The Greenlaner NEWSLETTER OF THE SOUTHERN LAND ROVER SOCIETY — JULY 2009

AROUND GEORGIA EXPEDITION—April 2009

By Allen Padgett

Have you ever had an idea that just took on a life of its own? Well I did. The idea was an expedi-tion to drive around the state of Georgia and visit every county that made up the border of the state. Georgia is a big state with 159 total counties; the trip was 1055 miles long and went through 50 of the counties. What would make the trip an adventure was the wonderful scenery, wildlife, history, and the mode of travel. The vehicle named “Winston” is a blue 1971 Series IIA 88 inch wheelbase Land Rover. The motor is a 2.3 L four cylinder gas burner. With a roof rack on top the truck has the aerodynamics of a brick. It would not do over 60 falling off a cliff. Packed inside are all the necessary camping bits in-cluding an electric cooler. On the roof rack is a box of spare parts (just in case) two 5 gallon jerry cans and a wonderful fold out tent accessible via ladder. There’s a spare tire on the bonnet and an-other on the back door.

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Club business:

Greetings, It’s summer again and all is well with SOLAROS. Our recent club events to Uwharrie and Beasley Knob were a great success and our upcoming Caney Fork event, scheduled for July 24th- 26th, is sure to follow suit. Caney Fork, located just out-side of Sylva, NC, is unique in that it offers a mod-erate level trail ride to the camping area and, once on the knoll, you discover a fantastic view of the Smokey Mountains and more easy-to-moderate level trail rides. The camping is primitive, so be prepared to pack it in and pack it out. The club is on track to meet its membership and financial goals for the year. Since moving to our new meeting location, The Counter, monthly meeting attendance has held steady, averaging about 25 attendees per meeting. The garage-like atmosphere is reminiscent of that at Logan’s Road House. If you missed our last meeting and our guest speakers Nancy and Eddie, you missed quite a treat. This couple, along with 11 other adventur-ous souls, completed the first leg of the Trans-America Trail (TAT) on motorcycles. See www.transamtrail.com for more information. The TAT trails are comprised primarily of dirt or unim-proved roads that take the traveler from east Ten-nessee to the coast of Oregon. Nancy and Eddie shared trip highlights and lowlights, including about 500 photographs taken during the trip. Thanks Nancy and Eddie.

Coming Events: July 15—Solaros meeting at The Counter July 24-26—Solaros camping expedition to Caney Fork, NC July 28—Aug 1—National Land Rover Rally Leadville , CO - Solihull Society www.landrovernationalrally.com July 31-Aug 2—ROAV Summer Rally at Mountain Lake- Giles County, VA See www.roav.org for details Aug 19—Solaros Meeting at The Counter Sept 16—Solaros Meeting at The Counter Oct 1-4—ROAV Mid-Atlantic Rally (MAR) - new location this year NE of Rich-mond, VA —see www.roav.org Oct 23-25 ??—Uwharrie Rover Expedition URE!6 - Uwharrie National Forest— see www.theoldnorthstate.org for info Nov 6-8—Solaros Southern Appalachian Ex-pedition (SAE) at Skeenah Creek Camp-ground

President’s column Mike Pado and David Russell are looking for volunteers to help with putting on the Solaros signature event—the Southern Ap-palachian Expedition or SAE. They will need people to help run the registration ta-ble, assist with the auction and to lead some of the trail rides. Please contact them to see how you can pitch in and help make this the best SAE event ever. The SAE will once again be held at the Skeenah Creek Campground on HWY 60 between Suches and Blue Ridge. A website with the details will be active shortly.

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Preparations for our annual November 6th through 8th Southern Appalachian Expedition (SAE) are on schedule. Once again, the event will be held at the Skeenah Creek Mill Camp-ground in Suches, GA. The campground fea-tures electrical hook-ups and shower facilities. And, we have once again negotiated with the campground management to provide as much firewood as you can burn during the weekend at no extra charge. Adventure rides will be on the numerous Chattahoochee forest service roads and more challenging rides will be at Beasley Knob ORV Park outside Blairsville, GA. Re-member that your membership dues include the registration fee for SAE. The proceeds of this year’s SAE auction will benefit the Habitat for Humanity of Union/Towns County. According to Mike Pado, Un-ion/Towns County Habitat’s president, Larry Mancini, is thrilled that we selected their organi-zation as the recipient of our auction proceeds. Speaking of the auction, the SAE organizers have formulated a list of potential sponsors and will be soliciting auction contributions beginning next week. We hope to provide a list of auction items in the next newsletter and/or on the Web site, so that you can start saving your money and planning your auction strategy. If you would like to volunteer to man the registration desk, lead a trail ride, or assist the committee in making sure this SAE is the biggest and best ever, please con-tact Mike Pado or David Russell. I’m sure they can find just the right fit for your talents and skills. I am also pleased to announce that the frame-work for the SAE website has been completed and is being tweaked by the SAE organizing committee before “going live.” Thanks again to our talented Webmaster Chris Gray for making our Website useful and user friendly. That is it for this newsletter. See you at the next meeting and/or at our Caney Fork event in July. Have a great and safe 4th of July… RD

Solaros Tech Day at The Shop April 4 saw another tech day come to the Sola-ros community. Luke Miles of The Shop in Norcross graciously hosted the club and al-lowed us to run roughshod through his new location. The size of the new shop is impres-sive and worth a visit. Dennis Brown and the author tackled oil changes on D2s that appear to be related, both being Alveston Red (that’s burgundy to hay-seeds like me). Luke installed extended brake and ABS lines on the authors D2. This hap-pened in the nick of time as the driver front brake line was bulged and ripe for failure. Roger Hunter took delivery of his Hard Labor Creek sliders. He won them at the SAE auc-tion in November. Roger ably helped the au-thor complete the install on his D1. In the next bay Jeff Newsham worked on trouble-shooting an electrical issue in his lifted D1. Club President Ross Davidson visited with us and talked at length with Luke about his Por-sche project (that’s another story!). We had a small but enthusiastic turnout. Let’s show Luke we appreciate him opening up his shop by having a large number of attendees next time. The next tech day is yet to be scheduled. Keep an eye on the forum for updates. Stuart Ivie

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I kept trying to get other folks to come along but as often is the case your great idea is not exactly any one else’s. So I went by myself. The trip started near the North West corner of the state. So on Wednesday April 8, 2009, with a full tank of gas and plenty of groceries the first stop was the Chickamauga National Battlefield Park. www.nps.gov/chch Where I asked the dead confederate on top of the Georgia monument which way to go.

He pointed north to Yankee land. So I went west following the route over Lookout Mountain into “the state of Dade” where I could see into Alabama and Tennessee from the same road. The route turned in a town called Rising Fawn and went up a valley called Johnson’s Crook. The gravel road was narrow and steep.

Cloudland Canyon State Park is just off the top of this road. (For all of the State Parks mentioned go to www.gastateparks.org ) Passing through and by next were the Zahnd Natural Area, Crockford-Pigeon Mountain WMA, and Otting WMA. (For all the WMA’s mentioned go to www.georgiawildlife.org/huntingmaps_maps.aspx ) Traveling south the route descends steeply off of the Cumberland Plateau and winds through the ridge and valley physiographic province of Georgia. Then finding a few more dirt roads it climbed into the Piedmont region and the day ended at a US Army Corps campground (Holiday) just above where the Chattahoochee River becomes the State boundary on West Point Lake. (See www.westpt.sam.usace.army.mil ) As the sun set across the water it sank into Alabama the wind rocked the roof tent steadily and ended the day. Day 1 totals 217 miles, average mov-ing speed 38.7mph, drive time 5:36. Day 2 Thursday started by crossing over the Chattahoochee River to follow the East bank all the way South to the Florida line. The route passed through Blanton Creek WMA and soon entered one of the three cities on the perimeter of Georgia, Columbus. A new fea-ture to the Columbus scene is the new Infan-try Museum on Fort Benning Army Base. (See www.nationalinfantrymuseum.com ) Re-member when driving on Fort Benning tanks have the right of way. From Columbus the route drops off the Pied-mont region at what is referred to as the “fall line” into the costal plain province. Traveling down the river you pass Florence Marina State Park, and the eastern section of Eufala national Wildlife Refuge. (See www.fws.gov/southeast/refuges/refuges-by-state.html ) Stopping for lunch here I met three little old ladies who had been out since daybreak bird

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watching. Eufala is famous for its birding and several ospreys passed overhead while we chat-ted. Bald Eagles particularly like the place in the winter. George T. Bagby State Park and Lodge is a quiet getaway as it is located abso-lutely in the middle of nowhere. If ancient his-tory is your thing the route passes near Koli-moki Mounds State Park. As Winston rolled south I noticed the creeks and road ditches were full of water. South Georgia was experiencing rather severe flood-ing. State highways were closed in places and most county dirt roads were either washed out or still underwater.

The route turned east at Seminole State Park in the Southwest corner of the state. Luckily the bridges are high at Bainbridge over the Flint River and I was able to continue east. Nearby the small town of Climax has underneath it one of the longest caves in Georgia. (Climax Cave 7.7 miles long.) The destination for camp was the Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area. It was a long day, 333 miles driven, average speed of 41.8 mph, and 7:57 hours of drive time. The sounds of camping on a wildlife area can be quiet different, from alligators grunting at dusk, frogs croaking in the night, and a turkey gobbler providing a wake up call, all are wonderfully relaxing.

Day 3 Friday began with a tour of the wonder-ful boardwalk through the Grand Bay for which the area is named. The long boardwalk winds thru parts of the bay and ends at a tall observa-tion tower where you can ascend and view the lily pads and cypress trees from above.

On the road again choosing sandy back roads to move eastward. There was still a state highway bridge closed because it was flooded so the route had to detour a bit. The next county en-tered was Echols. This is Georgia’s least popu-lated county with only 2,401 people. The big-gest road block in this around Georgia trip is the Okefenokee Swamp. This National Wildlife Refuge is huge with no roads leading across it. From the town of Fargo you can drive up a dead end road into the center of the swamp to Stephen C. Foster State Park. The Okefenokee (means ‘land of trembling earth’) is not techni-cally a swamp, but rather one huge spring. Riv-ers flow out of the swamp not into it. The Su-wannee River begins here. There is a visitor center about the river in Fargo (See www.gastateparks.org/net/content/page.aspx?s=17765.0.1.5 ) To avoid a hundred mile plus detour around the swamp you can slice across a piece of Florida and get back into Georgia. Like on many expe-ditions border crossings can be frustrating excit-

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ing experiences. When I first entered the state of Florida there was no passport control sta-tion or Border Patrol. But as I approached the other side nearing the Georgia border at the Saint Mary’s River there were signs every-where, a huge border station and police cars parked everywhere. All trucks stop! All vans stop! All pickups stop! I see no Land Rovers stop sign so with sweaty palms I blast by at my 45 mph top speed. I look in the mirror and no lights are flashing and I get over the bridge safe once again in Georgia. All the police presence was actually an agriculture inspection station, but they also look for illegals and dope. The route now turns north from about as far south as you can get in Georgia. The train watchers favorite place of Folkston is on the route. The ‘Folkston Funnel’ sees as many as 70 trains a day. The town has developed a watchers platform to accommodate the train watcher tourist.

Past Folkston the route approaches the coast of Georgia with high bridges to allow ships to pass. The ocean is in view on the right there are roadside historical markers like ‘Burma Shave’ signs. State parks and wildlife areas are all up and down the coast. Plantations and old forts display our history in both state historic sites and national monuments. Most tourists see costal Georgia on Interstate 95 and it is all

a blur. US highway 17 up the coast lets you slow down and “see” Georgia past the gas sta-tions and fast food at the interstate exits. At the north end of the coast the route turns inland at the second big city along the way. Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia and deserves a visit of its own. The route follows the Savannah River drainage upstream all the way into the North East corner of the state. The destination for camp was the Yuchi Wildlife Management Area. Another long day 372 miles driven, aver-age speed of 44.2 mph (flat roads and a big tail-wind) for 8:25 hours of drive time. The highest speed recorded on the entire trip was recorded today by the GPS of 58 mph as I descended off the Brunswick River Bridge on US 17. Parts were about to fly off but we made it down safely. Being the only vehicle in the campground was not unusual for a WMA campsite. On this Fri-day night most State Parks in Georgia had the campground full signs out. As sun set the sky was clear but it was obvious a weather front was approaching.

Laying in a sleeping bag in a canvas tent on top of a vehicle is not exactly a storm proof shelter. As winds whipped the tent flaps and the light-ning flashed in the distance the portable weather alert radio kept going off. Severe thun-derstorms, tornado watches, and then tornado

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warnings. I figured my safest place if a storm approached was a nearby ditch holding on to a pine tree. The storms roared to my left then right, the heavy rains finally came, some small hail fell and the lightning flashed. Then it was calm and about 2 am the stars shone through breaks in the clouds and it was over. For cov-erage of the storms that passed by that night go to www.thetruecitizen.com/news/2009/0415/front_page/001.html Day 4 Saturday began with a realization how close the storms had been when about a mile from camp passed several flattened house trailers and crews clearing debris from the roads. As I approached the next large city on the route I realized Augusta was packed with traffic headed to the Masters Golf Tourna-ment. Luckily I could change my route and avoid the worst of it. The route passed Keg Creek WMA and nearby Mistletoe State Park as I drove over the muddy Clarks Hill Lake. You could see South Carolina across the wa-ter. Soap Creek WMA was on another arm of the lake as was Fishing Creek WMA. Coming into Elbert County found the Broad River WMA on the left of the road. It was about lunch so I turned down the dirt road. It wound down the hillside to the side of the flooded Broad River. I pulled forward to look at the river then attempted to back up and turn around.

Well the rear end of Winston sank into a mud hole and I was stuck! The tail pipe was blow-ing bubbles in the muddy water and I felt fool-ish. I crawled out onto the front of the truck reached down and engaged the locking hubs so I could shift into four wheel drive. I jumped off quickly to take a photo the climbed back in. Engaging the four wheel drive levers I eas-ily let out the clutch, gave it some gas and luckily scooted out of the bog. At least I didn’t have to get out the hand winch, chains and shovel for a recovery episode. Back on dry ground I sat and had an uneventful lunch. On up the road I passed Richard B. Russell State Park, Hart State Park and Hart County WMA then Tugalo State Park. Around all the reservoirs on the Savannah River are countless camps and recreation areas. Out from Elber-ton is one of Georgia’s unique places. The Guidestones referred to as a modern version of ancient Stonehenge. These guidestones are just different in a quirky way. (See www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com ) Just outside Toccoa at the entrance to Lake Russell WMA is an interesting bit of history. There is a monument to Camp Toccoa the original home of the 101st Airborne made famous by the “Band of Brothers” story. You can stop and run their training route up Curahee Mountain if you wish. (See www.Toccoahistory.com ) The destination for camp was the Tallulah Gorge State Park. The gorge is a deep cliff sided canyon almost 1000 feet deep and two miles long. There is a trail to the bottom of over 340 steps that also includes a swinging bridge. This was a short day of only 193 miles covered in 4:56 hours of drive time. As the hills get steeper the average speed fell to 39.1 mph. Day 5 Sunday began by driving due north al-most to North Carolina passing Black Rock Mountain State Park. The route now swings west to complete the circle. Up Betty’s Creek

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to find Patterson Gap road. The steep gravel road leads over a 3328 feet above sea level gap, the highest point on the route.

Down the other side led back to civilization near Lake Burton and Moccasin Creek State Park. Traveling west up the mountain again led beside the Lake Burton Wildlife Management Area. The Appalachian Trail crosses the route at Dicks creek gap. A lot of people’s adventures pass thru here. The AT is 2000 miles long and takes 3 or 4 months to completely traverse. The Southern end is at the top of Springer Mountain just out the back door of Amicalola Falls State Park. The other end is at Mount Katadin in Maine’s Baxter State Park. The route winds its way thru the high valleys westward past the Brasstown Valley Resort and the Rich Mountain WMA. Turning a bit uphill the route leads just south of the Cohutta Wil-derness with the mysterious ancient fort at Fort Mountain State Park. This park sits on top of the escarpment that is the westward edge of the Appalachian mountain province. Views to the north look along that escarpment, to the west overlooks the ridge and valley province we left days ago. The descent from Fort Mountain is winding and steep leaving the shiny ancient metamorphic rocks for the younger gray sedi-mentary ridges below.

Just to the west is the Chief Van House State Historic Site. When Dalton is reached Civil War history is everywhere. Interstate 75 from Chattanooga to Atlanta follows almost exactly General Sherman’s march in 1864 to Atlanta. then Savannah and on. This might be the route of another Land Rover adventure. After Dalton the route zig zags thru ridges and valleys back to the starting point in Lafayette. Today’s drive was 183 miles with 5:04 hours of drive time with a moving average of 35.9 mph. It always feels good to come home. The grand totals were 1055 miles, at an average speed of 40 mph over 32 hours of driving in five days. All of the 50 counties that comprise the state boundary were encountered. There were no close calls on the road, no break downs and only got stuck once. There were zero meals eaten in restaurants, everything was prepared out of the back of the Rover. The Around Georgia Expedition was a success.

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The Bald River and the Tellico River run through camping areas. I challenge anyone to stay awake in their tent in the dark while listening to this sym-phony of water rushing over and around rocks in the shallow creek bed. Maple bacon, scrambled eggs, shredded cheese wrapped in a warmed flour tortilla shell topped off with a hit of fresh salsa is one hell of a way to start any morning. This, and one of Mac’s signature Bloody Mary’s, is what you can expect when you finally crawl from the warmth of your down filled nylon cocoon each morning. Muy bien! The views from the top of the mountain where the radio tower and station are located is simply irre-sistible. Not only is this one of two places remotely close to camp where a cell signal can be accessed, it’s also a beautiful view high above Tellico Plans day and night. The drive up to the mountain is for-est service road and can be a fun drive provided you are not piloting a Ford Focus. Finally, the camaraderie experienced by many at Tellico is the most enjoyable experience of all. Many of us stay in contact throughout the year, while others likely only see each other at Tellico. Moments of nostalgia are tempered with new ex-periences each and every trip. I guess that’s how nostalgia starts anyway. As the world and our schedules didn’t take a vaca-tion along with us in the woods, the group woke to the same beautiful weather Saturday morning as the previous two days to sort gear and prepare to head home. As I drove out over a relatively new to me route I was struck again by the beauty of this near wilderness. Another weekend away with friends was over…but the memories live on. So if your plans for the weekend don’t include grinding your way up and over dirt and rock obsta-cles, or field repairs of the U-jointed type, or trail-side front differential R&R’s but instead a relaxing and fun campout in the deep woods, give Tellico a try. It will grow on you like the mange. I’ve created the word search puzzle below just for fun. Give a try. The first person to find each word and send me a PM on the SOLAROS forum on the interweb gets a very special grand prize for their effort. All entries subject to validation. Have fun!

“A Pretty Good Time at Tellico”

by Ron Ward

April 15-18, 2009 Tellico OHV Area, TN Holly Flats Recreation Area I arrived at 330pm Wednesday April 15 at the camp-site. My GPS took me exactly where I wanted it to. There wasn’t another living soul for miles. I un-packed and set up the tent, stocked it, and set about establishing my living quarters for the next 2 and a half days. By 4:30 pm Scott MacGregor had joined me in camp and by 5 pm we were enjoying a beer and good conversation. The weather had been crisp ear-lier, and began to warm as the evening progressed. The campfire and conversation was a great way to kick off the weekend. Chris Schramm, Jonathan Hor-robin and John Amason were joining us later that evening. Thursday Rick Ward rolled in about noon. On Friday John and Jennifer Graham arrived at 1 pm and were followed by David Stephens and his neighbor that afternoon. In all we had 10 people and an early One Ten (with 1 ton Sankey), a 1995 D90, a Series 1 Discovery, my Disco II, and a Range Rover Classic. The trails at Tellico are all closed, the access to the new parking lot and camping area up 6 is blocked off, and the access trail to 5 is also gated. No more. What’s left is Trail 1 from Hanging Dog on the Mur-phy NC side of the OHV area, and Trail 2 just west of Big Oak on River Road on the Tennessee side. The Trout Unlimited folks, and their environmentally over-zealous comrades successfully pressured the Park Service to close the trails as we all are aware. However a small group of us from Georgia have been coming to Tellico in April of each year for so long now it’s hard to imagine doing anything differently. We’ve changed camping areas several times, and con-tinue to make adjustments for size of the group and season of the year. This was my 8th April trip to Tel-lico in a row, so trails be damned. I gave up anything remotely close to hardcore “wheeling” when I sold the Defender 3 years ago anyway. A weekend in the woods camping and exploring the area was all I was after. And the company wasn’t bad either. So I won’t bore you with a detailed account of every second of every day of the trip, but I will share with you some insights that make the place special.

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Uwharrie Safari A large contingent of Solaros members decided to listen to our events director Scott Wold and take his advice to attend this year’s Uwharrie Safari in the Uwharrie Na-tional Forest about 45 miles east of Charlotte, NC. This event is put on by CROC (Carolina Rover Owners Asso-ciation) and Scott has been admonishing us for years that it was a must do event. The Uwharrie ORV area has around 27 miles of VERY well managed ORV trails and the forest also has miles of horse trails, a lake, several campgrounds, and a shooting range. We were amazed at how much recreational use this forest was supporting and it seemed very well run.

The Safari brought out a large contingent of Land Rov-ers of all types from a 130 crew cab HCPU, a Range Rover with a very cool set of cut down doors, a Range Rover based tube frame buggy, and lots of neat Series trucks. This year the trails were dry (apparently they can become quite challenging when it rains) so we were able to drive every trail in the ORV area without much diffi-culty. There are some spectacular hill climbs along sev-eral of the trails and lots of opportunities for rides of any skill level. Night rides are allowed and following a twisty narrow track through the woods in the dark is al-

ways a great experience. Unlike most of the participants I read the registration packet and saw that CROC was offering a $50 prize for the Rover owner that turned in the biggest bag of trail trash at the Saturday dinner. All day Friday and Saturday my passenger and I stopped and picked up cans and bottles along the trail system and at the end of the day on Saturday I had a fifty-gallon trash bag nearly full. Since we were apparently the only ones who had participated in this activity Paul and I won by default (we split the cash).

Scott Smith (LC), Ross, Tyrone and I spent a lot of time out on the trails and had a great time. Tyrone brought up his Australian off-road camper/condominium and we were all impressed with it – very cool. The CROC folks were great hosts and Scott Wold was right – this is a must do event.

BMCD 2009—May 16, 2009 The participants in British Motorcar Day were once again invited to the green fields of Berry College for the 26th Annual gathering of all of the British Car clubs in the Atlanta area. This year the threat of rain damp-ened the enthusiasm of the crowd but those who made the drive up to Rome were treated to nice cool day with no rain at the event. The Land Rovers were very lightly represented this year but there were plenty of other four-wheeled attrac-tions to distract the enthusiasts. The Morgan club was particularly well represented on the occasion of the marques 100th Anniversary with a nice showing of 26 cars. The Minis were proudly sporting their 50th Anni-versary banners as they celebrated a milestone year as well.

In the Rover camp, Chris Gray arrived topless in his 90, Tyrone brought his 110, Eric Van Dyck and Allen Padgett represented the Series contingent and there were a handful of Discoverys, Range Rovers and LR3 as well as my 90 – a total of around sixteen vehicles. The most interesting Rover there was a really nice 1970 Rover 2000TC sedan – one of the most well preserved examples I’ve ever seen. These cars were considered

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engineering marvels when they were new with a DeDion rear suspension, a really unique rocker style front suspension and many built in safety features. This example won the Deans List Award for the Best Rover at BMCD 2009.

The local Boy Scout Troop was selling hamburgers, hot dogs and Chik-Fil-A sandwiches at the event and they did really well – selling out of food by the early afternoon. Thanks to everyone who attended for sup-porting these guys. With only 274 registered cars attending we still raised almost $5000 in charitable donations and had a great time. Hopefully everyone will not listen to the dire predictions of the local weathermen next year and come up for BMCD 2010.

Denny’s truck had slipped sideways into a protruding stump taking out a tail light lens and he couldn’t back down the hill. Looking up the steep trail things didn’t look like they got better anytime soon. Denny was going to have to winch forward before he could go anywhere but optimist that he was he said he thought that once he got up over the spot he was in he could make it up the rest of the way to where 93B joins 93C just below the final climb to the top of the mountain. The Jeep Rubicon immediately following said if Denny was going to try it he like to tag along but the rest of us took a good look and saw a winch-fest in the making and decided to re-verse course and try going up 93C instead. We told Denny that we’d meet him at the top of the hill and ran off with our tails between our legs hoping for an easier route to the top. We felt a little guilty leaving Denny but looking at the map it looked like he had less than a quarter mile to go before we could rejoin him while we had about two miles of trail to run. On the way back down the hill I was in the next to last position and Ross was behind me. I felt something snag on my roof rack and looked in my rearview mirror to see a small tree falling across the trail blocking Ross’ Discovery. Apparently I snagged a hang-ing vine and pulled down the dead tree at the other end narrowly missing our trucks. By the time Ross and I caught up we could hear Moose on the radio telling everybody to hold up as he had come to a stop about a third of the way up a long, steep, slick climb be-tween some closely spaced trees. We watched Moose ease his Discov-ery back down the rutted steep entrance to this obstacle and debated what we should try next. After some discus-sion it was

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Beasely Knob—June 13, 2009

On June 13th a group of Solaros members and a few guests decided to brave the threatening weather and take the opportunity to go for a drive in the Beasely Knob ORV area just east of Blairsville, GA. Our party consisted of a D-90, two Discovery I’s, a Discovery II, a Range Rover Classic, two Land Cruisers and a Jeep Rubicon. The trails were a little slick because of the rain the previous evening but all but one were rea-sonably passable. The first trail we tried was 93B with Denny in the lead. All was going well as we climbed up through the forest on a winding narrow track through the woods until it rounded a sharp right turn and started up steep rocky climb between a couple of banks. From my po-sition in the fourth truck in line I could hear the growl

of a Rover V-8 and the sound of spinning tires as Denny tried to work his way up the hill. All traffic stopped as for-ward progress came to grind-ing halt. This trail featured a layer of black dirt that had soaked up the previous night’s rain like a sponge and traction wasn’t to be found.

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decided to give this hill another go since we didn’t want to totally abandon Denny to his fate. Steen in one of the Toyotas volunteered to lead off this attempt and after carrying a bit more momentum into the spot that stopped Moose he cleared that obstacle and motored the rest of the way up the hill. Following Steen’s exam-ple and do little “talking to Mo” the rest of us easily made it up the hill. From there we headed toward the upper end of the trail Denny was on expecting to find him waiting for us at the intersection.

At the junction there was no sign of Denny and the Jeep but we could hear strange noises emanating from somewhere down the trail below the intersection. A couple of us walked down the trail to see what was up since it sounded like they were only 150 yards down the hill – but it was quite a climb. We found Denny and his accomplices on an even steeper, slicker section of trail than we had last seen them and they said they had been doing nothing but winching all the way up the trail since we’d parted ways. The winch on the Jeep was overheating and they looked beat. I could see that there was no traction available at all until they got the trucks up another 100 feet or so where the trail started to level out a bit. I walked back up to my truck to re-port (having stupidly left my radio in the Rover) but the hill was so steep that I was too winded to go back down the hill again. I told the group that Denny would be a while longer so we all drove the remaining 200 feet to the top of the mountain to break for lunch. As we munched our sand-wiches we could occasionally hear spinning tires and the sound of winches filtering up through the trees. Fi-nally Mike Pado and I decided to drive back down the trail to see if they needed any help – see the picture of Mike “pulling” Denny’s Range Rover up the final twenty feet of the slope where traction was nowhere to

be found. Once the group was reunited we gave Denny, Bruce and the rest of the splinter group a short break and hit the trail again. We had one more good climb up a steep ridge on 93C before turning left onto 93D. This trail was relatively easy until just past the intersection with 93F where it started down a number of ledges through a series of banks that had channeled the previous nights rain down the center of the trail. The trail surface at this point was Georgia red clay with a few good-sized rocks thrown in. Mike came on the radio and said for us to watch it down there, as it was pretty slick. I stopped at the break of one ledge and watched as Moose slid down the ruts bouncing from side to side with his wheels totally locked up. I told Ross to hold up as Mike was right – it really was slick down there. Mike seemed insulted that we doubted his assessment of the situation in the first place but he got over it. As I idled down the slope, feet off the pedals in first gear low range I once again thought how much I really like the TDi in situations like this. I also re-membered my first trip down this particular stretch of

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trail – a situation that was much less controlled and some-what more exciting. Back in the first year of the club a bunch of us had come up to Beasely for a day in the woods. I had been riding with Mark Ritter in his Discov-ery but had decide to switch rides temporarily and climb in Shawn Rao’s SIIA 88” which had earned its nickname “Crumples” earlier in the day. Shawn’s truck had suffered starter failure on the way up so he had been hand crank-ing the engine all day. We had stopped to extract a truck from a mud hole and Shawn had left his 88 running with the parking brake engaged on a slight hill. Directly be-hind Shawn was David Porters freshly restored SIII Land Rover. As you can imagine the parking brake didn’t hold and we returned to the trucks to find two green Land Rovers trying to become one. Shawn’s Land Rover was christened “Crumples” on the spot.

Later in the day after it started to rain we decided that Beasely was not the sort of place you want to be in a seri-ous downpour, as the trails would very quickly become skating rinks. I was riding in Shawn’s Rover that was completely topless. When we started down the terraces I was standing up in the passenger side gripping the top of the windshield and holding Ritter’s new video camera in my right hand. As I was trying to film our descent Shawn’s elbow hit the shift knob and knocked the Rover out of gear. He tried to get his foot on the brake as the truck quickly accelerated down the slick trail and I des-perately tried to hang on. His boot was coated with mud and his foot slipped off the pedal as we careened down the trail bouncing over the ledges. He finally stopped us by ramming a small tree, which nearly sent me over the hood. All through the excitement I had kept the video camera going and managed not to drop it. The video had an interesting montage of sky/ground/sky/ground/sky/

ground/tree. All in all I preferred the more controlled descent that we were able to enjoy this trip but I was laughing out loud as I recalled that first ride down the hill. After completing the 93D loop we all decided to go up the 93G trail which features a long set of climbs up a ridge and dead ends at a subdivision on the far side of the mountain. After returning to the bottom of this climb the Gray’s and I had to leave and the rest of the group was planning on going back to the other en-trance and running trail 93. Unfortunately Pado’s Range Rover started running roughly shortly after I left so the whole group wound up wrapping up the day with no further trail rides.

We had a great day in the woods and managed to avoid any significant damage except for Denny’s tail-light. The trails turned out to be more passable than we expected except for 93B and everybody had a great time. We look forward to running them again this fall during the SAE event in November – for $5 a day its great entertainment.

Shawn Rao and Crumples at Beasely Knob in 1994

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SOLAROS 1325 NORTH POINT WAY ROSWELL, GA 30075

Solaros club meetings are held the third Wednesday of each month at The Counter on Mansell Rd about 1 mile west of GA 400 starting around 7:00 PM For more information see the club website at:

www.solaros.com

Solaros annual dues $40/year—includes free admission to our signature event in November—The Southern Appalachian Expedition. Rememberyour Solaros dues allow you to access to the private sections of the board and attend the Fall SAE event and get discounts at some of our local supporters. Dues are payable via Paypal or by US mail sent to the Solaros PO box. For Paypal payments please send $42 to: Paypal@solaros.com Or mail $40 to: Solaros Registration PO Box 1185 Roswell, GA 30077

In this issue:

Allen Padgett’s Around Georgia

Expedition

BMCD 2009

Tellico Camping

Tellico Word Search

Uwharrie Safari

Beasely Knob

Solaros Tech Day at The Shop