What do you get when you combine good friends, rain, fog, mud, very steep hills and rutted trails?  You guessed it, a typical outing with the oc4play club on the Rowher Flats Trail.  I must say that the weather conditions made a good trail even better.  The players in this episode were oc4play club members George, Warren and his son Zander, Bill and his lovely wife, Joe, and Adelaide.  With two guests, Joel and Eric.  Most of us gathered at the donut shop here in Westminster at 7:00am and then we picked up Warren and Joe on the freeway.  It was clear sailing up to the Sand Canyon exit off the 14 freeway.  At this point some topped off their gas and others purchased forest passes at the Mobil station.  Then it was off to the trail head where we aired down and discussed how lucky we were for the great weather (at this point it was raining and the entire 1st hill was shrouded in fog).  I (George) went first and within 200 feet from the trail head I almost flipped my jeep on the 1st obstacle (are we having fun yet?).  Once I got past it I got out and helped guide the others through.  Everyone caught a bit of air from their driver side front wheel.  The rest of this hill was steep but not that difficult other than the fog inhibiting our vision to about 10 feet.  This meant that when you had a choice of paths you had to just pick one and go for it.  Near the top we saw a sight that we did not expect, a car was at the top looking down at us.  For those 1st timers I think they thought they were seeing things but I assured them that they were ok (there is a fire road that intersects our trail that they used to get up there).  At the top we stopped for a while for Zander to have a chance to play and this is where I made a big mistake.  For reasons unknown, I accidentally backed up into my buddy's (Joel's) brand new Rubicon (Joel I am so sorry!!!) denting in his front bumper.  After many apologies, we continued on down another trail named Lookout which is the most difficult trail in the area.  This trail runs along the ridge of a few hills and is very steep with sheer drop-offs on both sides.  Near the end on the last downhill, there was a large ledge which if not careful one could flip over forward.  Of course, Bill decided to stop directly on it (teetering back and forth) and radioed for someone to take his picture with two of his wheels in the air.  Once safely at the bottom we decided to take a break and have lunch.  It was at this point that the rain fell down the hardest.  After we were all fed and soaked, we started back on another trail officially named Rowher Trail.  This trail was fun, especially once we got back up in altitude where it was so foggy that the only way we could find our way was by following a track-back I had on my GPS from a run a couple years ago.  Then coming down the big hill afrer it was soaked by the rain was like riding a toboggan.  Again, we had fun on the last obstacle (the same one where we all caught air on the way up).  I about had a heart attack when I saw Bill come down it, I swear he was going to flip over (back over front).  Once we were all back down and aired up, we headed back toward the freeway and stopped for a quick bite at Coco's where we had a great time talking about our day's adventures and made plans to go out again real soon.  I want to thank everyone for a great time and I hope we can get Eric and Joel to join our club.

George Olinger