It’s fortunate that Desert Fellas have a habit of gathering at the meeting point well in advance of the posted drive start time.  On Saturday’s drive, this saved us from having to delay the start of our drive when  we where confronted with an unexpected situation.

Upon arriving at the meeting point on of our Fellas heard a loud hissing sound from one of his rear tires, and discovered that it had a puncture.  Since the puncture could not be repaired, he proceeded to change the tire. After completing the tire change we realized that the damaged tire could not attached to the spare wheel carrier due to incompatible lug nut hole sizes. The damaged tire was securely stored in the rear cargo area, and we were ready to drive. Usually, no spare tire means no drive. But since we had four other FJ cruisers on this drive with compatible spare tire sizes, that were in good condition, we decided that it was safe to proceed.

Considering that a few of the Fellas on this drive had not participated in an Offroader level drive in quite a while, the plan was to take it easy while providing as many low speed cresting opportunities as possible.  For the first hour of the drive the convoy mounted every crest in sight and drove continuously, at a moderate pace, until we arrived at the foot of Big Red dune.

Here, the group stopped for their first break of the morning and enjoyed a long awaited leg stretch and a sip of coffee. Shortly afterwards, we started to explore the crests on the slopes of Big Red, but this was short lived, as the slightly wet sand claimed a pop out and brought the convoy to a grinding halt. Our sweeper traimees leaped into action to secure the vehicle and repair the pop out while the rest of the convoy aired up slightly, to prevent a similar recurrence.

With the pop out taken care of, the convoy was back on track. This time tackling the high climbs and switches on the rear slope of Big Red, before heading towards the 22 December cafeteria to end the drive. To our surprise, a fence had been recently erected along 22 December street with no obvious opening or gate to provide an exit  from the desert.  The next 30 minutes was spent searching for a safe exit and rescuing the lead when he got stuck on a pointed crest near the elusive exit.

All in all, It was an eventful but rather pleasant morning in the desert. Thanks Anders for the recovery support, Rathica and Malcolm for providing Anders the opportunity to practice his recovery skills and Sven and Ryan for the great company.