Camp Heep at
Rausch Creek Offroad Park
with the Maryland Creepers,
NOVA Jeepers, and the Off Camber Crawlers
August 20 and 21, 2005

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What a freakin' awesome idea! Get together the three big, local clubs in one place and have a kick ass wheeling weekend.

I've got to extend a huge thanks to those responsible. Twiss and Shawn from NOVA. Jason, Holly, and Dave from the Creepers. Jon Fotos from OCC. I know there were others, but I don't know who they are. I want to gove thanks to them as well, so please let me know who else so I can include them as well and give them a tiny bit of the credit they deserve.

I felt so ready for this since, for once, I had almost everything working properly on my Jeep. The only things that still needed tweaked were some minor work on my rocker guards and a new sun visor. Considering that my Jeep usually has at least one major problem when I hit the trails, I didn't care in the least bit that these things weren't done. But, it was almost for nothing as I came damn close to rearending some high school kid on the ride up who, for no apparent reason, decided to lock up his brakes on I-83.

The first night was cool with some drinking around the camp fire. What I remember is Hub's Poppycock story. Even more, I remember JHash saying "Did he take his pants completely off? 'Cause that's what I would have done." While he is fun, I'm not really sure I would feel safe sharing a tent with this guy! ;)

I followed Dan58 on the blue/black group. I used to run blues when I was stock on 31" tires with a few straps here and there. With the new lift and bigger tires, that put the blues right in my comfort level.

Knowing that I was running a poorly geared Jeep with open differentials, I should have stuck with the blue trails. But, I had been encouraging a few people to run some harder trails since this was one of the few chances they had to do so, and kind of felt that I needed to practice what I was preaching. I also had felt the need to go out and see what this Jeep would really do. I was pleasantly suprised.

I did manage to run a few black trails with the group without taking a single strap. Now, that's not to say I ran hard lines, or anything. I took several bypasses and easy lines. I also needed some rocks stacked for me at one point. There were also a couple times where I had people pushing and jumping on my Jeep along with some assistance with a Hi-Lift. But even with all that, I still made it with only the most minimal of damage.

What impressed me even more was that I don't think I ever became a hindrance on the group. But, with that being said, I think that the next time I am in a large group I will run a lower trail just so I don't slow them down and become a pain in the ass. I'll just save the harder trails for a smaller group where we have more time.

We lined up in the staging area, and took off to hit the trails. There was a few minutes of delay where we got hung up with a group in the middle of us, but with the amount of people there it was only a minor inconvenience. We ran lower 3, to K, to upper 6. From there we followed A to F, to B, to run the blue section of trail 1. While on 1 we ran a black section of rocks and followed the trail out to trail 2. We followed that out to run Crawler Ridge.

The only problems I had all day were a busted valve stem and a bee sting on the back of my head.

We headed back to the camp site where we enjoyed an excellent meal courtesy of the Off Camber Crawlers. The food was awesome, although the beans made for an awfully smelly ride the next morning.

On Sunday things seemed to move a little slower, possibly due to the amount of beer consumed the night before. We ran out to trail 10A and Big Rocks. From there we ran 10A to 10B to 10C. Then we headed home early.

Rausch Creek is always a good time, and this whole weekend was even better than usual.