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Had the first  Big Bear Braai this year at Big Bear Lake. It was the weekend after July 4th ‘05 festivities. Organized it with the guys from Toyota 120.

We camped out at Grey’s Peak campground. It is a great remote campground with only one group site. So we were basically alone for the weekend. Only bad thing was that it was close to the road to Butler’s Peak, and we had a bit of traffic coming through. Thanx James for securing the campground.

I caravanned out from LA with Mark and James. We got to the Discovery center around 2:30PM on Friday. We got some maps and adventure passes. We headed to the campsite and set up camp. James and I packed way more than what was needed for a weekend, but we had to test some stuff out. James even brought a hot water maker, so you can basically say we even packed the kitchen sink. I was armed with a gas stove and gas braai, since fires were not allowed due to the dry and windy weather.

We did Mark’s lift the day before and he had some rattle driving on the fire roads. First we thought it was a clip on the gas tank skid, so I removed it. It was still there though. It ended up being the fact that we never tightened the top bolts on his rear shocks 8-) After fixing that, we taped his clip onto the skid as well. Taht solved the problem.

Roberto and Carolina joined us a bit later in the evening, and the BBB (Big Bear Braai) began for ‘05. I braaied some fillets marinated in my own special recipe, James were doing Korean BBQ, Mark made some prawns and steaks, Carolina made some salads and I was to full to even look what else. There was plenty of side dishes as well. All in all we ended up making enough food for twice as many people. At one point we almost stopped some mountain bikers and force fed them :)

Henry joined us much later in the evening. At some point I though a passing Jeep might be him and I tried flagging the Jeep down with a huge spotlight. Needless to say when the Jeep came past we just received dirty looks.

It got pretty cold at night and Bliksem tried to get into the sleeping bag. After some cold rest everybody got up and we made some good breakfast, from bacon and eggs to Vegemite on Toast and cream puffs. Mark loves his Vegemite and James and Henry agreed it was one of the best tasting spreads they ever had (NOT!!!)

We headed out to Gold Mountain Trial for Sat. morning. We quickly stopped at the Discovery center for Henry to get an adventure pass. The trail started off very easy with some switch back climbs. James was leading and I followed him with my camcorder (video to follow later, pics below). We worked our way up to some great views of Big Bear Lake. The trail was easy for the most part, but had 3-4 pretty tough obstacles. Nothing very serious. It is rated Most Difficult by the Forest Services, but I would give it 4 for most of the trail and some of the difficult section 6 to maybe 7 out of the 10 point trail rating system.

We had quite a few stops and spotted the more difficult section. We stopped for a small lunch break at a nice viewpoint over the Big Bear area. All in all it took us almost 4 hours to do it. At one point a group of build up Jeeps, Broncos and one Toy pickup came rushing past.

We then went down Van Dusen Rd for a nice drive back top the lake. After getting back to the 18 we went into Big Bear town and filled up. We also had to get some extra water as the campsite had none. We then went up in search of Bertha’s peak, which turned out that the last mile or two was hiking and not a 4WD trail as indicated by my GPS. We then drove back via the 2N71 road as it linked back to the road to the campsite. Very close to the camp we got passed by a group of 30 Jeeps coming back from Butler’s peak. If I read my GPS correctly we could have easily made it back to camp instead of waiting for them.

Back at camp we took a rest and just hanged out for a while as we waited for it to get closer to sunset so we could go to Butler’s peak and enjoy the view. We headed up to Butler’s peak around 7PM. It is quite bit of a drive from the camp, but well worth the effort. The views were spectacular from the fire outlook. We hanged around for a while and took some pictures till the sun went down. James got a few good sunset pictures in.

After that we headed back to camp for some more braaiing. Everything from pork chops and chicken to pot stickers were cooked. Unfortunately my pork didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but there was plenty to eat while I waited fro mine to cook, so I didn’t exactly starve.

The next morning Roberto and Carolina had to head back to LA, so after breakfast and packing camp they headed back. We left camp around 11AM. We worked our way up to Hanna Flat campground to dump our trash. We decided to skip John Bull on this trip and look into Holcomb and Disphan Springs. After consulting the clock we decided to skip Holcomb and just do Dishpan. We met with a Jeep and lifted Taco on the other side of Holcomb Creek trail. They had to turn around as it was getting too tough. So we were kinda glad we skipped it, but we need to go do it sometime.

We passed a couple of guys on an ATV with one lying on the ground. We were not sure what happened, but when we asked they said they were OK.

Henry then had to head back as well to LA. So he left the group and worked his way down the fire road to 28 and then 18. We worked our way to Dishpan Springs trail. This would have been great as it takes you to Lake Arrowhead. Unfortunately the trail was closed!! So we could only head back to the 28 and 18.

We stopped at Lake Arrowhead for lunch and then headed back to LA. Where James continued his true LA driving style by swerving at the last minute to make off ramps :p Form there I had to head back to NorCal and got stuck on the 5 for more than 2 hours to get to Santa Clarita. Next time I’m taking the backroads to.

All in all it was great fun and next year we can definitely do better!! Video (80MB)