Showed up at the trailhead at 9am and meet up with 13 other vehicles for what would be known as the Late Group to the Cleghorn run.

The group consisted of Denny (dtrujillo63) as Trail Leader, Tom (MonkeyProof), Rick (pray4surf), Eric (T100Eric), Steve (Scuba951), Jon from All Pro (JonB), Tim (lv2baja), Mike (MikeDiswhoibe), Geovanni (geo88), spam&rice_420, Carlos (jerks_02_tacoma), Tyler (ShowStop), Dave and 1 other vehicle.

We had a quick driver meeting at 9:15am and then we hit the trail. It didn't take long before we had the first mechanical issue with Spam&Rice and his 4runner. Turned out the MAF connector came loose. We made a temporary fix and we were back on the trail. The first bypass obstacle made it clear that the couple of open/open rigs in our group would have to be selective in which sections they picked since traction while being crossed-up was the name of the game on Cleghorn. We think this section is one of the hardest on Cleghorn.

This was another stellar Calico run. Friday people were arriving at camp starting mid-afternoon until late into the evening. There were a couple runs up the canyons to kill some time. Most chatted around the campfire until about 1am and set off a few Sobe bombs to usher in the weekend.

Saturday morning we had a few more vehicles show up for the run. After a quick drivers meeting at 9am, Frank (BASEjumper) took lead and we headed off to Doran. In the group we had BrandonH, Dtrujillo63 & SirMarlon, MonkeyProof, Ebruddah, Vistataco, Darwalk, Scuba951, MikeDiswhoibe, Ackerlight and ShowStop.

 Saturday started off as a cold morning with temps at Lake Arrowhead in the mid-40s. We met up at the LDS church and were soon shuttled off to the planting area about 3 miles north. Mike, one of the volunteer supervisors with Forest Aid, led our group of 13 members to our designated planting site. From there we broke off into teams of 3 or 4 and started planting.

The 1st Annual Anza Borrego TTORA SoCal Expedition run was a success despite the fact that it was cut short due to inclement weather.  The advanced party arrived on the afternoon of the 20th and secured our location off of S22 and Cross Over Road near the intersection with the 86.  This is on the North Side of Ocotillo Wells outside of Truckhaven Hills.  This spot was chosen since it was close to gas, services and major landmarks.  I arrived with Ackerlight and Sparky shortly after midnight and attempted to get some rest before our expedition but failed miserably at it while I sat and drank around the campfire with the others.

The 1st day began as any other TTORA camp would start the day.  You have the responsible ones like Arvin G and BrandonH packing up and making sure everyone’s together.  You have the anxious ones like Sparky and J41 who want to go wheel already.  Then you have everyone else who’s just trying to wake up on a Saturday morning with the sun glaring in their eyes.  While Sparky and J41 took off I followed them in vain in 2WD with fully aired tires.  They took off and I headed back to camp to make sure that we can rendezvous with the rest of the attendees.

Pray4Surf arrived shortly before our driver’s meeting and RoastBeef showed up in his SAS’d Nissan.  As we were starting our meeting a California State Park Ranger, Paul Reisman showed up and offered to take us on a tour of the Ocotillo/Anza/Truckhaven area.  We gladly accepted since we would have a ton of time to make it to get through Calcite Mine, Font’s Point and our planned end destination of Lower Coyote Canyon.