Added for Mike (Smitty) Smith
For our May club outing, the Goats headed down to Fresno County for the 5th Annual Head 4 the Hills “Blue Canyon Poker Run”, hosted by the Four Wheel Drive Club of Fresno. As Trail Master, this should be an easy assignment, right?. FWDCoF had already put extensive planning into the trail and food – all I had to do was print out a few flyers, hand out driving directions from Mapquest and organize a little food. Done and done!
Folks scheduled to attend were me and my co-pilot Whitney-the-Wonderdog, John and Candy, Kevin and Connie, Nancy and Kevin (or TOK, “The Other Kevin”), new members Dale and Darlene and Paul and Gary – a nice showing for such a long trip. Di and Hutch were heading to a family event in LA, but did send a text wishing us a bon voyage as they blew through Fresno headed south (does that count as being there?).
Friday morning dawned clear, cool and beautiful – a trend that continued through the weekend. We had received word that the work-a-day world would keep Dale, Darlene and Cookie Monster from making it down, but I hit the road from Fresno around 9:00 to secure a campsite for the gang. The first “trail” carnage happened before Whitney and I had made it 3 miles. My right front brake caliper locked up at the hwy. 168/180 split and with traffic whizzing by on both sides, discretion called for the care and attention of AAA. No worries, the Grahams and Gary had left early since they both were towing – They’d get there in plenty of time to grab a site . . . Wellllllll. . . Six hours later, I headed up towards Blue Canyon and after a quick stop for gas and a double check of the directions, I was on the last leg of the trip – only to hit a locked gate across the road I’d given everyone directions to go down. With little cell service and daylight waning, I got broken messages to Paul and the Kennedy’s then backtracked to “the other way in” to Blue Canyon to try and find the rest of the gang. At the Campground, I found the Grahams and Gary staking out a site specially reserved for us by the “No Camping” sign nailed to the tree. They had found the locked gate too, but a friendly mountain man had unlocked the gate and guided them down to camp. Nancy and Kevin showed up about 20 minutes later – also let through the gate by the friendly mountain man. Apparently, I was the only one who couldn’t find a friendly anybody to let me through. After a quick reconnaissance with the Fresno club, Whitney and I headed back up to the main road to look for stragglers. We eventually found the Kennedys and finally Paul, who had taken a slight detour up Tollhouse Grade, arguably one of the crookedest roads in that part of the Sierras. At last! We were all safe in camp by 10:00.
Saturday morning brought a steady stream of rigs into camp. There had been about 30 rigs the night before, but that number was easily doubled by 8:00. Toyotas outnumbered jeeps about two to one as well, a fact that had John hopping up and down like a little kid. If there is anything to say about the start of the Poker Run, it would be that my directional confusion of the night before was easily eclipsed by the disorganization of our hosts in the morning. After mixed messages on the location of the Safety Check, multiple starting times bantered about and general confusion, The Goats formed up at the starting line at 9:30. The young man with the first draw of poker cards said he didn’t think we were supposed to start till 10:00, but that other rigs had been going through since 8:00. Taking the bull by the horns, we grabbed our cards (I had a promising start with the 6 of Diamonds) and took off up the trail. After a climb and a few easy obstacles, we came to a sign saying “Poker Run #2” and a group of Yotas pulled to the side of the trail. “There isn’t anyone to hand out poker cards”, we were told. We reached out to the organizers by radio and were told that we had started too early and someone would be there soon. Kevin K. started flagging down other drivers as they came to the stop and, after explaining the holdup, directed them to back down the road to form a line behind us. Pretty soon there were 25 or so rigs lined up. Half an hour later, one of the hosts came by and told us to keep going, that any missed cards would be drawn in camp, so off we went. The Toyotas took off first with us right behind. Pretty soon we came to a sign reading “Poker Run #3” – again no cards. Then “Poker Run #4 and #5 and #6, #7, #8 ? ? ? Slowly we realized that these were turn markers, not poker hand stops. So much for waylaying half the group at Turn #2 . . .
The rest of the run went smoothly. A well marked route, pretty scenery and enough challenge to keep everyone interested without breaking anything important is a good description of the trail. We had lunch on the top of a big granite dome with a view of the Central Valley and a glimpse of the Coast Range some 95 miles away. At one rock pile, we were greeted by a spotter helping folks through a tight spot with a big shelf. After getting our group through, John introduced the man as Marlin of “MarlinCrawler” fame. MarlinCrawler manufactures specialty off road equipment for Toyotas – which explained why John was hopping up and down like a little boy again . . . (ok, the man is a legend, I was a little excited too!). The end of the trail was capped by a climb with a scary name that I can’t remember (Widow Maker, Satan’s Revenge, Hell in a Hand basket or something like that). Un-runnable the day before, it had dried out enough to be put back into the route. We all made it up the steep climb, only to find the trail disappear into a creek bed. A quick scout-about found the trail again – narrow, tight between trees with some challenging obstacles – a great way to end the day!
We arrived back in camp in time for a hearty tri-tip meal, presentation of awards including “Best Hand” (none of us were contenders) and a raffle drawing that saw John win a couple prizes for future trail runs. A few more hours around the campfire “Goat Style” and we called it a day.
Sunday morning was relaxing with a hearty breakfast and a leisurely camp takedown. With everyone aired up, hooked up and packed up, we caravanned to the fork in the road at Auberry where I split off to head back to Fresno and a little more time with Mom. I’ll leave the post-trip evaluation to others, but I really had a great time sharing the mountains I grew up in with my friends. Thank you all for joining Whitney and me on the Blue Canyon Run!
Mike & Whitney