Kudo's to DuckDive for being willing to take his LR3 through one knarly trail!
This weekend I had the pleasure of leading a group from the San Diego Land Rover club (LRCSD) through Doran Loop in the Calico mining district. It took us about 5.5 hours to go 4 miles on a paved road. Well, it was paved a little over 100 years ago. it's suffered some erosion since then
This year, my wife wanted to try out her Jeep on the trail, so that's why you will see the white Jeep in the photos, with my wife at the helm. Truthfully, my truck would have struggled on this trail. It has really deteriorated since my last visit to the area. I was impressed DuckDive made it through relatively unscathed. It was fun to watch his confidence and understanding of the truck grow throughout the day. I really enjoy watching driver's learn and grow. It's a great motivator.
Another new twist this time around is that I did not bring my camera, and so the few photos you see are shot by my wife on her point and shoot thingie. We were pretty busy all day getting people through the obstacles, so I don't actually have ANY photos of the more interesting dry waterfalls and rock ledges, of which there were plenty!
Here's what little images we have:
Trail head entrance. This is the easy part, and I am not exaggerating.
Not more than 100 yards into the trail, Duckdive get's a nasty sidewall puncture through his Toyo's and has to get the spare. This shook his confidence, as now any future damage is going to be extremely difficult to compensate for. He visibly thought it over and made the decision to stick it out and finish the trail with us!
More of the beginning part of the trail. Except for the rock ledges, most of the trail is like this.
Continued below....