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Well I headed out Tuesday evening to meet up with a group of the nocturnal genus of Nefarious Island Rock Monkeys. The plan was to play a little on Harbourview on our way to the backside of Mossy Hill. Then head up Mossy and watch the July 4th fireworks emanating from the states.

I left around 6:45pm, and ran into a silver back rock monkey (Rob McFadyen, ultra-sani white CJ7) at the Shell station in Sooke. Then headed up to the troop's main gathering area at the Harbourview parking lot. There I was confronted by the Growly Mountain Gorilla (Bill Innes, big ass Jimmy), and the Yellow Haired Howler Monkey (Chet, Breezified Samurai).

After waiting for a friend of Rob's and a certain, soon to be "slow moving", Big White rock monkey (Andy James, buggy Nissan truck). We headed up Harbourview.

I had thought of taking a series of side trails on the way up, but we started out a little later than I had anticipated. Instead I only took one side trail that seemed harmless enough. It only has one little obstacle to overcome, and it doesn't take a built truck to get past it. That said and done, not 10min into the run, Rob promptly blows a sidewall.

Somehow, or as he puts it, due to ignoring the trail and paying too much attention to his passenger, he managed to get a stick the size of my forearm and wrist thoroughly stuffed into his 33x12.50 Continental. Rob had the tire off and a spare on in no time, and we were off, but not before he apologized to the troop for the mishap. This always amazes me. The guy who suffers the damage and more than likely a slap in the pocket book is the one doing the apologizing. Must be a Canadian thing eh.

Anyway, I think I learned of Andy's fate for the night at this juncture as well. Apparently his tranny broke something internally and he was relegated to driving in first gear the rest of the night. Good thing we were rock crawling eh. ;p After these two Doh!s on this silly little side trail, I figured I better stick to the main trail and just get us to the top of the mountain in a timely manner.

We get to Six Ways and I climb the rock without a hitch. Rob comes along and cleans one of the tougher lines. Then we wait for the others. No others. We hear all this hooting and hollering from the distance (monkey business no doubt). Rob goes to investigate, then I decide to go down, but by the time I get there it's over and done with. Apparently Andy went to play on the play rock just before Six Ways, but forgot he was stuck in 1st and couldn't put the truck in reverse to make a corner. I believe Bill went up and retrieved him with his Jimmy. Now we get back to Six Ways and this time Rob tries a different line and has to take a couple runs at it. Then I try the same way as before and I stall. Then I stall, and I stall again. :(

Onward and upward, as they say....... We head for the trail head, still playing on optional rock faces along the way. By the time we get to the Mossy Hill trail it is starting to get dim out, and once under the canopy of the trees it starts to look more like nightfall.

We crawl our way up the trail. Nobody having any real difficulty. Chet and I having open diffs just meant picking our lines a little more carefully. We did come across one nasty little outcropping of rock nearer the top of the trail. This section I tried one line and didn't get far. I adjusted and did an S-line through the obstacle and made it no problem. Rob took a completely different line (longer wheelbase wouldn't have made the S-line anyway), and got a little hung up for a moment.

I gave Rob a little spot and away he went. Then Chet comes along and takes the same line I originally tried. He got up on the step and his front end started to head for the sky. Then he stalled with his passenger tire a good 2.5'-3' off the ground and then bounced back down to earth when the engine quite. Andy and Bill of course just gingerly waltzed over the rocks.

We got to the top just as it was getting dark, around 10pm. We hiked to the top of the summit (540m) and parked our butts on the rocks in front of the old ranger station. I (and probably "we") weren't expecting much in the way of spectacular pyrotechnics from this distance, but were pleasantly surprised.

The whole horizon had little flashes of light popping off in the "not too" darkness (it was also surprisingly "light" up there considering the moon was in slender mode). Comments ranged from, "it looks like Kuwait....from Saudi Arabia" to "eew, ahhh".

It was fun to try to figure out where some of them were being fired from, and to see how long it took the sound to travel etc. The grand finale seemed to come from Sidney which was strange, but might have been Friday Harbour as well.

That area of the sky produced the best show out of them all. Once the show was over and everyone was finished with their cell phone calls (Andy needed to find somewhere to park his truck for the night, and I think some checking up on the kids was goin' on to), we feebly made our way down the path to the trucks. All the while Chet's little finger Mag-lite out powering my dying rock 'em sock 'em Mag-lite (I have to find "my" little one, the batteries are a damn sight cheaper). ;p

The next part of the journey was the steps, then the mud pit and then the Mossy Hill descent. I had no problems with the steps until I reached the stump. It took me a couple tries at different lines to make it, but I finally managed to claw my way up. Rob walks up, Chet pulls a jo-jo (but with less trials), Andy walks up, Bill.......well you know.

The mud pit. Not much of a pit when it's been so dry out, but there was still a little goo in there. I wasn't worried so much about the pit, as I was about trying to climb the rock directly after the pit with slimy tires. Common sense told me to give 'er a little when I hit the rock. I went up and over with a little tire spinnin'. Then I went down the trail and parked in the rock garden.

By the time I got back up the hill, Rob had made it through and I was told he had the same idea about the throttle thing as I did. I was also told that Chet had tried and tried, but just couldn't do it (took a cable). Well, should I say that he probably could have made it, but he wasn't (and for good reason) willing to risk slamming his HT into the adjacent tree (that has obviously been tagged more than a few times).

Then Andy released himself from his usual creepy crawly mode and gave a bit of gas too. By this time the rock was really slick, and Bill ran into the same fate as Chet and took a tug from Andy, but not before we had to push Andy's truck backwards to get the strap on (no reverse remember). Ya ya, it's all Rob and my fault for getting the mud on the rock in the first place. Hmm....now you know why I like to go first.

The next section was the chewed up hill I earlier referred to as the rock garden. This was a little un-nerving because I had memories of driving the CJ5 down here a few times. Once I had driven straight down with my nose to the downside. That was fine in the CJ back then, but now the hill was more chewn up, in was pitch black out, and I was driving the Zuk and worried about ground clearance (not a place you want to get hung up, and then have to exert a lot of force to maneuver off a rock etc).

I had also driven the downside and across the hill (where I had parked the Zuk), but the CJ was very flexy and I remember coming through there once, hitting a rock and feeling like I was going for a very nasty short-cut down the mountain. Anyway, I called on Chet and Shannon to watch me as I made my way though it. As it turned out it wasn't all that bad. I didn't get to watch the others much as I headed down the trail. It was kinda cool to look back every once in a while and see three sets of headlights heading down the mountain. I couldn't help but think of the people who if they saw us doing this would think that we were completely out of our minds.

Cleavage Rock.......last time I came down Cleavage was with Keith Daly (Red Ape) and Remy Saville (Slamming Tree Monkey), and I spotted Keith down Cleavage in the pitch dark with his lights out (he was for all intense purposes blindfolded).

Well I was certainly into givin' 'er a shot....heck, that's why I left the doors at home. I got into position, started creeping onto the rock keeping my tires in the proper position. Once I got up a bit, Andy took a couple shots of the Zuk on the rocks. I then eased my way down the other side without a scratch.

I then spotted the rest of the crew down and I think everyone quite enjoyed the little boost of adrenaline that comes with tempting fate and the welfare of your rig.

And that's about it folks........we ran down the rest of the mountain (or should I saw crawled down), did the old traditional tire on the log thing (I think Wyatt Sabourin and Ron Low got me hooked on that one), then we hit Harbourview again and headed for air.

Unfortunately the Shell air was out of order, and the next working one was in Sooke. Rob and I headed back that way (I was at 7psi), but Chet and Shannon scooted home on the 14 psi Chet was running. I'm assuming Andy dropped off his truck and he and his wife got a ride back with Bill and Gina......at least that's what I hope happened, I should have asked Andy what his arrangements where.

A truly wicked run.......I'll probably do that one again next year. In fact, I'm having so much fun with night runs lately I've decided to have one in October.

I know it's a ways off now, but I was looking for a full moon on a weekend and I found it. Friday the 13th, just two weeks before Halloween. Sounds like a perfect time for a night run if you ask me.

jo-jo
(hoping no one is offended by his ape antics) :)