What a Trip The Phelan to Bishop 300

[Turboyota]

October 2021

Total dirt miles: 324

Overall Map:

Schedule:

Trucks:
1. Turboyota IG: @rouse_engineering
2. Mobza Brent @bajaf250
3. Linked Tacoma of @dose Dusty
4. Linked Bronco of IG: @kevcoengineering
5. TC’d 4Runner @Do Dah IG: @do_dah
6. Long travel Tacoma of FASGLAS Taylor

Met Mobza Brent & Kevco at 6AM in Phelan. Hit the dirt immediately. We were in Hinkley by 7:30AM.

Made it to Boron by 8:30. Had a few breakfast beers waiting for Brent(he was 20 minutes back due to the shittiness of his rear spring/shackle/Shock Valving setup. (What loser built his truck....geez)

Those roads were rough enough that Brent was discouraged and wanted to turn back. I reassured him that the rest should not be as rough and gnarly.

We gassed up in Johannesburg. Kev and I were both getting a solid 8MPG

Little south of Ridgecrest:

Got to Indian Wells Brewing 1.5 hours ahead of schedule 10:30AM. Met @dose and FASGLAS Taylor and enjoyed some beers.


Jumped back on the powerline rd west of 395, and headed North to Cinder Rd./Fossil falls. The red trail on the map north of fossil falls is a pretty fun section. Cool rock formations, flowy drifty roads, a cool rock house, and Joshua trees. Lots of smiles!

Kev performed a rear brake fitting delete somewhere on that trail, so we jumped on the next section of trail North of Olancha that featured Owens Lake, Charcoal Kilns, Cowshit, and Tweaker factory. Posted up at a nice concrete slab for repairs.
Tools used: 7/16” & ½” wrench.
Parts used: 1X AN-3 male plug, brake fluid, and Brake Cleaner supplies by me.
Nut taps during repairs: 1
Beers: couple each

Got up close and personal with the livestock

I made one of many wrong turns, radioed to keep left and on the fucking gas through the super light volcanic fucking peagravel bullshit sand, and ended up getting stuck in the super light volcanic fucking peagravel bullshit sand, then unstuck, then stuck again. I had to use my overlander traction boards. Taylor pulled me forward, subsequently got stuck, so I pulled him backward, and then we finally freed ourselves. Copious amounts of shit talking ensued!

Stopped for beers and more shit talking at the Charcoal Kilns

We proceeded to meet the very unfriendly tweaker natives at an old abandoned processing plant, got the fuck outta there, corssed the 395, and took dirt the rest of the way past Diaz Lake into Lone Pine.

Crossed the 395 and found a bitchin’ camp spot on the Owens River. Did some fishing, Made a nice campfire, and had some beers. [mention]Do Dah [/mention] showed up at 10:30 PM.

That concludes day 1.
Total miles: 200ish

 

[Turboyota]

Day 2: Big Pine/Zurich to Warm Spring

A couple days before this trip, I did a bunch of texting with @desert_steve and got a virtual prerun of sorts. I asked “where is the worst silt section?” The section South of Bishop, and East of the VLBA observatory.

I told My son Jacob: “Jake, there is gonna be a fuckton of powdered sugar silt is this section, so we are gonna smash it hard.”

Jacob: “Dope.”

I led the group and hit the silt beds FUCKING HARD and FAST: 3rd gear, 5000rpms, 8-9lbs of boost. I caught substantial air a few times from hitting the hard lip exiting a few of the beds. My son and I were laughing our asses off on the intercom and high-fiving each other. Never even had the dreaded whiteout of silt wash over the hood and windshield.

We stopped 1/2 mile from warm spring and listened to the radio chatter.

Warm Spring is the cluster of trees in the distance:

My son gettin’ all artsy and shit:

I radioed back that we made it, and heard that someone was stuck, so I said: “well, I’ll be zero help with 2WD, so I’ll stay here and hang out.”

We drove up the road a little more and checked out Warm Spring.

Fuckery ensued.


Here’s how I understand it, but I wasn’t there for most of it so @Do Dah or bajaf250 or @dose can set the record straight if I fuck it up.

1. Do Dah got stuck and radioed his stuckage.

2. Kevin backed the White Buffalo Bronco back up to him and hooked up the umbilical. Kev started pulling DoDah out, do Dah couldn’t see shit because silt and drove his driver’s side wheels up the 4’ embankment and tipped onto his lid.

3. Kev broke a front D44 axle
4. FASGLAS Taylor pulled dodah back over
5. dose pulled the now stuck and 2WD Kev out, but got stuck as well:

6. Taylor pulled out dose
7. Brent was smart, avoided the silt entirely, and went through the bushes(on the far right in this pic)

8. Kev pulled do Dah out again:

9. I went back through the silt towards Warm Spring, because fuckit, I’d already been back and forth twice through that shit! Why not make it 3 times?

10. dose suggested a different path to warm spring, so the other 5 trucks went that way.

The fuckery continued...

Mud>Silt (???)

11. Mobza Brent lost a power steering line, and sans steering, ended up stuck in the mud. Quick fix, but funny nonetheless.

12. All this time, I can see these fucks in the distance playing fuckaround in the mud while I’m swimming in warm spring:

13. Everyone else makes it to The spring after a couple dirty hours of stuckage and carnage.

14. We all proceeded to party!

 

[Turboyota]

@dose ’s edits to my recounting of events:

And I quote:

Sounds good until #8.
After Do Dah was back on all 4s Kevin pulled him again and they both got stuck due to the bronco breaking front 4wd.
Bronco was high centered with 37" tires off the ground

Taylor got me out and I hitched up to pull Frisbees HEAVY ASS bronco. Took me 4 good yanks to budge that beast. Broke a tow strap.
Then I pulled the 4runner and we took a different route to warm springs since we were completely over playing in the silt.

Turns out our new route was the mud bog of warms springs water overflow.
Brent could of drove out of the mud but was pointing the wrong direction with questionable steering so he wisely hooked to the strap.
That mud was like glue to my truck. I easily spent 30-45 minutes power washing it the next day.

Warm springs was awesome to swim in after being covered in silt and mud. It was actually warm too.

 

[Turboyota]

Partybarge made this fucking gem:

 

[Turboyota]

Campsite night #2

 

[Turboyota]

Day 3.

It was smoky as fuck South of Bishop, so we decided not to do the planned section from Bishop to Mammoth. We broke camp, and headed out.

10 Minutes into the drive to Bishop, my temp was still reading 100F. Fuckin’ bastard thermostat was stuck closed, so I performed surgery and deleted the thermostat’s innards.

First and only tools I used all weekend!
12MM socket, ratchet, and dikes to cut the thermostat apart. Good thing I carried like 50lbs of tools!

Filled that bitch with blue Honda/Acura/Hyundai coolant and motored on! 180-195F for the entire trip home.

I jumped off the 395 at El Mirage rd and did another 20 dirt miles back to Casa de Brent.

When I got there, I went full retard and dropped a wheel off my trailer:

FUCK!

Goddamnit! Of course it locked itself on there!

Drenched in sweat, sober and grouchy:

I fucking mashed the gas in reverse with this setup and bounced up and over the wheel well. Worked like a charm!

Home safe, I hosed the silt off and started tearing down for a much-needed front end prep.

Kevin had a metric fuckton of mud on his Bronco’s nether regions:

 

[dose]

this was a fun trip for me that I will always remember. I just finished the Tacoma build so this was its first trip besides some local shakedown testing. And we drove about three hours down to 395 to meet the group.

My wife asks who are these guys?

some Internet dudes that talk shit drink beers and work on their own trucks.

She says that’s weird I hope they’re cool

Don’t worry babe, if they’re busters we will just ghost them and bounce and do our own trip.

we met at the brewery during a weird Covid time, everybody wearing masks and not sure if we can sit at the same table or even be 6 feet apart yet. That lasted about 15 minutes and I think we knew this trip was going to work out.

Friendships grew strong and now we send each other dick pic memes of the black dude

 

[dose]

You forgot the big mine

 

[Turboyota]

You forgot the big mine
View attachment 7324
View attachment 7325

Reward mine^^^ fucking awesome sight to see!

 

[Turboyota]

This trip forged friendships and my unshakable love of the Owens River valley.