We started the trip Friday around 6 PM. Test Dummy, Mandy and I (Ceg) went to Manny’s in Naches in our Cherokee to meet up with the others. A little after 7PM Yeti in his Scout, Big Al and Isaac in their Scout, Shanesaw, and Big Al’s brother in Shanesaw’s Cherokee showed up at Manny’s. Shanesaw found he had a loose wheel on the front axle of his Cherokee. We all went to the only shop we could find in Naches to have the Cherokee fixed. The guy told us that he would have to get the parts the next day, so we had to leave Shanesaw’s Cherokee there. We moved all Shanesaw’s gear in to our rigs and headed to meet Eastwood at the Wood Shed on Hwy410. Once we were there, Eastwood in his Cherokee had us follow him to Saw Mill Flats and that is where we set up camp. Late that night Frank and his family showed up in Frank’s Cherokee. The next morning Steve and his wife came in there Rubicon. Eastwood’s boss and his friend came in a Wrangler.

That morning everyone was waiting on us because our Cherokee wouldn’t stay running. Test Dummy with help from the others got her running. We all headed out for the first run. Half the group left the wrong direction so we had to go find them. We all got together again and headed up 1600. It was dusty and the wash board was bad. A few miles up the road we took a break to wash down the dust and to do some other business.

Within 15 minutes we were back on the road. We drove a few more miles until we got to Little Bald Mt. It paid off to go up this road because of the view.

Shanesaw was able to use his cell phone and call the shop in Naches and they said that his Cherokee was fixed. We headed back down to the camp. We got to camp and found out Eastwood’s Cherokee had a hole in the radiator. The wash board had shaken the fan loose and the fan started eating the radiator. As we worked on Eastwood’s Cherokee, Shanesaw went to go get his from Naches. Eastwood’s boss headed back home.

Shanesaw got back with his Cherokee so we left Eastwood’s Cherokee at camp and head up to find Moon Rock and Funny Rocks. We went out to Hwy 410 and headed northwest. We took a right onto 1702. We followed in a few miles to 1720.

We went on up 1720 for around 5 ½ miles until we came on a Y in the road. We checked out our maps. We had a choice of 530 or staying on 1701.

Since we were running low on day light, we stayed on 1701 until we came across 670. At this point we found that we had missed the turn off to Moon Rocks (695). The map numbers are very small and hard to read. We headed on up 1701 to the Manastash Ridge Crest Trail (694). We headed west on Manastash Ridge Crest Trail (694) and passed the top of 670. Missing our trail wasn’t a bad thing because the Manastash Ridge Crest Trail (694) was worth running.

Manastash Ridge Crest Trail got tight in places. Just the way we like it.

At this point we had lost the 3 rigs that were behind us and they didn’t have CBs. The three rigs up front had CBs in them, so we took our rig back to find the others. We found them about ½ mile back. Big Al had a hole in his oil filter and they were trying to patch it. They got fixed enough to meet up with the others. I radioed to let the others know we were on the move again.

When we were all together again, they did a little more patching on Big Al’s Scout. We went ahead to find Funny Rocks. Frank came along. Funny Rock was just around the corner.

We headed around to the bottom to play. With our stock Cherokees we couldn’t do much, but take in the view of this Funny looking place.

Here are some of the trucks playing on top.

We headed back up to check out Shanesaw and Steve climbing some rocks. Shanesaw’s new front locker was working well. Steve’s Rubicon was doing great too. The front and rear lockers sure did help Steve.

Big Al and Yeti’s rigs up on top.

It was getting dark so we had to skip going to Moon Rocks. We headed on up Manastash Ridge Crest Trail (694) passing the trail to Moon Rocks. It looked to me that I had missed the turn off. Shanesaw and Big Al were following us. With it getting dark I couldn’t see on the map that the trail I was looking for didn’t go all the way up to the top. We turned around to check out the last trail we had passed. It was 696. We saw that Yeti was leading the others down the hill. We called Shanesaw on the CB and told him that we were going to follow Yeti’s lead down 696. At the bottom was the trail I was looking for, 695. We took 695 on out to 1708. Then 1708 on down to Hwy410. We headed southeast back toward our turn off for camp. Our rig started shaking bad. We all pulled over to check out the Cherokee. The wheels weren’t falling off so we went on to camp. We couldn’t go over 35 miles per hour because it was shaking badly. We made it back to camp.

The next day we could see the front driveline u-joint was broken on our Cherokee. Test Dummy pulled the front driveline off so we could drive the truck. We put pepper in Eastwood’s Cherokee radiator and that seem to hold. Big Al did some stuff to his Scout and then we all headed for home.

This was a great trip. It looks like everyone wants to do it again next year.

WUD WHEELERS MSN Group page