.  Here's what the factory anti-sway bar looks like under the front end of your Jeep TJ.  It's normally bolted, via a thin vertical rod, to your front axle on both sides.  However, this picture shows a set of Teraflex New-Generation Quick Disconnects installed.  But why not just disconnect the sway bar and leave it disconnected?  Cuz it will adversely affect your handling on the road, resulting is a significant high-speed roll-over hazard!

So why bother disconnecting the sway bar at all?  While it increases your stability on the road, it also limits your axle "flexibility" (a.k.a., "articulation") on the trail.  I’ll discuss the importance of good flexibility later on.  But for now, suffice it to say that many Jeepers install quick disconnects, which allows them to quickly and easily disconnect the sway bar for trail use, and then reconnect again it for on-road use.

Moving right along . . . airing down your tires provides several benefits.  First and foremost, it produces a larger "footprint" on the ground, which will result in increased traction.  On the other hand, it will also cause a "mushy" feel.  This would create a dangerous situation at higher speeds on the road, but since you are going slow on the trail, it isn’t usually a problem.  Airing down also provides for a softer ride, and it reduces the probability of tire punctures by allowing the tire to "wrap" around sharp rocks and other debris.  So how much air should you let out of your tires?  That depends on the size & width of your tires, and the weight of your vehicle.  But as a general rule, I would recommend between 15 – 20 psi on a Jeep TJ with stock tires (215/75R15’s).  The larger the tire, the lower you can go.  I usually run about 12 psi in my 35X12.50/15 Goodyear MT/R's.  There are numerous different ways to air down; from depressing the valve stem with the head of a nail, to a myriad of fancy-schmancy automatic air-down gadgets that are available on the aftermarket.

The last thing that should happen before hitting the trail, is the Drivers’ Meeting.  A good Trail Leader should cover the following items:

Aluminum Cans: Our club saves and recycles aluminum cans.  Money from the sale of cans goes into our club treasury.  Please bring your crushed aluminum cans to each meeting, and somebody will take them to the recycling center.

To Our Guests: If you attend a club meeting or event and provide us with your e-mail address, you will be added to our guest e-mail list, and will receive monthly notifications of when the Trail Tales newsletter is posted on our Club web site.  If you are interested in becoming a member of the New Mexico 4-Wheelers, please contact one of our officers for membership requirements, or visit our web site at www.nm4w.org/join-the-club.htm.

Trail Tales on the Web Site: In a continuing effort help save natural resources and to control costs, you are encouraged to read the Trail Tales newsletter on the Club Web Site in lieu of receiving a hard copy in the mail.  Around the first of each month, the current issue of Trail Tales is posted at www.nm4w.org/newsletters.htm and an e-mail notification is sent to all club members.  In addition, a minimum of 2 years of back issues of our newsletter is also available on the web site.  So if you want to help “save some trees”, please send an e-mail to TrailTales@nm4w.org stating that you do not need to receive the hard copy of the newsletter.  Thanks for your participation in this program.

Submission Due Date: The Trail Tales is published on the first of each month.  Submissions for each issue must be received by the Editor not later than the 25^th of the prior month.  Submissions can be sent to TrailTales@nm4w.org, or Trail Tales, 21 Rattlesnake Ridge, Tijeras, NM 87059.

Please see the Events Schedule Page

Trail Tales
21 Rattlesnake Ridge
Tijeras, NM 87059-7440

TrailTales@nm4w.org