It just so happens that a Southern California hot spot for Rock Crawling is Johnson Valley, which happens to be in our back yard and serves a great place to test new components on our rigs.

In addition to testing our rigs, Johnson Valley has a be host to many professional rock crawling events such as the 1999 Warn rock crawling championships, and, among others, this year's Goodyear/Skyjacker Extreme Rock Crawling Championships (Look for ORC coverage this September).

Johnson Valley offers the best rock-crawling terrain in all of Southern California with more than eight very difficult, rocky, sandy trails to choose from, which includes ratings from difficult to "guaranteed body damage." This OHV park is nothing but fun to say the least. Not to mention miles of Desert to play in! 

A few members from our Club, the RoCk SkuLLz and a couple guys from the T-Rox club headed out one weekend to run a couple of Johnson's trails. We camped out in Means Dry Lake Bed May 3rd, 2002. Means is a central location to all the trails. In the morning we got our things together and assaulted the trails!

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The first trail we were going to run was AfterShock, which is rated extremely difficult and is considered a good way to start the day. Tommy led the four rigs into the Rocky Terrain using his GPS and some trail coordinances. Shortly after starting the trail my Jeep began running hot (230-240 degrees). So, I pulled off the rock section and we took an early lunch break.

In order to keep the Jeep staying cool in the hot Johnson Valley sun, I removed the hood and strapped it to the roll-cage. Hey don't laugh, I know its kind of ghetto but it kept the engine cool. It ran the rest of the day around 190-200 degrees. This wouldn't have been a problem if I had a fan shroud.

We continued up the awesome rock sections throughout the trail. The trail began getting pretty rough, but not too rough if your rollin 38's and are fully locked up.

After finishing up Aftershock we headed toward camp. We figured one last trail before we called it a day. And since Aftershock isn't far from the lake bed, it'd be great trail to conclude the day.

We headed toward the popular and well known Sledgehammer trail. This trail is also a blast. Surprisingly, it's not too difficult for us but was still a lot of fun and very challenging, considering the lines we took.

EJ from tackles one of Aftershocks' nice rock sections. He walked this section with ease.	The Jeep above is Quinn's from San Deigo California. Nice rig rolling on some fresh 37" Goodyear MTR's
Tommy and EJ getting there flex on.
Here's the Line up waiting to move forward on the Sledgehammer trail. At right, I found a little flexing rock to play on.