San Tan Mountains

November 21, 1998

(Trip Report by Deano)

This area is a county park, and is posted with signs declaring that unlicensed vehicles, unlicensed drivers, and shooting are all prohibited. It was nearly desolate. Aside from a few horses, a motorcycle, and a Ford Ranger, which we ran across in widely separated areas, we had the place all to ourselves.

 

Tom Alexander (and Dad)

 

Alex Gilmour pre-runs the worst hill with the Alexanders.

To begin, we met at a pizza joint parking lot. There we collected seven early Broncos, piloted by myself (Dean Hathaway), trip leader Mike Lachance, Alex Gilmour, Rich Wilson (with Brad Searer along), Tom Alexander (and his dad), Mike Mileski (with a guest) and a guy named Alan whose crew included an Austrian exchange student. Soon we were off to bang around in the hills.

 

Mike strung together a series of up and down grades, sandy washes, scenic views, playing in a circular berm, and a steep hike to an old mine shaft into a nice, short, not too taxing day out.

 

Summit Meeting

Mike Mileski

 

None of us broke anything important. The internals shook apart in both my doors again, leaving one jammed shut with a window that won't roll down, but I've 'fixed' these things a few times before and probably will a few times more.

 

Mike Mileski provided the only scares when he got sideways on a couple of loose downhills. After this pic was taken his rearend almost passed him going down the hill.The first time he recovered on his own, but on a worse hill later, we had to load up the high side of his truck with human ballast while he cut his wheels hard and backed up to get his front end under him.

TRIP LEADER: Mike Lachance

This was unusual trip on several fronts. It was newsletter editor Mike Lachance's first time leading a club trip (he did a fine job by the way) It was probably the first club trip to this area near Williams Air Force Base. And, it was the first trip I remember where experienced regulars Doug Schulz, Winston Brown, Mike Brown, Todd Zuercher, and Mike McCarthy were all absent.

Alex Gilmour carried the banner for the hard corps this day however, being the only one to make an unnecessary charge up a loose, rocky hill we had just come down, just to see if he could do it. He could!

 

The gang pitched in to clean up after someone else's party before we left.

- Deano