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Now my motto is always "as slow as you can go, and only as fast as you have to", which usually means crawling obstacles and occasionally givin' 'er a little throttle to make certain sections of a trail. Of course I do say "as fast as you have to", which leaves things a little open ended. In this situation there is no way anyone is going to crawl this obstacle so a heavy pedal is not only acceptable, but also necessary, and Tony took full advantage of that.

After much maneuvering to get into the same position and choice of line as Dave and Rob, Tony was set. Hard on the throttle right from the get-go, a little bounce and skip over some of the ruts and rocks (Moose Droppings), and a very impressive entrance into the Monkey Trench was displayed, and well applauded by the onlookers.

Late arrival, Rob Brooks was the last to make an attempt. Rob's truck is very flexy and leans to one side or the other without much coaxing. It was interesting to watch him crest over and down into the steep yet short drop into the gully. Now that the line had been discovered it was just a matter of getting set in that position. This set-up spot is not easy to get a small truck like a CJ5 into, never mind a Toyota, but it just took a little patient maneuvering again. Rob did basically what the others had done; he just stomped on it right of the bat. Only this time, we heard a nasty little metal snapping sound, and he got stopped midway up the climb. When he tried to drive slowly a little bit we could hear some metal grinding. I believe this was Rob's 9th (yup, count 'em, NINTH) Birfield to break on the trail. It took some doing to get his truck winched up the hill and straightened out in the trench for repairs to commence.

It took a couple hours to get everyone through the first sixty feet or so of trail. Next up was traversing the Monkey Trench. This is a good little bolder bounce through various sized loose rock and dirt, and bedrock. I was very surprised to see every truck save Ian Redden's long wheelbase Samurai have a hard time getting through the first few sticky spots on the trench. When Moose, John Barron and I ran the trail I didn't have much of a problem at all with my near stock CJ5 (1" lift, 31" tires, and welded monkey bum). Funny how that works sometimes...must be gremlins in them there woods I tell ya.

Tony blasts his way to the top

It's hard to get photos that do the Monkey Trench justice and therefore most of the good ones are of the entrance to the trail. Once we got past the trench and into the tight/mellower section we didn't stop so no photos were taken. We did pass Keith's tribute sign that made me giggle a little in my head, and I pointed out the bear den and the other trails that need to be explored via CB ramblings.

It always intrigues me to watch (and learn) while other people are driving trails. I like to watch not only their driving technique, but how their truck is modified and how the two components perform under any given situation and terrain etc. I tend to make subconscious mental notes for later review. I think I came to a few more (open ended or should I say "subject to change without prior notice") conclusions that might help me improve my driving technique and help me choose the right methods of vehicle modification. I think my concepts for building a purpose built truck for Vancouver Island are pretty sound, but I've yet to be able to build a truck to those particular specifications. Being an observer on a trail run always allows me to tweak that concept a little more (usually when I'm sitting on the thrown at home).

All in all, just another kick-arse day monkeying around in the Sooke Hills. It was great to hang out with the IRC contingent for the day, and I was glad some NIRM members came out to witness the day's events. I heard Danno and Jeepfamily (Mike), part of the group that came to watch, had some adventures of their own after they left to continue on with the rest of their day. Cheers guys!

Now time to get my CJ5 back on the trail, and start thinking more intently about the Samurai project…oh but wait, there's Brian's Toyota to build and I really need to get my flat-decked work truck on the go too. Sheesh…does it ever end? NO!...and that's what I love about it.

Moose's Hideout rediscovered after approximately 20 years by Moose, jo-jo, Cody Jones, and Erik Ibsen (Ibby). Trail primarily cleared by Moose and jo-jo, with help from Cam, Dave, and Cody.

Report Written by jo-jo

Photos by jo-jo, Cody and Dan Campbell (Danno)
Videos: main page video by Cody, closing page videos by Danno