January 26^th dawned cold, clear and WINDY!  So instead of heading out to Farmingdale our group, which consisted of 6 Jeeps from Nebraska, our trail leaders Kent Renaud and Mike Heitland, Adam McClain and his father, Jeff Marrs and his daughter, Donna Kinsella and her son Cody, Peter and Natalia Kronenberg and Harry Johnston and his sister, decided to head to the hills and find a place out of the wind.

 Mike suggested Calamity Canyon and we all agreed that sounded good.  It was an easy trip to the Camp 5 turnoff and we all stopped there to air down.  Unfortunately it was still cold and very windy. We started off nice and easy, the trail was part dirt and part snow but that changed to more snow as we made our way up the canyon.  The snow made it slippery and challenging for some of the open jeeps but no one needed a strap until one of the jeeps from Nebraska decided to play on a snow covered rock and got himself stuck hard and fast.

 Lunch was next but it was too cold to stand around outside eating, most everyone ate in their vehicle.  After lunch we stopped beside the trail so Mike could show us a big hole in the ground from an earthquake.  There is a creek that runs into it and disappears but we couldn’t see much because of the snow and ice.

 The long, steep hill out of the canyon was a bit of a challenge for Harry in his mini truck. He couldn’t get enough traction so Kent had to pull him up.  The rest of the group made it up on their own, some of them having to try it 2 or 3 times. 

There was some minor damage to 3 of our club vehicles. Kent got some new scratches, poor baby.  Jeff broke something that broke his cv boot (I think) and Cody, who drove his first whole trail, broke the passenger side mirror off the door.  He told me that he still had a long way to go to catch up to all the damage I have done to our various cruisers!

                                                                                       Donna Kinsella