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As we do several times every year, SCLR hosted a New Member Orientation run at the scenic Cleghorn Trail.  This fall’s trail run was a lot of fun. We had 18 new members explore the scenic Cleghorn Trail, many of them venturing off road for the very first time!  Everyone did great and made it though with big smiles all around.  The weather was superb, and there were some fun action shots too!  Thanks everybody!

Photos from Cleghorn Ridge: 35 images on SmugMug

As we do several times every year, SCLR hosted a New Member Orientation run at the scenic Cleghorn Trail.  This spring’s trail run was a lot of fun. We had 16 new members explore the scenic Cleghorn Trail, many of them venturing off road for the very first time!  Everyone did great and made it though with big smiles all around.

Photos on SmugMug (37 images):

Wow, what an interesting day!

We had a great turnout, with somewhere around 24 trucks and about 50 people in attendance. It was a bit chilly (42 degrees, plus a north wind), so we kept the “classroom” session a brief as possible. I hope the participants who are new to off roading take the opportunity of this club and this forum to ask as many questions as the need to fill in the gaps of what I left out.

Special thanks to Scott Brady of Overland Journal and Adam Spiker from OffRoving.com for magazine donations. Each participant received a free premier issue of Overland Journal and the hot of the presses copy of Land Rover Lifestyle Magazine. Thanks guys!

After the abbreviated speech, we initially divided up into three groups and gratefully jumped into our warm trucks and hit the road. We quickly reached snow line which was all the way down to 3,000 feet, and then we took the first offshoot. Unexpectedly, the soil had turned to amazingly greasy mud! The rain had no effect on the soil as predicted, but I was completely unprepared for the effect the melting snow would have on the frozen dirt. It turned the top few inches of trail into tractionless mud that had the exact consistency of a tub of Crisco food shortening!

Many of the trucks with street tires struggled to make it up the very first offshoot, and then as the lead, I felt the next offshoot was too steep and muddy, so I tried the road instead. It was so muddy and slippery that I had great difficulty making it up, despite aggressive tires and the LR3’s traction control.

With the difficulties we had on this first section of the trail, I was very concerned about the remainder of the trail with it’s higher elevation and increased snow. We had not even gone half a mile, and we had 15 more miles to go! I made the uncomfortable decision to recommended to those with street tires that they should turn back and head home. As those 5 or 6 street tire equipped Rovers played slip and slide rounding the turn at the bottom of the first hill, a few stalwart drivers opted to see how much farther up the trail they could go.

15 drivers made it up that that next bit of muddy road, and eventually the trail conditions improved. Three of those who initially turned back changed their mind, and decided to try their luck and rejoin us. Fortunately, after so many trucks made their way up the road, the muddy area actually improved and they all made it up okay.

That meant we had 18 trucks all grouped together into one fun pack of Rovers.

The weather changed quite a bit throughout the trail. Relatively warm and sunny in areas, cold and windy in others. It even snowed a bit at one point! The trail itself was fine once we got to higher elevations. Every single off shoot proved to be drivable, and we all had a great time.

As trail leader/scout, I didn’t have the opportunity to take many photos, but I posted a few online here:
http://nwoods.smugmug.com/gallery/3971504#230831086

Thanks everyone for coming out to play with us! It was great to meet many of the wives and children that attended this event. I am very sorry about the unexpected complications with the mud for those that needed to turn back. Please come out again with us. We have several trips coming up soon, including Santa Barbara and Glamis dunes in January, and Cleghorn again in February.

For SCLR’s Annual New Member Orientation trail run, we broke with tradition and held the event at one of my favorite locations, Cleghorn Trail!

We had a great turnout with over 20 Land Rovers and over 35 people. We started the day with an “outdoor classroom” session, then divided the Rovers into two groups (Easy Riders and Rough Riders), and then proceeded up the Cleghorn Trail.

Accompanying the group, my wife (Marni Woods) came along in a loaner vehicle (2007 Jeep!). It was a very fun day, but as one of the Trail Leaders, I didn’t get to shoot as many photos this time around.

Photos of Cleghorn - 15 images on SmugMug

Far too many people in my office have shiny new 4×4 SUV’s that have never seen dirt. Being unable to watch them deprive their trucks of much needed dirt, dust, rocks and sunshine, I organized a little 4×4 training day for my office. But….being right in the middle of most peoples vacation periods, the trip was not as successful as I would have hoped. Only Robert Gruspe braved the outdoors and ventured forth in his Jeep Wrangler.

Cleghorn Photo Gallery (54 images on SmugMug.com)

For future reference, here is a Map of the Cleghorn Trail:

We had huge plans for Memorial Day camping/off roading weekend, but they fell through at that last moment.  As a consolation, the Woods Family and rover buddy Mel Tan headed up the Cajon Pass for a satisfying afternoon trip to the Cleghorn trail for some off roading fun.

Photo Gallery of May 27th Cleghorn Trail: (40 photos)

In a third trip in a row to the now infamous Cleghorn trail, I arranged a small group of rovers from my local club: SCLR.org

Four Rovers, lots of fun, no carnage (other than my sacrificial plastic rocker panel), many hundreds of photos between Omid, Adam and I. Buddy didn’t bring his camera, he had his hands full with twin 2 year old boys!

We proved to ourselves just how amazing the new class of rover is (LR3 and RRS), tackling everything Buddy did with his beefed up Disco II, and if I dare say, making it look easy.

We got to use Adam’s winch (unsticking a nicely wedged Buddy). Buddy trapped his exhaust pipe up tight against a steep slope, cutting off the airflow, and stalling his engine. Quite a predicament! Fortunately, Adam had recently fitted a winch, and was soon able to pull Buddy far enough out the ditch to start his engine again.

Adam was the most aggressive climber, willfully going up everything, first if he had the chance. Omid I think was the most adept at picking the right line. His accents looked so smooth… Buddy win’s the Man award, going down a nasty bit that the rest of us wisely opted out of.

(Buddy on the radio, “I think I need new brakes, I’m not slowing down at all” My reply, “No, they are working great, none of your tires are turning, you are just sliding down the hill”).

Cleghorn Photo Gallery (about 100 images)

Today Rover buddy Ed Quinn, his daughter, his Discovery, and I challenged the Cleghorn trail. This is a trail in the Cajon Pass area of the 15 freeway in SoCal, on the way to Victorville. The main trail is easy, mostly a 1 out of 5, with a few areas where ground clearance and supple suspension is helpful. However, paralleling this well maintained road, is a knarly set of “off set” trails that can be extremely challenging. We took all the off set trails except for three of them. Two were trails where I have seen Jeeps roll sideways, and one was a trail that we made it through 90% of the way, only to be thwarted by a hairy rock ledge decent that had “fender eater” written all over it. We managed a complicated and technical reversal, and continued on our way. My highlight was that both us managed to climb a hill that a group of four-wheeler ATV’s could not. That was fun. Those dudes looked shocked that we would even try, and even more amazed when we charged up it all the way to the top! Man do I wish I had that on camera!

Another highlight for me was that I was able to successfully climb several areas today that had stopped me only one week before. This LR3 is amazing, and loves to climb. I had an easier time climbing several steep pitches than Ed did with his fully built, 3″ lifted off road equipped Disco with ARB lockers. That was immensely satisfying

Click here for the photo gallery (80 or so photos of the day)

I read on the SCLR forum that some guys were getting together at Cleghorn trail near Cajon Pass on Saturday. Unfortunately, I had plans to attend a glider race at Grass Mountain, considerably north up in San Fransicito Canyon area. Well, we were socked in with low clouds, so opted to head to Cajon Pass which is much lower in elevation. However, by the time we got there, it was socked in also! At about 2:30 pm, the stalwart glider pilots decided to call it a day, and go home. Here are photos from that morning’s excursions:

www.socalsloperacing.com/gallery/mom/20060415

Not willing to go home in such a potentially fun area, I remembered this SCLR trip to Cleghorn, and thought I would give it a try. I know I know, never go 4×4′ing by yourself. So I met two guys with nicely built Jeeps at the base of the trail, swapped radio freq’s, and up we went.

Here are some photos of that Cleghorn trail. The main road is a blvd of a trail, flat, smooth, very well maintained. There are offshoots all over the place, like Cajon, but legal to wheel on with 4×4’s (unlike Cajon). This trail was a Total blast. Extremely foggy when I got up there, couldn’t see anything, but we went up the more extreme parallel trails a number of times and scared myself pretty good. Didn’t get many photos, as I was hanging on pretty tightly. Both Jeepers I was with ended up on their sides. Man I wish I had photos of that spot, it was knarly.

Photo Gallery: (37 images)

Other photos from a group of Land Rover guys where there earlier in the day.
- http://spaces.msn.com/roverlove/
- www.thesharpedge.net/photo/ (scroll down to Cleghorn)

Lots of fun, and it’s free!
(damage and repair not included)

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Trail info:
WHERE: Cleghorn Ridge Trail (2N47)
Travels east/west or reverse between I-15 and Hwy 138
Near Cajon Pass

DIRECTIONS: LA BASIN – I-15 north to Cleghorn exit.
(one exit before of Hwy 138 where the Chevron gas station is)

Trailhead is at the Cleghorn exit off Interstate 15 to the east. The entire trail is about 15 miles long and if driven straight through can be as short as 2 hours. The trail has many side routes ranging from easy to very difficult.

See this link for trail info and maps:
www.ttora-socal.com/gallery/arrowhead