Attendees
Name	Rig	Roll
Phil Ritthaler	92 Jeep Wrangler	Driver, Trip Leader, Report Writer
Rae Ritthaler		Passenger, Assistant Report Writer
Felicia M.		Passenger
Bruce Mays	97 Toyota Tacoma	Driver
Robin Mays		Passenger
Thom Batty	82 Toyota Pickup	Driver
Dan Williams	51 CJ-3b	Driver
Brian Fix	84 Toyota Pickup	Driver
Brett Carlson	83 Toyota	Driver
Peter Enna	94 Toyota	Driver
Richard Manning	92 Isuzu Trooper	Driver
Zackary Manning		Passenger
Doug Carman	89 "Killer" 'Burb	Driver
Clark Mason	81 Jeep Scrambler	Driver
Charles Nicholson	?? Ford Explorer	Driver

On December 27th, 1997 we all left the Zig Zag Inn Restaurant parking lot and headed for the trail at 9:15am. We drove up Hwy 26 to Hwy 216 and met up with Dan and Brian at the Pine Grove General Store, gassed up, and headed to the trailhead. After leaving the store, we drove for about 2 miles and turned left onto Victor RD. As everyone looked onto the plains ahead, I could hear faint echoes of voices saying " Are we there yet?" and " Where's the mud? I don't see any mud out here. It's too flat." I reassured everyone to hold onto their hats as we headed another mile down the dusty gravel road. After traveling for a mile or two, we saw a sign saying "White River RD.<--". That's when I heard those little imaginary voices again (Are we there yet?!?) We followed the gravel road for about 5 blocks and headed down a man made road that was solid clay and rock. It was as red as paint. I radioed to all, letting them know to keep their heads turned to the left and their wheels on the road.

It was one of the most beautiful sights you have ever seen. As we all looked over our left shoulder, a large canyon opened up to us as we bounced and banged along the trail. All I could hear through the noise of the road and my six cyl., was the ooh's and the aahh's from the airwaves of all of those who have never seen it. After all the grunting (visualize Tim the tool man!?), we slowly reached the bottom of the canyon and stopped for pictures. I explained to Clark that camping there was nice and the fishing not so. We socialized for a few, saddled up, and headed up the other side of the canyon. This turned into Smock Rd. which is kind of a gravel, red rock road with miles of plains as far as the eye could see. We drove to the trailhead and much to my surprise there was a steel cable blocking the road. The forestry service closed off the trail from Dec. 1st to March 31st(darn). This is for winter animal habitats and road erosion. We were all upset it was closed but kept in good spirits. I talked with Brett and Peter and they said they knew of a few other trails that were fun so we headed back down Smock Rd. towards Hwy 48. When we hit 48, we all turned left and drove about 3-5 miles and went through Rock Creek Resv. campground. We went completely through and turned right at a stop sign. We followed the road for about 100 ft. and turned left on a dirt trail hugging Gate Creek.

This was fun. Most of it was mud puddles covered in ice. Brett was the first to dip in!! no problem!! It was a little sticky because of the ice. I then followed up behind him. Piece of cake (well, maybe icing?). Brett took out his movie camera and proceeded to film the puddle party. All made it except for Charles. His explorer was just a little too low to clear the center rut in the first puddle, so we found him another route around some trees and he was up with the rest of us in no time. Finishing up that trail, we decided to head over to a mud bog called "The Mud Bowl". When you first enter it, it's about 6-8" of sloppy mud with about 16" of water on top or you could just take the easy way in through the trees where there's just hard dirt.

The one to get his feet dirty first was, you guessed it, Doug!! He came in the hard way while the rest of us took the gentler path. This is where we decided to eat lunch because the mud bowl has a ridge on it where everyone can observe while the loonies make Sloppy Joe's out of the mud and ice. In the center of the mud bowl, there is a large puddle that is about 40 feet by 40 feet by 2 feet deep of mud and water. The ice on top was about 3-4" thick. The burb went through first breaking the ice and most of us followed. We played around for a while, and then took a vote on who was to be the first to break the ice on the second pit. It's about 3-4' deep full of mud and water. Everyone nominated me to go first and I broke down with enormous laughter. I said "There's no possible way my Jeep could make it through that!!!!". So we ate our lunch and then Doug said he'd give it a shot. After breaking through 6 or so inches of ice, the killer burb lived up to it's name. It looked a little slippery but nothing to worry about. The burb went through without a hitch. Going the other way was a little harder due to a slight off camber slope at the end. After the burb showed off its masculinity, Doug parked for a while and we assessed the largest hole of them all.

Lets put it this way, in the past, I've seen trucks with 44" tires bury themselves in this monstrous abyss. While we all looked at the hole, Doug hopped into the burb and fired it up. Brett had his movie camera ready and the rest of us watched in awe. We were really curious to see the burb accomplish this, so we sat back and watched. At first, the hole has a steep embankment with a large boulder in it. Doug placed his tires on a good spot and jumped in. All you could hear was the sound of the 8" thick ice cracking from one end to the other. We all cheered as all four swampers found the bottom of the hole. Doug stomped on the gas and all the tires spun like they were making a milkshake. He'd get on the gas, then put it in reverse. Get on the gas, then put it in reverse trying to break the thick 8" ice that held him back. After moving 6-8 feet, Doug hammered it and "YEEE HAWWWW!!!" He was through! This put a smile on everyone's face especially mine since I've never seen anyone make it through before. All you could hear was "I can't believe he made it!!".

After all the excitement, Clark jumped in his scrambler and went through the second hole. He went in through the steepest part and started having problems. I don't know if he heard some noises or the Scrambler just stalled out, but there was definitely a problem. Burb to the rescue!! The burb pulled him out and they assessed the damage. Turned out that the cooling fan got pushed into the radiator. Not good. Clark removed the fan(which is now for sale!) and dumped in a couple of bottles of stop leak and a hand full of ritz crackers? Hey, it worked!! Well, Clark decided to call it a day, so we exchanged numbers for emergency purposes if he wasn't able to make it back.

Then the next person to try the second hole was Brian. He made it both directions with little trouble. The rest of us not so crazy people still had fun slipping and sloshing around the first hole. After playing around a bit, we headed down the road to the Barlow Trail to see if we could scout out some new trails and get to the original trail through a different road, but it was blocked also. We them followed Brett down a new trail that looked muddy so we all followed him. This trail was really fun. Just a lot of mud puddles filled with ice. We all went through a few holes when all of a sudden guess what? I got stuck! I was high centered on a rut covered in ice. Burb to the rescue again!! Doug pulled me out and we were on our way.

Right then we started hearing distress calls from Richard and Zack, and we weren't sure they were OK, so we headed up the trail a little farther and turned around and went back to Richard. His Alternator was losing voltage and was afraid the problem was serious. We looked at it for a while then about 10-15 minutes later here came the burb towing Brett's toy. The same thing happened to him as did Clark. His fan hit the radiator causing a leak. The fan had about 2" left all around it.

We then decided to call it a day and headed to Wamic. It's a little town east of the mud bowl where there's a general store that doubles as a post office and liquor store. This is where we all said our thanks, commented on the trip, and did some last minute window and headlight cleaning. Richard borrowed a spare battery from Doug's burb. From there we made sure everyone was safe and then we all said our good-byes.

All in all, the trip was a total success. We pushed our rigs through a lot of Mud, snow, and ice and we all left with a couple of things in common: Muddy rigs and A huge smile on our faces!