Just a short story from the BEST members point of view. Tillamook was Fantastic.

Kat and Rhonda met up with Jeanne, I and Ryan at a DuPont exit 119 along I-5 at 1:30 pm and we caravanned together down to Forest Grove, Oregon were I had booked a room for the weekend. I have to say, I wasn't disappointed that I was not going to be spending the night in the mountains. I noticed frost and ice in the fields as we were coming to town which by the way is barely above sea level. Kat and Rhonda had not decided yet what they were going to do, stay in a hotel with bed, heat, shower, hot water, pool etc. or spend the night in a tent in the mountains at a gravel pit. Their plan was to head out to Browns Camp to check out the potential camping situation; while they waited for me the two of them followed me into the hotel while I checked-in. It really did not require to much to convincing that the hotel was a better choice at least for that first night. We arrived at the hotel at about 6:00 pm and disconnected the jeeps from the tow rigs, we then decided to drive out to Brown's Camp and check in with the hosts of the event "Flat Broke and 4 Wheelin" and say hi to our White Knuckle friends who had originally invited us to spend the weekend with them as prospective members/guests.

The drive from the hotel wasn't bad, only about 15 miles from the hotel to the Brown’s Camp turn off or around 30 minutes. The Tillamook areas are really well marked.

Arriving at the camp we were greeted by the Flat Broke people who were definitely preparing for a huge turnout, this was there 10th year of doing this poker run.

They had piles of raffle items and stacks of food for the night after the poker run. Rigs of every type and size were everywhere spread out around the camp ground and in every possible pullout area and the partying had already started in about every camp.

The next morning as I was exiting my room Bill H. (White Knuckle) was standing outside of our room about to leave a note on our door letting us know that he had blown his clutch on Wimpy his jeep and he was headed back home. We all sat down in the breakfast room and discussed different options from ride along to using Kat and Rhonda’s Dakota to tow his rig home or even use it as a trail rig. In hindsight any of the options would have worked out perfectly now knowing the trail system configuration.

Stubbornly he chooses to head home and alleviate his stress level. Re-leaving-ly around 2:00 in the afternoon we received a phone call letting us know he was home with no problems.

We left the hotel at about 7:00 for check-in, along the way there is a shell station about 5 miles from Browns camp. This is where you want to top off the fuel and buy your forest pass, be sure to have your registration because the forest passes are vehicle specific. While sitting at the Shell station we must have seen a hundred rigs drive by on the way to ORV areas. YES AREA’s!

We checked in at 8:00 signed releases for both accidents and photography and got our drivers info and our first map leading us to check point 1 which was 2 miles back out to the highway. We were in line behind at least 50 rigs more than an hour before finally reaching the 1st check point to get our 2nd set of directions and they asked a few questions for extra points. Obviously a new comer is at a disadvantage.

We were off onto the highway 13 ½ miles west to another ORV area to begin the real run through the mountains which will eventually end up at check-in point 5 at Browns Camp.

Every trail varies in difficulty and every trail has a by-pass, Oregon has really provided a very well planned OVR system, for each forest service road traversing through the mountains and along ridges there seems to be a paralleling trail that follows and crisscrosses the service roads which also provides a means to recover broken rigs.

Much of the trail system is confusing because there are so many roads crisscrossing back and forth making the possibilities nearly endless. Rhonda and I both were running Mapping systems which doesn’t help a lot because the roads a marginally documented.

Not long after leaving the 2nd Check point we soon realized we had gotten onto the wrong trail and trying to determine were we made our error when we noticed just above us was the correct trail were we could see off-road rigs tackling a hill climb. We turned around and retraced our tracks back to the main line and drove on until we found the correct trail. Once we had gotten back onto the trail we realized that with so many possibilities we needed to take more time to evaluate map and trail marker information that we were missing along the way.

During this section of the run we came across one area that I gave some serious thought about Doug. He would be in heaven; it showed as a double diamond area on the map which consisted of a series of waterfalls with 3 different routes not including the by-pass. Most all of us choose the center route with some gnarly boulders, drops and holes in the wrong places. I creped down the waterfall into a narrow chute with some spots so steep my face would be inches from the windshield straining the seatbelt keeping me back in my seat. All the while I am creping through, some guy of to my right is saying trust your spotter, trust your spotter, I am thinking to myself, I’ve been doing this long enough to know to watch the spotter at all times, I am not concerned about watching the spotter, it’s the height of my rig and the coils in the rear I don’t trust. To much brake or to much bump and I could be doing cartwheels the rest of the way down the hill.

Everyone one made it through the center route with little or no damage with the exception of a full size Bronco who was tagging along with us for the day, He nearly ripped his rear bumper off bending it in the center 90 degs backwards. Ruby decided to take the least aggressive route to the left which wound around the drops proving to a better choice for a shallow clearance rig, scrapping occasional and dragging the rear bumper but coming out at the bottom with ease. At he bottom is a short boulder strewn section with a few rocks about the size of a TJ, the line is to the left over the majority of the boulders. Dave Mulin of the White Knuckles decided to try the right line over the largest of the rocks leaving him high and dry with no contact at any of the tires, upon closer inspection he had snap his front track bar in half. About 50 minutes later, piles of rocks and logs shoved into any open space under the jeep, 3 winch lines and a highlift Dave M’s Jeep sat on solid ground and he was headed back to Browns Camp over the service road that was within 30’ of the breakage spot.

According to the map we were within a short distance of Check point 3 we knew we had spent a lot of time at the waterfall so we needed to pick up the pace, the poker run was estimated to end at about 4:00 pm and we hadn’t even gotten to our 3rd check point out of a total of 5. After twenty minutes we come to a check and begin pitching rings for a ring toss and answering the questions when we find out we are at Check point 4 so we finish up our tasks we doubled back to find check point 3. We were all over the hills so resorting to the fail safe help line we called out on channel 2 for assistance. The Flat Broke crew sent out a rescue rig to guide us to our destination. It was fast approaching 3:00 and I guess he was feeling pretty bad for us as the day was coming to an end soon and we were barely half way so he stuck it out and acted as our personal guide.

Back to 3 we went and then on to 5 for the final test and show down of my card hand which up until this point was a royal flush of 9 thru Queen all hearts and then I pulled a 3 of spades. Go thing I watched my spotter at the water fall. ;).

Our first plan was to get back to the White Knuckles camp to check on Dave and make sure he made it back safely, which he did. Offers of trailer, flat tow pulling, and flying were all given as options to Dave to make sure he got home ok, I even offered 2 really heavy wire ties. He wasn’t worried so we went about our business for the evening.

The evening was very cold while waiting through the Raffle drawings which was getting way to long they had so much stuff. But the final gifts were the 5 winch’s that were the grand finally, Mile Marker 2,000 thru 12,000, worth the wait but to no avail to any of us.

The next day was real easy drive home with nothing to write home about with the exception of this little tid bit. We had just entered Washington at about 12:00 approaching mile marker 15 when a honking horn blew as Dave M. passed by us at about 90 miles an hour towing his Chalet Trailer and it wasn’t long before he disappeared over the horizon. I guess the wire ties worked.

Thanks to the Knuckleheads

Dave Joy