Late last night, after going back and forth on what to do, I officially wimped out on doing Black Bear Pass today. The thought of doing it alone was a little scary, but adding the whole 'exploding suspension' thing into the mix made me think it would be a tremendously bad idea. Fortunately I received word that the crew from FJC-Central were going to do the Alpine Loop, so I thought I'd go with them and take it easy.

Only a couple miles into Alpine, the shocks had clearly leaked the last of their fluid and the truck was almost impossible to drive (why I even went out I'll never know). Hitting a rock about an inch tall would send the front end flying into the air, only to crash down into the ground, and over and over again... I embarrassed all of FJ kind for a huge group of Jeeps when I was coming back down the trail by struggling madly to descend a couple of 1-3 inch rock steps without smashing the front end into the ground. It was humiliating, for sure.

I told the guys at All Pro about my predicament - that I still had a week of the expedition to go, we were scheduled to be back on the road/trail the next day, and I had an undrivable truck. They helped my out big time with a seriously hardcore discount on a FOX 2.5 front and FOX 2.0 rear system that they had with them... now I would just need to install it somehow!

I pulled the FJ up into the parking lot of the Best Western and, just as the raffle was beginning, started to tear down the front end. The raffle went something like this, "And the winning ticket is BRABRABRABRABRABRA *CLUNK*"

Luckily I had the invaluable help of Mr. R2 and we were able to get everything done. Luckily too, Lance and I had every possible tool between us including air compressor, CO2 tank, impact wrenches, etc. Oh, and knowing how to install suspension was a bonus, too. ;)

After an amazing day at the first day of the Summit, I was excited to rise and face day two! The original plan was to run Ophir, but I learned from talking to some folks that I might prefer to do Imogene and it just happened that the R2's were doing that this morning... I met up with them only to find that our trail leader had not showed up! Fortunately we were more than equipped to lead the group, the R2's took charge, had a brief driver's meeting, and we head out!

At last, the long awaited FJ Summit! After unloading a ton of crap into my ground tent at the KOA and turning it into a kind of 'stuff cache,' I head over to their Kafe for breakfast. Meals at the Kafe were cooked up by a delightful old couple who were incredibly friendly and exceedingly good cooks! Each day they had cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven... yum!

I was scheduled to do Alpine Loop and met up with my group in town. It was fun to hear the designated simplex frequency abuzz with chatter about the summit by all the HAMs in attendance.

Not much to say for the trail, hopefully the pictures speak for themselves. It was raining at the top of Engineer and at one point we were driving directly through (and then above) the clouds!